Tag Archives: event

What if they gave an award and nobody came?

Posted by under Uncategorized

The BAFTA nominations for the 2007 Video Games Awards came out on 25th September (I know I’m behind the times, my father died the next day, sue me). And frankly, what in the holy name of living crap is going on?

The list’s here. Go and have a look at it. Anything strike you as odd?

First of all, many of the nominated titles haven’t actually been released yet. This is, believe it or not, in accordance with the awards’ terms and conditions: as long as you reckon you’ll get your game out sometime in 2007 then you can put it up for an award and BAFTA’s videogame-related members can shortlist it. So that’s fine, then.

Except for two things. Firstly, it’s not always possible to tell the quality of a game from pre-release code, even if we believe that the producers of the nominated games have given BAFTA’s voting members enough access to pre-release copies of the game for them to sufficiently judge the likely quality of the final product. Secondly, only four companies seem to have taken advantage of this generosity on BAFTA’s part: Sega (Sega Rally Revo, released two days after the nominations list), Eidos (Kane & Lynch: Dead Men), Sony (Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune and Eye of Judgment), and EA, with a clear 50% of the not-out-yet titles (Orange Box, Skate, Crysis, and The Simpsons Game). Prominently named on BAFTA’s game-award site: the former Executive Chairman of Eidos and the former head of EA UK.

Back to the list. Secondly, have a look at the PS3 titles that have received nominations. Quite a large number, you’ll agree. Except that in three cases (Orange Box, Skate, Sega Rally Revo) these aren’t PS3 exclusives, they’re multi-format titles that for some reason are only listed in the PS3 version. All three, you’ll also note, make use of the previously discussed laxity on games that haven’t been released yet. And interestingly, two of them (Orange Box and Skate) have had their PS3 release delayed until weeks or even months after the Xbox 360 and PC versions come out. Both of them are EA titles.

The other question the shortlist begs is: what’s missing? And the answer is… well, put it like this: what if you announced a games award, and a company declined to submit pre-release versions of its games to your panellists? Ah, okay, but what if that company was Microsoft Games Studio, whose at-the-time unreleased titles included Halo 3, Project Gotham Racing 4 and Mass Effect? You’d be screwed, wouldn’t you?

Notice the complete absence of Halo 3, Project Gotham Racing 4 and Mass Effect from the BAFTA shortlist of the best games of 2007.

I am not a Microsoft apologist, much less a fanboy, but…. BAFTA, you’re dead in the water. Your awards have declared themselves irrelevant. If you give out a set of videogame awards for 2007 and do not mention Halo 3 among your nominees, you are writing the words ‘HOPELESSLY OUT OF TOUCH AND LOVING IT’ on your forehead. Admittedly they may be difficult to read, since they’ll have to be squeezed around the words ‘GIVING EVERY APPEARANCE OF BEING INSTITUTIONALLY BIASED’ which are there already.

Shape up or give up, BAFTA. Please.

The shape of things to come…

Posted by under game design, narrative, street games

…may very well be hexagonal.

The cat is not fully out of the bag yet, but I think we are finally at a stage where we can admit there is a cat and a bag, and the two are in proximity, and the cat is very much alive. Not so much Schrodinger’s cat as Humdinger’s.

Also, look out for a very interesting ARG-related announcement on 1st October, which will explain why this post has the ‘charity’ tag.

Gen 'n' Tonic

Posted by under munchausen

Gen Con Indianapolis starts today, being Thursday, which means I can finally talk about three things. For those who don’t know Gen Con it’s the largest public games event in the English-speaking world, attracting more than 25,000 people to the four days of its show. I am not there this year, partly because my wife is very pregnant and partly because America, and in particular passing through its immigration channels knowing I could be imprisoned without charge indefinitely for no reason, scares the living crap out of me.

What do I have to talk about?

The convention kicks off with the announcement and presentation of the 2007 Diana Jones Award on the Wednesday evening, pretty much right now as I type this. This prestigious trophy, awarded annually ‘for excellence in gaming’, is the closest thing that the games hobby has to a Nobel prize. Hyperbole perhaps, but I am allowed to say that about it because I founded it. The Award itself is handed out at a party open only to industry professionals (of which there was a notable lack at Gen Con after TSR stopped running its legendary freelancer parties in the mid 90s). And this year’s winner, I’m overjoyed to announce, is The Great Pendragon Campaign by Greg Stafford. Greg is one of the great pillars of the entire RPG field and I sincerely hope that the representatives of Irish Games Convention Charity Auctions, who won the DJA last year, got the trophy to the award ceremony in time so he could receive it.

Secondly, this is Gen Con’s 40th year which is a hell of an achievement for any kind of event. To celebrate, Gen Con LLC commissioned Robin D. Laws to write a book, imaginatively titled 40 Years of Gen Con, about the event’s history. Robin in turn interviewed a lot of notable designers, personalities and people who had helped shape the event, and also me. I am told my words are in the book. It’s published by Atlas Games, priced $29.95, and is available at the show. If you’re at the show then why not stop reading blogs and go and play some games, why don’t you?

And thirdly, there’s another book released at Gen Con Indy, that I referred to a few months back. This one is Hobby Games: the Top 100, compiled by James Lowder and published by Green Ronin, and it’s five bucks cheaper than 40 Years of Gen Con. As the name might suggest it’s a list of 100 of the most important hobby-games products ever, chosen and lovingly described by 100 notable figures in the hobby-games field, from Gary Gygax, Ian Livingstone, both Steve Jacksons and Greg Stafford, down to…. me, a designer so minor that my name doesn’t feature on the press release. And it looks like a really interesting compilation of essays covering one hundred important tabletop games, old and new, classic and obscure. I’ve not seen the whole book but from the contents page and list of contributors I recommend it wholeheartedly.

As you read this copies will be on sale so I can finally break the bonds of silence and say that my contribution is about Ghostbusters, the fantastic 1986 RPG published by West End Games but designed by Chaosium. meaning it bears the fingerprints of Sandy ‘Call of Cthulhu’ Petersen, Greg Stafford, Lynn Willis, Greg Costikyan and many other notables. Not just groundbreaking and influential but also a pinnacle of design and writing, twenty years after publication it remains a brilliant example of How To Get A Licence Right. Plus of course, it’s wonderful fun to play.

Flipping through the HG:100B contents list, I note that Greg Stafford’s games RuneQuest and Pendragon are also included, making him (by my rough tally) the only designer with three titles in the book. Which is some indication of why I’m so glad he’s won the DJA.

Oh, I have two titles in there. Once Upon a Time and The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen both made it in. I am pleased, honoured, incredibly smug, and a bit biased about the quality of the book as a result. Have a flip through it if you see a copy, make up your own mind.

And back to Gen Con for one last moment, I gather Wizards of the Coast will be making an announcement about the fourth edition of Dungeons & Dragons at the show. After they made such a comprehensive balls-up of version 3.5, the direction for 4e could make or break the backbone of the whole RPG industry. Interesting times, interesting times.

Diana Jones Award 2007: short shortlist announced

Posted by under game design

London, 27th June—After much debate the shortlist for the seventh annual Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming, covering the year 2006, has been announced.

The Diana Jones Award is given to whatever the Diana Jones Committee believes has best demonstrated ‘excellence in gaming’ in the previous year. This year the committee has shortlisted three potential winners. In alphabetical order, they are:

The Great Pendragon Campaign by Greg Stafford (White Wolf)
In terms of sheer scope alone, Greg Stafford’s Great Pendragon Campaign breaks new ground, presenting almost a century’s worth of continuous story with gemlike clarity; in almost fractal fashion, any given year can become its own campaign. Its greatest structural successes are those of Stafford’s Pendragon: a superbly compact yet never sketchy adventure format, seamless hard-wiring of characters into setting and continuity, and unprecedented emphasis on epic, generational storytelling. Thematically, it is a triumph of Arthurian art in its own right, the roleplaying form’s equivalent of Tennyson’s ‘The Idylls of the King’ or Wagner’s ‘Parsifal’—a brilliant personal engagement with one of the foundation myths of Western fantasy.

Pieces of Eight by Jeff Tidball (Atlas Games)
In Jeff Tidball’s Pieces of Eight, each player in the game holds a customizable stack of coins in one hand. This represents a pirate ship, complete with captain, and the players do battle with each other by moving and using the coins in their hands to harm other ships and help their own. It’s a perfect example of a game that is simple to learn but fun to play for beginners and long-time gamers alike, it can be played just about anywhere, and it offers layers of customization and strategy found in few games of any kind, as well as an elegance for which all great game designers strive.

Stefan Pokorny, creator, sculptor and painter of the Master Maze line of miniature terrain from Dwarven Forge
Stefan Pokorny is a fine artist by trade who has studied extensively in the US and abroad. He holds a Master’s Degree in Fine Arts from the University of Hartford and he has taught at some recognized fine art schools. For the past 11 years he has been pouring his artistic energies into the creation of the finest miniature terrain in the world—the Master Maze line from his company Dwarven Forge. While his efforts have always garnered much praise, the year 2006 was an especially rewarding year for Stefan and his work. He released three new incredible sets: the Cavernous River and Walls Set, the Cavernous Lake Set and the Medieval Building Set. Each of these is not only an incredible work of art and craftsmanship, but also represents the absolute pinnacle of game accessory quality. They serve to remind everyone of the unmatched artistic work that Stefan has accomplished over the last 11 years.

The award will be announced and the trophy presented on Wednesday 15th August, at a ceremony the day before the opening of Gen Con Indianapolis.

A fuller description of the history of the Diana Jones Award and its extraordinary trophy, plus details of all the previous winners and shortlists can be found at the award’s website, www.dianajonesaward.org