The idea of a fully computer-generated virtual reality (VR) hit the mainstream two decades ago when William Gibson introduced to the world to the cyber-cowboys of data-decks of Neuromancer. But even as crude prototypes were developed, and the concepts were discussed late into the night, we were without the computing power to actually make it happen. We could talk a lot about how cool it would be, we just couldn’t actually go there.

Since then there have been a number of attempts to create virtual worlds, but our intellectual understanding of what that might mean has remained far ahead of our ability to actual create it. Second Life, a more recent example, was able to generate far more press than it was activity, because in the end the ability to “do anything” still means that someone has to do all the work that it takes to make something happen.

The disconnect comes from the fact that the endgame of VR isn’t really about breaking the laws of physics, it’s about fulfilling desires. What we’re really looking for is a magical genie where the products of our imaginations can be realized instantly, without the painstaking work that it usually takes to go from fantasy to reality, and without the inherent language process errors that come from Monkey Paws or genies in old Twilight Zone episodes. But even as our digital tools get better and better the interfaces for turning thought into action still remain crude, filtered through complicated devices that still only allow for the simplest approximations of interaction. Or, as a friend pointed out to me the other day, when someone knocks all the crap over in your house in Fallout 3, you suddenly realize that you don’t actually have the hands you need in order to pick it up.

But the idea of VR is compelling enough that it seems to constantly trick people into giving it another go. To that end Sony has clearly decided it’s worthwhile to pour millions of dollars into trying to create a virtual front-end for the Playstation 3. Unfortunately they seem to be running headlong into not only into the classic roadblocks of VR creation, but also the modern problems that come when what people want is to screw around with ideas and characters that other people “own”. As the creators of Spore recently discovered when their users decided that making thousands of living penises was a great idea, giving people the tools to be able to easily do whatever they want comes with the added responsibility of having to police what they actually do.

There are solutions to those problems, but they can be expensive, and once they’re applied you may find that what you have isn’t really a virtual reality anymore. Instead you’ve got a game where the only rules are defined by your limitations, both real and artificial, which isn’t really much fun at all.

Where will PopCap Games’ megahit puzzle game Bejeweled pop up next? Would you believe … World of Warcraft?

A version of the match-three game is set to launch next Thursday within the World of Warcraft MMO (massively multiplayer online), letting players kill time with puzzles during raids and long stints farming rare items.

Guess what kids, WOW is now a gaming platform inside of a game.

And PopCap seems to get it:

Using World of Warcraft’s mod tools, Fromwiller built a surprisingly convincing copy of PopCap’s game, which he called Besharded. His feat did not go unnoticed by the Seattle-based publisher of the original.

“[Besharded] was cool and fun, but not very polished, so we reached out to the gamer in question and hired him to do an official version of Bejeweled for WoW,” PopCap representative Garth Chouteau said in an e-mail to Wired.com.

It’s a genius example of in-game marketing that not only works, but actually adds value. Now we just need the WOW themed Peggle.

While that’s a clever analogy, it’s also not quite as deep as it sounds. Music is, after all, a written, linear experience. It has lyrics, and occurs in the same exact sequence every time we experience it. Words alone may not capture the experience directly, but there’s a sort of purification that happens as you describe one experience in another medium that can make it effective in communicating our thoughts to someone else. And if all we talked to each other about was about talking it would be a pretty boring world.

But writing about video-games… that’s a bit more difficult. It’s more like writing about a live concert. To get the full effect, you really have to be there. Because they respond to our input directly video games are a unique experience every time you play them. Some games take more or less advantage of that, but people connect (or disconnect) with games for reasons that go far beyond what traditional linear media provide. So when someone is writing about a game they’re not just describing what happened, they’re telling us what happened to them.

Recently an public relations executive posted an email complaining that video-game reviews have essentially failed the industry. His main issue is that, by not factoring in the difficulty of development into the equation, the reviewers are doing a disservice to the games that they’re reviewing. His position is somewhat more nuanced, but it’s not the game reviewer’s responsibility to try and bring in the larger context of a video game anymore than a movie reviewer should be worried about how difficult it was to direct a movie-star, or the quality of food at the craft services table.

But there is a larger point here. How can you parse out an experience that personal in a way that allows the reader to understand whether or not they will connect to it in a way that a reviewer might not? It’s a tough challenge, more so in the sense that if the user is given a set of incorrect pre-conceptions about how to play a game that will have a far bigger effect than lowered expectations on an album, book, or film.

And a good review shouldn’t tell a player how to think. Instead, it should give them the tools they need to help them decide whether or not to spend their most valuable assets on an experience; time and money. And while all reviews are going to reflect the ego of the writer, it does seem that many reviewers in our industry think that it’s their job to make some kind of definitive statement on whether or not something should be played, rather than become part of a larger conversation. In those cases they may also forget to tell the player about whether or not the gaming is working on a basic level.

One might not expect the producer and designer of the original Petz to attract a big crowd at the hardcore gaming celebration that is the Penny Arcade Expo. However, Andrew Mayer’s “You Don’t Know What You Really Want” panel attracted an overflowing crowd to the “Wolfman Theatre,” with additional attendees waiting outside hoping to fill any seats vacated mid-presentation.

Thanks so much to everyone who came. I promised that I’d put up my slides, and here they are.
PAX 08 – You Don’t Know What You Really Want

I’m also going to be doing some more detailed posts on the topics I discussed at presentation over the next few weeks, so stay tuned.

Feel free to use this post as a conversation thread if you have any questions, or just want to rant.

This post over at Magical Wasteland does a pretty good job of capturing the zeitgeist of those vertically integrated encapsulated mass communication encounters in a humorous context so as to provide concentrated insight.

For our last project we used Scrum, and boy, are we glad we did. There is no way anything we did would have been possible without it. What is Scrum, you ask? It’s a set of new terminology for things that already happen when groups of people work together. For example, instead of a “meeting,” you have a “Scrum,” and so on.

You should use Scrum too, since it will solve all your problems. If I’ve piqued your interest, sign-up sheets for my specially discounted seminars on Scrum can be found clipped to the bottom of your conference program.

I suppose it’s the ability to say it with a straight face that gets you the big bucks.

It’s MTV’s turn to go nuts, giving Jerry Bruckheimer a deal to make Video Games.

Is it the 90s again already?

So far, in the history of games, there is possibly one game that pops into my mind that has benefited from this kind  of synergy.  Beyond that is a trail of tears many of millions dollars long…

While the two mediums may have some things in common they are not the same thing.  In fact, at this point in the history of the medium it’s pretty safe to say that what makes a game work (gameplay) is in many ways opposed to narrative.

Trying to bridge the gap by throwing money at the problem doesn’t seem to help much, and I’m pretty sure that the problem is going to be solved by the new technology poaching from the old, and not the other way around.

Apple hasn’t forgotten, of course.  And Game On intends to emulate their model:

Wander into Games On, nestled in the Pacific Beach neighborhood of San Diego, and you’ll be confronted  with the usual fixtures — demo stations, box-lined shelves, and monitors showing off footage from the latest titles dangling from the ceiling. Everything you come to expect from a store specializing in the sale of video games is present and accounted for, but just as alien as it is familiar.

Wide, open spaces replace haphazard obstacle courses around magazine racks and rival shoppers, games are given breathing room on the see-through shelves (Games On seems to know the difference between “display” and “storage”), and sleek flat-screens do next-gen games more justice than the smudgiest television in a traditional game retailer.

There’s a ton of questions that come to mind when comparing this to the Apple stores:

• Apple controls the experience from beginning to end.  What happens when your message isn’t controlled and cohesive?
• Apple sells more than just hardware, they sell an attitude. Are you making your consumer part of your world?
• Is this a place to buy or simply a place to shop?  How do you convince a price sensitive audience to pay full retail?
• PC games seem perfect for this audience since they tend to be a more engaged hobbyist consumer. Is the store console only?
• What about an Internet presence?  It seems like there should be a way to take the experience home.

Ultimately this could be a great model, but I think the consumer really needs to understand what they’re getting by shopping here.  Here’s hoping they make it.

Would you pay a little extra to shop from a store like this?  Why or why not?

But when it comes to Video Games, well, it’s hard to market something non-linear in a linear fashion. The cut-scenes, the graphics, the voice overs, all do nothing to represent the genuine experience of the game.  The part you do with your hands and brain, and not your eyes.

And lets not beat around the bush, for the last thirty years gaming has had to suffer through some of the worst marketing ever pushed onto an audience. I’s not even that hard to put a single word onto the problem that infected most of game advertising: Contempt.

For a while it seemed that a majority of ads were trying to sell the games to a crowd of basement dwelling geeks or uber-hip nerds who gain social credibility only by being dicks to their friends because they are not HARD CORE enough.  The problem with these stereotypes is that they never existed outside of spreadsheets and Powerpoint presentations. And that led to a sense that the people making these ads feel that games are kind of stupid and beneath them.

It’s gotten a little easier for the marketers as the games have become more realistic and less abstract.  Improved graphics and fabulous cut-scenes meant that you could put actual imagery from the game in your commercial. Spice it up with a little Hollywood magic and you could turn it into a movie trailer.  Check out this ad for Halo 2:

Yeah, it’s gorgeous, but everyone didn’t already know what the gameplay was, what the hell would they know after watching that ad above? 

The rise of signature characters (probably starting with Lara Croft) was another lifesaver for marketers drowning in a digital sea.  If the character is well designed it’s already evoking the type of gameplay that the player can expect.  Unlike the straight trailer, bumping up your signature hero with high-end graphics and exciting voice overs can actually help sell the user on what to expect when playing the game, especially if you’re selling third person gameplay.  One of my favorite example of this was the thirty second spot for the first God of War”

That’s a great ad for a lot of reasons, and when you finally did sit down to play the game you found out that what you saw was reasonably close to what you got.

Of course, first person is harder.  The game experience is a little different, and frankly less cinematic.  You also don’t get to see your character (besides hands and guns) for the majority of the experience. Gears of War was actually a hybrid, with the player character in view at all times, but I still think this commercial shows how it can be done right:

That’s an amazing ad in so many ways.  The fact that it counter-points the violence with quiet manages to perfectly capture the way your television screen is filled with violence even though game playing is relaxing activity that takes place in the calm of your living room.

Microsoft’s marketers do seem to have figured it out.  The Halo 3 commercials are masterful. Evocative, and relaxed.  They’re also managing to send a message about the multiplayer experience at the same time they’re giving out hints on the single player story.

Here’s a great one you may have missed from the series they did where they looked back on Halo as if it was a great historical conflict:

But even the best ads represent only the beginning of a relationship. If a commercial crass attempt to trick a potential player into trying to sell the player on something that the game isn’t, they’re going to figure it out pretty quickly that they’re being sold a bill of goods.

Most hardcore gamers are never going to make a buy decision based around an ad alone anyway.  What they want is peer revue and social value.  If the developers have created a unique feature that makes the product worthwhile then the best bet is to feature that in any way possible. If it isn’t all that and a bag of chips, then show the player chips, not the bag. There must be some reason to play the game, at least for a little while. And no amount of blood, gruff voice acting, motion graphics, and attitude is going to make it better:

In the end the game had better deliver on what the commercial promised.  That doesn’t mean that it needs to be perfect, but it does need to be what’s advertised.  If the early adopters and reviewers are disappointed by the experience, the very same Internet that carries all of the media, viral marketing, and print ads will become a focal point of scorn and derision.

Probably too little too late, but it’s something for the holidays.

With the Arcade 360 Microsoft seems to have actually realized that it pays to treat their audience with a little respect.  Packing in a memory card and five decent games, they’ve managed to set it at a price point that won’t make you feel deep regret if you decide to go out and buy a hard drive upgrade later on.

It also means there is a viable next-gen console available for under $300.  It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.