The Game Critique

For those of you are utterly sick of this issue, bear with me. I am with you. I am tired of people questioning whether video games are art or not. Yes they are, now move on. But when someone like Roger Ebert brings it up and declares that opinion loudly to the rest of the world, a world ready and eager to accept that proclamation, then we have to stand up and say you are wrong. You are mixing your facts up. You are missing the point. You are looking in all the wrong places at all the wrong things.

The ludodechadron and those who bother to read the writings of that large and expansive circle all understand and accept that games are art and have moved on to exploring what that means or now that they are, how to convey specific meaning through them. But every once in a while we have to take a break and revisit the 101 for the benefit of educating, not our detractors, but those who might listen to them without another voice.

Ben Abraham called me out on it on twitter and said that it is a waste of time and that people are smarter than that. I would love to believe him, but people keep proving that notion wrong. See truthers, birthers, and tea partiers for more recent examples. When a wrong and malicious idea gains momentum it stops being an idea and becomes a belief. It’s nearly impossible to undo beliefs and all we can hope to do is mitigate the spreading of such incorrect notions that games are not art.

Commenting on the blog post in question is a pointless endeavor as it has reached 3305 comments at the time of writing. I gave up at around 30 of these essay length responses. I can’t imagine he’s reading them anymore; he is just amazed at the response by this point as he posts on twitter. He has become a troll. He posts things on twitter I can only hope they are there to gain a response, because I can’t believe such an intelligent man would really stoop below his ability. The highlights include, rhetorically asking if there is a classics professor anywhere who would say games are on the level of Homer. Yes and I shook hands with him. Another was asking if there was an art historian anywhere who would support games. There was an entire conference devoted to it.

10 years ago you would have still been wrong, but you might have made a case. Now every argument you can think of already has evidence to the contrary. You ask, “Why are gamers so intensely concerned, anyway, that games be defined as art?” My question to you is: why are you so intensely concerned that games shouldn’t be defined as art?

I don’t have really anything to say, because others have said pretty much everything I have to say. Some are closer to my position than others, but all the responses have the following in common: Roger Ebert is wrong. I waited the whole week to get everything in. After this week the discussion should end, because he said his piece and we said ours, you can’t ask for any more than that.

Incidentally I didn’t bother sending any to TWIVGB, because there were too many and Ben has said to the effect we should just ignore him. If he likes he can just link this instead. (Though I waited way too long to post this.)

Ebert’s post sprang up as a response to a talk by Kelle Santiago, so it seems right that we start off with her response to him.

Brain Ashcraft at Kotaku writes an open letter to Ebert.

Daniel Bullard-Bates at Press Pause to Reflect says it right in the title: Why Roger Ebert is Wrong About Video Games.

Fraser Allison of RedKingDreams thanks Ebert for opening the door to so many people about the ideas of games and art and hope they believe him to be wrong.

Mike Schiller at Unlimited Lives decides to go the opposite route by exploring what Ebert got right.

A. Serwer at The American Prospect responds with this short little piece.

Navi Fairy at GayGamer writes he finally understand Ebert. I’m glad someone does.

Ferguson at Interactive Illuminatus calls the idea Games can’t be art a case of mistaken identity.

Scott McCloud of Understanding Comics fame weighs in.

Both Gabe and Tych write their thoughts on it. As well as a comic about it.

Only the first third of this post by Steve Gaynor at the Fullbirght blog is about Ebert, but it pretty much sums up everyone’s exhaustion with the issue.

Even Mike Thomson from IGN has a well thought out, well written piece on the issue, closely mirroring my own opinion.

A little more irreverent on the issue is SnakeLinkSonic at Misanthropic Gamer.

And finally two more visual arguments on the matter. At Game Couch it is a matter of three lighthouses. While Kirk Hamilton creates a flowchart at Gamer Melodico.

[Additional] And now for the folks who I either missed or didn’t get the memo.

Gus Mastrapa at Joystick Division declares the whole argument Pretension +1.

Ben “Yahtzee” Chroshaw turns his attention in his weekly written column towards the issue.

Daniel Golding gets published at ABC Australia saying: Are video games art? It’s hardly worth debating.

At the Italian game blog Ars Ludica, Simone Tagliaferri writes this response.

Sean Sands over at Gamers with Jobs abdicates the entire discussion call any response to the ‘are games art’ discussion pointless and instead asks not for the Citizen Kane of video games, but the Chess of video games.

The crew at GameCritics.com spend the first 15-20 minutes of their latest podcast giving their opinions on the subject.

[Additional +2] Two weeks out and they’re still coming.

Moviebob, aka The GameOverthinker, brings his latest episode to bear on the subject. I was with him until around the 17 minute mark, but it was a minor disagreement. That was also a warning that it is long.

[Additional +3] More stuff that came out and stuff I just got around to reading.

This is the longest one yet people. Tim, love him or hate him I’m not going to judge, Rogers talks about the subject in his latest column entitled ‘I <3 Stupid Games.’ Or at least I think he does. Warning: it may take you 10 – 20 minutes to get through.

LittleBoBeep ignores Ebert in his thoughtful dissertation and just gets down to the issue at hand. But with the Kelle Santiago reference it’s easy to see what inspired the post series. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

[Additional +4] GOOD. FREAKING. LORD. Thanks to the trackback below I have just found a link network to a whole batch of new posts. Some are from April. No one said the internet was small. On the plus side I have a bunch of new blogs to follow.

From the site that trackbacked my post I found Jason O. of ButtonMashing to be one of those apathetic to the argument, because it wont matter in 10 years.

Nick Sutter, formerly of EGM/1-up post this response the day after Ebert’s post.

Scott Dixon of GameJudgement mainly tries to do a basic link post of responses with Ebert quotes taking the top half, but he voices his opinion, of the you’re missing the point of the medium variety, so I add it in with the others. ( Note: all of his links are somewhere above save the Destructoid one, because it was more about Heavy Rain than anything Ebert had to say.)

It was a pleasure to read Josh’s post at Cathode Tan, because it took a different approach. It gave a evolutionary history of where modern video game came from. And then proceeded to show that yes games are already in museums, so there goes that straw man bullet point.

In an interview with Charge Shot, Jason Rohrer weighs in on the games as art debate and agrees with Ebert on several points. Saying we’re not quite there yet.

Another oldie I missed the first three times around is by Sinnan Kubba writing for Games Abyss who is a little more…blatant than many of the other responders.

[Additional +5] I’m not even reading these anymore before I post them. Screw it I have better things to do.

Post #1 Ben sent me.

Post #2 Ben sent me.

[Additional +6] I’m just lucky 4th edition DnD introduces the +6 to weapons or this wouldn’t make sense at all.

Random comic with Ebert and art mentioned from the Escapist.

Kevin Ohannessian asked a bunch of industry people at E3 about Ebert and what game they would suggest he play.

[Additional Final] As of 2:08 PM of July 1st in the year of our lord Two Thousand and Ten victory was declared across the interweb and I can finally not give a shit about updating this post anymore.

Famed critic Roger Ebert has written a post about how Ebert was wrong.

[Additional: I'm proven to be a liar] This will be updated as need be, no further additionals, just this one. Furthermore, should Ebert or anyone else take up the similar flag against video games as art, they will not be added. This is only for the Ebert post noted above.

Brian Rubinow parodies the original Ebert argument post, quite eloquently, though I wish it was much more timely.

Ashelia over at Hellmode finally writes her piece on Ebert and his so called apology and the apologies in the gaming community.

On Kotaku, commenter Kiori Hayabusa writes a decent length defense of why Roger Ebert has the right to not give a shit if games are art.

Thomas at Flying Mongoose Labs ( I wish I could make a name like that up.) writes a piece questioning the whole point of the argument itself on the last day of the year.

Rus McLaughlin over at BitMob thanks Roger Ebert for the kick in the pants we needed that we got last year. (9 goddamn months, you had 9 goddamn months)

Invoking his name not once, not twice, but seven times Patrick Holleman asks the question “Can Videogames be Art?”

Brain Moriarty gave a talk at GDC 20011 entitled “An Apology for Roger Ebert” asserting that Ebert was in fact right and that it may not be a bad thing. I wanted to write a rant against this, but the talk sucked all the fight out of me and just depresses me.

So thankfully Zach Gage commenting at GameSetWatch pulled apart nearly every argument in it point by point and revealed quite a few lies within the logic.

Blake William wrote an open letter to Mr. Ebert on his personal blog. And I fulfill my assertion of a critic’s obligation at the top of this post by writing a response that wouldn’t fit in his comment section.

[Additional: Final and I mean it this time] Ebert’s post that in turn inspired this one is almost a year old now and I don’t think there is anything left to say. This started with a declaration that games cannot be art and then was countered, but they already are. There have been a few defenses of Ebert but all have centered around faulty assumptions or his right not to care. I agree with the latter. But I am going to give the last link to Evan Jones and his blog on Gamasutra asking everyone to “Stop Debating Games as Art.”

The people who claim that games are not art have not played games that have spoken to them as art. Their opinions stem from a lack of experience with games. It is not our job to refute them!

It is retarding to the critical development of our medium to spend our time defending its legitimacy. The worth of an experience cannot be judged by one who has not undergone it. To claim that games are not art is to judge countless experiences not experienced. To defend games as art is to say that such claims are worthwhile.

As a game creator, yes it is not his job to waste time convincing others games are art or which games achieve to be high art. It’s the critic’s job to waste his time. I am a critic and I have amply wasted my time doing so. This is a personal debate that every person must go through. Sometimes the ground work is so well laid out with plenty of markers and presented early enough you have an easy time coming to this understanding. Paintings, sculpture, literature, movies, plays all have the luxury. Games are art, they just do not have the the well worn path. It is a half hidden path covered with brambles, quicksand, false forks and switchbacks. In this manner it is a critic’s job to clear out the brush, put well marked signs easily read, pave over the quicksand and straighten the path. Over the last year we have done that by focusing intently on the issue and will continue to do so as Evan Jones says:

Tell about the time a game made you think, or the time one made you feel a sense of true accomplishment, or the time you felt true pride in your lower-case-a-achievements. Speak about the ones that made you angry and the ones that inspired you. Lament the bad games and sing the praises of the good.

There will be others who try to stir up this debate, but we need spill no more ink on them. We have written our responses as wide and varied as possible. We must now only link and leave silently. We leave it up for them to read it or not. I have cataloged every argument I could find. Send them here if you know not where else. I may edit this post further down the line to clean up some writing or elaborate the descriptions of the above links. But as far as I’m concerned, this matter is closed. I think games are art -> games are art -> excuse me while I go play some art.

(Forget it, this is going up as is. – Eric Swain)

My last post was really only the first half of a longer first draft I wrote on paper. When transcribing it I realized it started to meander and connect too many points, so I cut it down and resettled everything else into another post where it would hopefully make more sense.

I wrote about how my exposure to Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition at PAX East sparked that tabletop creative part of me and I started a new campaign. Well here is where I bring that journey full circle back to PAX. While there I got into a discussion with Matthew Gallant and Alex Horn where we got to talking about structure in video games, namely Far Cry 2.

I was told the story of how, apparently, the other writers of the game wanted to give the player the option at the very beginning of the game to shoot the Jackal while lying in bed in a malaria stupor. CLINT HOCKING shot this idea down, though he had to fight to get rid of it. It may make a nice bullet point on the back of the box, but if the Jackal is dead, why would you play the rest of the game. Your ultimate overarching objective had been removed. Even as the game is, some people feel that the final objective’s presences isn’t felt enough to make it noticeable and via consequence the game is missing direction. It’s one reason I respect CLINT HOCKING, despite hating the first title he worked on, he understands structure. When I heard the story it took me less than a second to realize there was a problem and identify it.

Please correct me if I’m wrong about the story, but from the sounds of it, the other writers didn’t see a sliver of a problem and thought it was a good idea. So many others, like them don’t get it and throw a lot of cool things into a pile in an attempt to racket up the tension higher and higher.

I can’t just be imagining it. It’s lack of structure that had most of us scratching our heads about No Russian’s point in Modern Warfare 2 or the numerous plot holes riddled throughout Heavy Rain. It’s lack of structure that has me rolling my eyes every time someone brings up Prince of Persia (2008)or force catatonic boredom during grind sessions in JRPGs. It’s why Brutal Legend stops so short it gave me whiplash. It’s where the cries of outrage came from the retconning of Fallout 3′s ending. It’s why people call Bioshock’s last third a padding waste of time. And it’s because of structure that Portal is hailed as one of the greatest video games ever made.

It is a complaint that comes up again and again even if it’s not expressly what people are saying. Sometimes they don’t understand why something is bad and they latch on to the most obvious, a shoddy sequence that tries to make plywood take the place of hardwood dining room floors, when really it could be that the termite riddled supports can’t sustain the oak.

Since designers are incorporating story more and more into games, then they have to follow a basic structure. It wouldn’t interfere with gameplay or difficulty. Instead a grasp and implementation of structure would compliment and better the product overall. It would allow for clear and reasoned direction so we wont end up with dead points, ludic gates, anti-pacing amping up of action or failure to end a game properly. (Or begin one for that matter.)

I think some of it comes from most of us having grown up in the 8-bit and 16-bit gaming era where the whole game was set as an extended third act and the backstory relegated to optional material. Now we are setting ourselves up to experience the whole story, with developer only having the skills from an earlier age.

Now this isn’t true for everyone. Bioware knows structure, almost fanatically so. Valve understands pacing like its nobodies business. Bungie doesn’t care for an overall product so much as the next 5 minutes flow and it works. But structure doesn’t just mean pacing it also means setting.

We already know what video games are better at than any other medium. Games are better at setting a world up for players to experience. Fallout 3 put you in the wasteland. The Silent Hill games are terrifying, because the town in a place that becomes real. Rapture was as much a character in Bioshock as Andrew Ryan was. Even Left4Dead story works in its minimalism. The best stories from these worlds were the found stories. Clues and hints in a world that suggested a story outside itself.

Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor has a story so divorced from its gameplay, I marvel at who thought to put them together. The game is all about feeding your spider and making his way through the mansion. The story is about a love triangle and family betrayal all told through found objects that make up the world. It’s a perfect case study of what games do best.

Uncharted 2, by contrast, gave us such an authored narrative, with linear active story engagement up the ass, but what it had better than every other game was a detailed understanding of plot pacing. Amy Hennig knew that a story arc doesn’t go up and up until the climax; it sweeps up generally with pits and lulls all along the way. Uncharted 2 does this artful precision, even if the story itself is a bit trite.

The Metal Gear Solid series, for all their over verboseness, have marvelous structure when it comes to pacing out the action. (Maybe not so much MGS4.) There aren’t really lulls, but a constant state of tension thrown into sharp relief by the high action sequences. When you are not in alert phase the game is very quiet and toned down, with the ever-present threat of being caught around every corner. It allows the world to keep tension there, but it is such a gradual climb, that it could be said that it was level, until you are spotted and have to run for it.

Tension, action and compelling are not synonyms. I have yawned at over extended action sequences, because I frankly didn’t care. When a system built to pull you into a world is only interesting because the player is metagaming it, you have a problem. When external incentives like achievements and trophies are why you keep playing or why you are expected to keep playing, it’s a problem. If your game is designed to draw the players in on merits of ouroboros like activity, see Farmville, it’s a problem. A game that cannot stand on it’s own merits has a problem. (Another rant for another time.)

Structure, however a designer employs it are the bread and butter of the medium. At its most basic, structure is the rule set that governs its magic circle. At its most expansive it is how all information is delineated from the system to the player and back again.

To paraphrase last weeks post, cause it is such a good line: the designer creates the story, but the player creates the plot. Just make sure you know which part you’re dabbling in. CLINT HOCKING did.

After PAX East sparked my interest in DnD and my players wanted to get back to it, I decided to give it a try. I liked the 4th edition simplification and streamlining of the rules. So I got the core books and read through them in anticipation of trying a new campaign. What I want to talk about came about at the end of our character creation session.  Using the suggestions in the Player’s Handbook #2 the players use the possible background bullet points to create their character’s pasts. With very limited input from me, my players came up with the following.

Krieg Fargrim, a Dragonborn Warlord, was a farmer on the edge of a desert before entering the military. His company was sent on a campaign into the bordering desert to fight a war and then they got a certain mission. They found an underground complex that had connection with long fallen Dragonborn civilization. His unit was wiped out during this mission. When he was rescued and brought back, he quit and made his way to the city. The player got this from the background elements geography-desert, status-poor, occupation-farmer, occupation-military, and racial Dragonborn-Brush with past.

Ashley Pliskin, a Half-Elf Rogue, was born to a human mother in the mountains to the north to a community of bigoted humans that ostracized him and his mother for their connection with an Elf and was cursed by his grandmother at birth. Later he escaped the mob, becoming distrustful of others and made his way to the city where he ended up joining a gang for a short time. They weren’t happy when he left. This player worked off the tags geography-mountains, status-poor, occupation-criminal, birth-cursed and racial Half-Elf-outcast.

Midnight, an Elf Barbarian (and the only female of the group), came from a noble elven family. At her birth a prophecy dictated that she would be forced to suffer humiliation and degradation before eventually achieving greatness. Her parents sent her to the city, thinking it the best place to impose suffering on their daughter. The only work she could find there was as a stripper (I am not making this up.) working in a shady section of town. She randomly chose geography-forest, status-noble, birth-prophecy, occupation-entertainer and racial Elf-urban Elf.

Finally, Rain Vavack, a Human Shaman, (for this background I kept a running list of sources as he was telling us his background, see footnote) was a farm boy in the desert before sand pirates attacked it. He didn’t beg for his life and instead of killing him put him to work turning a large wheel. While on the sand ship he learned how to fight. Eventually he escaped slavery and found an old man in the middle of nowhere. The old man explained the mark on Rain’s forehead and the old man revealed his own mark telling him all with the mark where chosen to do battle and suck the power out of the mark until there was only one. (Our group then dubbed him the “main character”) He then made his way to the city being chased by his former owners. He was inspired by geography-desert, occupation-mariner, status-noble, birth-blessed and racial Human-Heir to forgotten god.

Now here is where co-operative storytelling got interesting. Rain showed up late, so the others had crafted how they met so he had to fit himself into the situation. This, with little help from, the DM, was the final product; Ashley was caught by Midnight attempting to rob the strip joint and in return for not turning him in, he would get her out of there. She had had enough. They managed to get outside, but were seen and are forced to run with the bouncers giving chase through the twisted streets before running into an alley bar and ducked behind the imposing figure of Krieg, making him spill the rum down his front just as their pursuers charged in. Krieg demanded to know who spilt his rum and is pointed to the pursuers by Ashley. Meanwhile, Rain sees the men charge in, think they are slavers there for him, tried to slip past. Krieg whirls around and clocks Rain in the head knocking him prone…TBC…

At the point I threw out all my plans. This was such a good setup there was no way I could not run with it. It even comes with it’s own built in cliffhanger. My input to all this was giving bonuses to skills and the act of Ashley and Midnight ducking behind Kreig. The rest was all them. We had to leave it there, but the next session saw them defeating the pursuers, Rain running away like a coward and later meeting at a city square. Here is where a problem arose. The girl who made Midnight didn’t want to play so I took the character over. I interjected her into a conversation the other two were having at an inopportune moment that spoiled the role-play, while I was dealing with Rain taking a bath in the central fountain.

I am not a real experienced DM and because of the lack of players I always did the job and ended up having to run additional characters to pick up the slack. It was even more unfortunate, because this was the first time in a campaign that my players have actually tried to role-play. Through all this and reading the opening chapters of the Dungeon Master Guide #2 I see more clearly what the job of a DM is, to provide structure. It then becomes a question of how much structure to provide.

The DM in this case is the game designer. He doesn’t create the rule system, or at least not most of them, but he does choose which ones to implement. He creates the setting and imparts it to the players. He takes control of all the other characters. He is friend, enemy, designer, and referee all rolled into one. In this case I have become the real world equivalent to the hidden calculators and systems invisible to players in video games.

When I worked on previous campaigns I was always working on the mechanical nature of the world. Dungeon maps and basic interactions, while failing to either utilize or live up to the implications and purpose of a role playing game. Too often I worked from the top down, building a combat encounter around monsters that would attack, instead of the bottom up where I figure out why they are there and learn how they would attack. The latter is much more satisfying. I would stumble across a few of these moments and it would be obvious that they were superior to the other encounters of the game. The more I’m reading and thinking about it from the design aspect the more I think of what I actually have to do to create a fun and compelling game.

Game//Cooperative storytelling designers do their best work when they set the stage and let the players do the action. Or to put it another way, DMs create the story and the players create the plot.

I don’t have any definitive answers, but I feel like I’ve taken another step to understanding what the hell everyone else seems to already know. I’ve stopped looking at the surface and am now looking at the structure. I just have brush up my skills towards this craft.

[Addendum] I had written this, but then Jason Rohrer released Sleep is Death. This is probably the quintessential cooperative storytelling program. I have not yet have had the chance to try it out. I can’t afford it at the moment and when I can I hope it wont be a fad that has flown by. I put this aside for a bit so I could come back to it and edit all the details and clean up the writing, as any decent writer should. In the mean time I read on Sleep is Death and how to be a better player within this particular experience. I couldn’t help but notice that much of the advice is similar to the Dungeon Master Guide. One of them was almost word for word.

If you have a game that’s purpose is to create a story, whether fully or just the details, then putting a person in a sandbox is a bad idea. Putting a person in a sandbox with a shovel in their hand is a better idea. Putting a person in a sandbox and then offering them the choice of different types of shovels seems to be where we are at the moment. The best idea of all, put the player in the sandbox offer them a shovel and have a swing set sitting the background.

* Star Wars, Gladiator, Dune, Conan the Barbarian, Princess Bride, Harry Potter, DBZ, Highlander, Lord of the Rings

I got to Boston around 3 pm on Thursday. Plenty of time for the pre-PAX meet up and Justin’s birthday. I spent some time at the Copley mall before heading up to the Cambridge Brewing Company.

I got there really early, so early in fact that I sat around doing nothing and that usually leads to worrying thoughts, like: am I at the right place? Do I have the wrong time? How in the hell would I recognized them? How in the hell would they recognize me, given that there is no known picture of me on the internet because I spent a good deal of effort to accomplish that?

After an hour or so and many dashed hopes two people began to walk up, and if they weren’t there for PAX I was in serious trouble.

Denis Farr is on the left and Alex Myers is on the right. Soon we were joined by another, though because he went into the Irish pub one door down of where we were meeting up, he was actually there half an hour before me and neither of us had seen the other.

Simon Ferrari is in real life exactly like on twitter and I have no idea why I had an almost diametrically opposed image of him in my head. He will argue your head off and do it enthusiastically, but concede graciously if you’re right and he is wrong. He also insulted my spelling and use of grammar…on twitter. But praised my blog as being edited. Still unsure how to take that.

One by one the others from the internet began to materialize from the aether. Before they had just been icons or disembodied heads and now were real people in front of my very eyes.

Sparky “Micheal” Clarkson showed up next. It was hard to recognize him without the thoughtful pose and sepia toned skin. He walked by us a few times, so apparently it was mutual.

If Roger Travis looks a little stunned in the photo, it might be because when he was walking up Simon leaped out of his chair, ran at him and hugged him in mid-jump. Roger is one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. And he sounds exactly like he does on his podcast. I apparently don’t. I blame my cheapo headset mic.

This is Thomas Cross. I recognized the name, but couldn’t remember why. This would not be the first or last time this would happen. Justin would later say that he’s the perfect calm balance to the near hyperactive in your face attitude of Simon Ferrari. There really is no better way to say it. Every time I saw him this weekend, he was with Simon and acting as counterpoint.

The group as of 6:30. The main attraction from across the pond had not arrived yet. Everyone had forgotten about airport customs.

Here is Alex Raymond sporting a head of green locks and matching top. She had quite a trip driving up from New Jersey, walking, almost getting to CBC before turning back to her car to pick up Justin Keverne and Kate from the airport. And no, she does not look that crazed in real life. However, she did bring…

…the man of the hour. Happy 28th birthday Justin. His cake hadn’t quite melted yet. I ended up spending most of the weekend with Justin. He’s a fun guy to be around…

…if this is any indication. Die tiramisu die. To be fair he only had peanuts for the last 21 hours or so.

And here is the other Brit, Kate S. Thanks to her forward thinking her hair was easy to spot all convention long. Again it was a pleasure to meet her. The best blogger without a blog.

Chatter continued, with Simon doing most of it. And while everyone else bundled up or huddled up Denis continued to proudly display his bare arms and thin tee-shirt to the Boston cold. I guess Chicago is worse?

I was shutter bugging at this point. This pic makes her look a lot less crazy.

I have to apologize to Justin for this one. I was snapping pictures and he had just finished the tiramisu practically by himself. He was swallowing the last piece when I went to take a picture, but I had just turned the camera on, so it was taking its sweet time. All the while Justin being the good subject had frozen in place. So, sorry my camera almost choked you.

It’s been a long day, but the night has just begun.

And here we all are walking off to the Darius’ party. Me being the idiot that I am didn’t sign up for it on the PAX wave when I could have. I waved goodbye once they had gotten their name tags and went in. They I began the hour trek back to the BU campus. So I ended up heading for my friend…

…’s apartment. However, he was working sound at the Shakespeare play Titus Adronicus at the time. So I got to see the second half of it for free.

Then Friday arrived.

This was the scene at registration, where we picked up our lanyards and swag bags. This was room two on the whole line. I asked what was the point of the second room and why they couldn’t just let us into the show. Answer: crowd control.

This is one of the handheld lounges. I spent a lot of time here between waiting in line. FYI, those beanbag chairs are comfy. Before I went to the first panel, Interactive Fiction and Storytelling, I wandered around the Expo Hall where they were showing off games.

This was from the EA booth, the most crowded booth at the whole show, thanks in large part to the Red Dead Redemption demo. I had no inclination to get in that line that wrapped around the whole section.

I wasn’t so excited for this game when it was announced, but after seeing in action I feel Ubisoft beginning to earn my trust back.

Okay, this was the shot of the convention as far as I’m concerned. I was following him through the crowd, but I couldn’t get him in front. But then I realized this is the way to take it. It’s damn detailed too.

Met up with Justin after a while and he pointed me to the booth next to the main hall to pick up…

…a copy of Kill Screen. Regardless of it’s a worthwhile magazine or not, I was going to get it. Justin, lucky son of a bitch, got one for free from Chris Dahlen’s private stash the night before.

Yeah, iPhones suck down power. On the other hand, they are a lot more portable than my laptop.

This is Justin doing his best not to fangasm all over another Looking Glass employee. To be fair he did ask this one to apologize for him to the one from last night. If you could give me there names I will edit this part. (Edit: The Man in the photo is Alexx Kay from Irrational Games and the man from the previous night was Rob Waters.)

Another mysterious apparition from a person on twitter to prove they are not an ARG. I was checking out the arcade cabinet museum before getting in line for the IF Storytelling panel. When I was tapped on the shoulder from behind and asked, “are you Eric?” I know there are no pictures of me online and I didn’t recognize him from college. He introduced himself and I quote, “I’m Yu Zun from twitter.” Or at least I hope that’s what he said; it was very loud in there and I had to ask him to repeat his name. But I recognized the name, shook his hand and chatted a bit. I’m still not sure how he recognized me.

Unfortunately, I had lost track of Justin, but I soon found other friends.

This would be a very common scene throughout the weekend. I met up with them and then went to get in line about half an hour before the panel started.

This was the line. I’m actually in line around the corner. This was me reaching beyond the corner to snap the shot. The people along the wall are going towards the door at the very far corner, but then it loops back and laps around the escalators before going to the Wyvren hall. Then behind us it lapped around another room. Roger and Sparky showed up about then and thanks to the confusion we let them slip in with us. (*wink wink*)

These were the panelists. It was very interesting. They spoke a lot about the concepts of how to create a story that can react to player input. It’s wasn’t so much about branching paths, dialogue trees, but simply about how to tell a story ready for input. They didn’t outright say it like this, but it seemed context was very important to the otherwise well worn mechanics. They also rattled off a lot IF games I have to check out later.

I was at the back wall, until I saw Justin waving from near the front. He had gotten in line much earlier and was pointing out an empty seat right behind him. I took it without hesitation. I bring this up, because of the picture quality of the panelists above verses the quality below. I was much further away. (Edit: I apparently got the back of Jonathan Mills head in this pic.)

This was the panel Girls and Gaming. It was done as a Q &A, which I think only hurt it. There was little structure and they ended up answering the same questions over and over. I don’t really have many notes for this one. I really just wrote down a few of the question, because the answers weren’t worth much. Though at the top I have the note: “Apologists?” It’s covered better elsewhere.

Though, about halfway through, this woman, Beth,…

…made these two…

…levitate off their chairs, squeal and clap when she mentioned she wrote for the Border House. They spent several minutes on twitter trying to figure out who Beth was.

I didn’t get her in an action pose like I should have, but this was Friday’s witch. You could hear her from the other side of the convention hall when she was “startled.” She’d be crying in a corner, then someone would take a photo and the flash would startle her and she would chase that person down. Good fun for everyone.

There were a lot of Team Fortress 2 characters at PAX. Spy was by far the most popular character. I even saw two on Saturday that were dressed as spies with Gabe and Tyco masks on and people were going with it, asking for autographs and everything.

I finally got to meet fellow GBConfab lurker, Travis Megill late Friday. He didn’t get to speak long as he headed off and we were waiting for Kate and others to get out of a screening of Get Lamp, a new documentary about Interactive Fiction.

Yes that is my laptop in the lower right corner, the very laptop I’m writing this on.

So the movie let out and a bunch of people from ludodecahedron joined us, like…

…Mathew Gallant aka. Gangles. Didn’t get to talk to him much this night, but we chatted more the next day. All is good.

So I was tweeting who I was hanging out with and was writing down everyone’s user handle, but then I got to two people I hadn’t met and didn’t recognize. So I call Justin over and ask him who they were. He tells me they’re Dan Bruno and Chris Dahlen. I excused myself, tossed my laptop aside and went up to them. I introduced myself to Dan, but as soon as I said my name, Chris Dahlen…

…leaped to his feet exclaiming, “oh you’re Eric Swain,” and enthusiastically shook my hand. It’s very flattering to be recognized like this. Though at the time all I could think was, ‘I’m not that famous.’

Also, Dan took the heckling I sent his way about Rock Band content pretty well.

This is about the time my digital camera’s battery ran out. Luckily it was the end of the day. Afterwords a couple of us went to a bar, where we met Johnathan Mills. It’s was an obnoxiously loud place, where we could barely hear  each other talk. And Alex and Kate got hit on by some drunk guy who wanted the rest of us to be in a dance competition.

After we parted ways I walked Thomas Cross and Simon Ferrari back to Brookline. It was…interesting to say the least.

Next day I bought a disposable camera from CVS, so from here on the picture quality is going to go down a little.

Day started off with me running like hell to get in line for the Ten Best Games of All Time panel. Run by…

N’Gai Croal and Stephen Totilo, but I don’t have his picture. You can read about the game they made out of it here. This was definitely the most fun panel at PAX. At the end of the game they asked a few questions about some of the entries. They asked if Pac Man should be on the list. I actually got the mic and loved how they totally blew me off. I thought Space Invaders would be a better entry.

After the panel I got to meet Mitch Krpata.

His response at my introduction was more of what I expected instead of Chris Dahlen’s excitement. He shook my hand, posed for the pic and went back to who he was talking to.

Also met Sean Beanland for a few brief moments before security made us move along, because standing flat against the wall in a wide open hall was breaking some sort of rule. We got hustled out of there fast. Oh and note, Sean isn’t that pale, the flash is that bright.

Another homemade outfit by Alex on display here. A lovely purple ensemble. And off to the side is Grant getting into costume.

Damn straight he’s Sackboy. Very surprised Kotaku didn’t pick it up in their cosplay gallery. However, when walking with him, it took a while to get anywhere. People kept stopping us wanting pictures. One of the first ones who came up to him was a child, maybe 4 years old. His mother following asking can her son please take a picture with him, “you’re the first one he isn’t scared of.” Another dude came up a little later nearly shouting, “If I’m going to have my picture taken with anybody, it’s fucking Sackboy” He even got asked to take a picture side swiping them. Great fun by all, even the guy in the 200 degree burlap oven.

Seriously, how could I not take a picture of something this awesome. The detail is amazing.

There were two Bayonettas running around the show. Or so I’m told. I only ever saw the one. I spent most of the time wondering how on earth she got here hair to stay like that.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but this must be the most evil paring people could come up with. Damn good Sepheroth, again with hair. Gel like that is only supposed to exist in computers or foreign planets.

I took this picture a bit too far away, but you can still see it pretty good. Does he not look exactly like Ewan McGregor or what?

I will admit I made a sort of mistake on Saturday, which was waiting in line for over 3 hours to do a 1 hour demo of Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition. I haven’t had a chance to play it and see what the new rules entail. When it was finally our turn the DM asked each of us in line if we were by ourselves or with someone else. The man next to me had the best response possible, “Well we were individually here, but we’ve sort of bonded over the last three hours.”

Honestly I think the rules are so streamlined and simple. Even I could keep up without having to stall or crunch numbers. I’ll be testing it out with my players to decide if we switch over or not this weekend.

But back to PAX, the line took so long that I had missed the Choice in Video Games panel run by a bunch of developers from Obsidian. I got out about 10 minutes before it ended. So at least I knew where to find everyone else. I headed over there and saw two people I never thought I’d see again. Such is the world in geek culture that they were in line for the stage play of Dice and Men.

If you don’t recognize them I don’t blame you. They’re friends from college. This picture also has another meaning. This is the fist picture on the internet where I am the subject. Yes that is me in the red shirt and your hair would look bad too after 12 hours in a convention hall.

Apparently Greg knew I was at PAX without having ever seen me. I forgot he follows me on twitter. A word about twitter. Forget calling people, the single most effective way of finding people and meeting up was twitter. I thought my feed would ease up with so many of those I follow at PAX. No, I think the amount went up as people were excitingly microblogging about what was going and what they were doing. The night previously, Justin just sent out a tweet of where he and I were hanging out. No less than a dozen people found us throughout the evening. I had most people’s numbers in my cell phone, I used them maybe 3 times and each time was a pointless endeavor.

I got to get a better picture of me up.

After their panel let out – I didn’t miss much, apparently the panelists got drunk instead – I went out to dinner at a Mexican place close by with Justin, Alex, Grant, Gangles, Kate and others. Gangles, Justin, myself and another whose name escapes me at the moment, got to enthusiastically talking about games and critiquing them during the meal. I had dabbled in short conversations like this all weekend, but this was the first extended one I was apart of. This is why I came to PAX. To meet people and talk intelligently with them.

After dinner we went to a hotel room for a time then went our separate ways. I had some time to kill so I went back to the convention hall to wonder around. On the third floor this was the scene:

There was a rave going on to techno music produced by a gameboy plugged into a synthesizer and a laptop. Pity the picture wasn’t clearer.

Next day I got to the convention late, about noon actually. On my way to the hall to get to the Gay Gamer panel I saw these guys and paused to snap a pic.

I made it to the panel without trouble. I was near the end of the line and I still found empty seats in the second row right behind the others. The place was half empty. I could only think it was because of the schedule change from Saturday afternoon to Sunday afternoon.  That definitely hurt attendance. It was much better run than the Girls and Games panel. In fact they outright contradicted that panel and god bless them for it.

Once again the panel is covered better elsewhere.

After the panel we kind of hung around outside in the hall…

… when Hellen McWilliams of Harmonix and on the panel we just saw came by.

I went wandering around and ran into Alex Myers.

It was that time however, people had to go to catch their flights or start the long arduous drive home. Said my goodbyes to Justin and Kate as they made for the airport. Also said goodbye to Alex and Grant as I was going to one last panel and probably wouldn’t see them afterwords. Though before that, I sat with them for a while.

The man standing is carrying three poke walkers. This was an all too common scene at PAX. Some people would be riding the escalators with their walkers out to try and touch with anyone going the opposite way. People would approach lines just to see if anyone there had one. And as soon as someone whipped it out a crowd would amass and congregate around that person. It was a phenomenon. Releasing it right before a convention was probably the best advertising Nintendo could have done.

Just a guy nonchalantly carrying a very big sword around. Nothing else to see here.

I went to the Snake-oil and Sequalitis panel at the end of Sunday’s festivities. Sparky Clarkson, you remember him…

… was good enough to be line with me. It was a little dry, but full of discussion. At the end they gave out 5 Andrew Ryan figurines. Clapping was enthusiastic for 1-3, then died down at 4 and was dead silent when the last one was given away. I said goodbye to Sparky and went to the front.

Damn right I was going to get a picture of Ken Levine.

After I got out of there, I was effectively the last one at PAX. I wasn’t leaving until Monday, so I had no one to meet and there was little else to do. I hung out at the handheld lounge sucking down the wi-fi until they called the first ever PAX East to a close. I am out of pictures from the event, but I have one left.

This Ladies and Gentlemen is me. Now there wont be any confusion about what I look like anymore.

PAX East was a blast. Thank you to all the friends I met at this “reunion” and hope to see you again next year. I’m already making plans for it. I wish I had more time with people, especially Joe Tortuga and Johnathan Mills, both of whom I forgot to snap a picture of and only got a few words with each besides.