Ninja Skillz

It’s Friday night, so it’s silly video time!

That music is perfect. 😀

ReBlogging

Hello folks!

As regular visitors to koffdrop.com will have noticed, there’s been a flurry of posts in the last few days. In fact, we’re talking over 50 posts.

What’s going on? Has Koffdrop turned into some news-posting junkie?

The answer is no. I’ve been playing with some things behind the scenes that allow me to provide a huge content-boost to this site.

Many of the posts, in fact all of the posts under the reBlogged category, are not of my creation. On my server, there is a rather clever news aggregator. All my favourite feeds are in there and I read through the news and flag anything that I find particularly pertinent to me and my interests. With a push of a button, these flagged news items get sent to the front page of koffdrop.com. The origin of these posts is always shown at the bottom of each item.

If you wish to subscribe exclusively to these cherry-picked news items you can do so by adding this address to your news/rss collector. You’ll find this address at the very bottom of every page on koffdrop.com.

If you are subscribed to the R|Mail distribution of koffdrop.com (to do so, simply enter your email into the box at the top of the sidebar on the right) then you’ll not be blitzed with 40 or so emails every time I publish my day or two’s worth of news items. Only items personally crafted by yours truly will appear in the R|Mail deliveries, reBlogs won’t appear.

Also, due to a bit of tweaking, you can expect to stumble upon streaming content in some of my posts. Any videos that I personally add (as opposed to ones added via reBlogging) will be placed under the video category so you can always find them quickly should you ever want to.

And that’s about it for now. If you have any questions, criticism, suggestions or recommended newsfeeds then I’m all ears.

Cry Engine 2 footage

I’m liking posting streaming video 🙂

Just like God of War 2, this footage was presented at the Game Developers Conference. It’s unclear precisely which platform this is running on but, either way, it sure is pretty.

God of War 2 footage

YES!

I’m not dead

Hello.

It’s been a while since koffdrop.com was updated in any way. I typically write posts when I’m at the office between bouts of work and boredom. I’ve touched on my workload in older posts. Well, recently the workload has become totally ridiculous – and not in a good way. To summarise, the system I cater for used to be covered by four people. It’s now covered by me alone. The reason for this is that staff keep leaving our team of eight due to the poor salary. The result is a constant cycle of training new staff and watching them leave. The thing is, we’ve been shedding staff for the last six months and are now down to three members (myself and two others) and ‘company policy’ has been quoted as reasons for my employer not getting their act together to solve the situation.

Things had got to a point where I’ve been losing sleep and unable to relax in my free time – affecting me and those around me. Recently, a director saw fit to add to my already impossible workload on the basis that their “isn’t a processing capacity issue”. It’s nice to know that I, apparently, am not a factor in overseeing this £7 million a year system for my employer.

Things got so bad that I have had to consider what immediate action I can take to benefit myself – it is painfully apparent that my employer doesn’t see any need for urgent action and I have absolutely no confidence in them supporting me in my work. Part of this action has been to see my GP who immediately signed me off work for a starting period of two weeks and insisted that I do all I can not to think about work. It’s helping to some degree, but I still have grave concerns about my work environment which I fear won’t go away just because I’m not there.

I’ve worked in some pretty interesting environments. I’ve had numerous instances of the need to do all-nighters and all-weekenders. Hell, I’ve even had times when I come to work on a Saturday and not leave the office until Friday. In the context of that particular job, I can accept that. Years ago I worked for a family-run businesses which, frankly, I would never ever recommend unless you’re part of that family. I’d seen many rules broken in those days. But my current employer, without question, is the worse of any I’ve found myself with. For a company that likes to quote “we’re not a blame culture” it’s telling that a good 80% of my work goes under the heading of “covering my ass”. I’ve not worked anywhere else where I’ve seen my team mates moved to tears by the insensitivity and unprofessionalism of other staff. I’ve never worked so hard for such an underpaid role and I’ve never seen management as shoddy or disinterested with the needs of the actual workers as this one. My employer proudly proclaims it is Business of the Year for the second year in a row. It is one of the largest employers in my city. It has offices worldwide.

Whilst I have not signed any contract of non-disclosure it is not my policy to burn any bridges. However, my employer seems to have a serious lack of understand of the needs of some of it’s employers and a tendency to rebuff many queries with “it’s company policy”. For example, I have unused holiday and the end of the financial year approaches. I have no interest in using this holiday as, with my current workload, it will be counter productive as my absence will create significantly more work for me on my return (after all, there is nobody else to look after my work when I am not there – my colleagues all have impossible workloads). So I am unwilling to take holiday due to the environment I find myself in as a result of the (in)action of my employer to provide support for me. My employer, adding fuel to the fire, likes to remind me that if I don’t take this holiday it is “company policy” not to carry it over to the next financial year nor is it “company policy” to reimburse me for it financially. The result? A lose/lose situation for me whilst the company ignores the exceptional circumstances it has put me in and quotes the “company policy” line. There are countless other instances like this that have taken moral to all new depths and I look forward to getting the chance to speak to my employers directly about each one during my exit interview when I eventually find another job.

I feel a battle with my employer is looming. Although my work is professional and my methods thorough and dutifully keeping within all the company’s many, many policies I am confident that the company will try to claim some moral high ground or accuse me of misconduct. I can only wonder what might happen if I was forced to play some of the aces up my sleeve.

Normal games-ranting service will be resumed shortly.

Sony haters – today is your day!

How ironic. I can provide a feed to Next Generation Online on my own site (see the Games feed on the top nav-bar) but, at work, I can’t visit the site itself.

These restrictions allow me to see the world of videogames news from the perspective of your typical shoot-first-ask-questions-never gamer:

Sony Admits PS3 Delay ‘Possible’
Few in the industry believe that PlayStation 3 will launch in the spring. It looks like Sony may be ready to announce a delay. A company spokesperson has admitted that a delay is possible. 

Hey, based on that headline I can almost hear the hate-threads being written and the haters crowing “told you so!”

Although I can’t visit it, I’m expecting “News with attitude” Sony hate site Evil Avatar to lead the mob.

I don’t give a monkeys about buying hardware on day one. To me it’s a mug’s game. Pay the highest price for the least support and fewest games. No thanks!

My personal opinion is that a rushed release is a bad idea. Furthermore Microsoft has forced the next generation on this industry. I can’t blame them for wanting Round 2 to start as quickly as possible and to get that all-important lead on their competitors. However, I think if Sony were to be seen dancing to Microsoft’s tune and pushing out the PS3 as soon as possible it would look BAD.

Well, bad to those who have an appreciation of how the industry work beyond claiming how Sony must deliberately make their machines go wrong just after warranty and other such likely stories.

Would the current generation leader being dictated to by the new kid on the block look like a GOOD thing?

Would a dominant Japanese company, a nation who own the industry more than any other, look good taking it’s cues from an American company?

Assuming your mentality is not a flag-waving american Xbox fan then your considered answer should be ‘no’.

Regardless, delays by Sony will be  lasciviously profiled by the kind of sites with an agenda, whilst championing Zelda delays, DS Lite shortages or rushed, overheating hardware as A GOOD THING.

Let’s keep it in perspective huh?

Somebody pinch me!

Am I dreaming? Surely I can’t be living in the real world. A rational world. A world that’ll defend it’s right to put guns into the hands of the irresponsible but condemn videogames on the basis that pixels pulled the trigger?

Just when you thought you’d seen it all:

Utah votes through bill on ‘obscene’ videogames
Utah representative David Hogue’s controversial violent videogames bill, which tags videogames onto existing obscenity laws relating to pornography, has sailed through the House of Representatives by a vote of 56-8.

Ok, I’m sure it’s not as black-and-white as that paragraph can suggest. But, come on! I’d normally get quite wordy on all this but I really think this is getting ridiculous now. Then again, this IS Utah we’re talking about..

..I suppose now would be a good time to show you another piece from GamePolitics. As you might guess from the text above, politicians are quite happy to jump on a populist bandwagon, make knee-jerk decisions based on ignorance and sweeping generalisations. Some of us can even sympathise with this behaviour even if we don’t agree with it.

Want to see the worst of the worst? Ok then: legislation based on heresay, conjecture and ignorance.

Playing games doesn’t make me violent. Dumb politics, on the other hand, that’s a different matter.

Gently does it

You know, I really enjoy games, but I absolutely love the industry and culture. With 2005 and Hot Coffee going around I find myself reading GamePolitics at lot more than I used to. As it suggests, it’s about games and the real world rather than scoring some interview with Miyamoto.

A short piece on the site states:

Movers and shakers: The stuffy Wall Street Journal (can’t read their website without a subscription) has named a list of key video game industry players. Luckily, joystiq does have a WSJ sub, so we can leech onto their recounting of the list.

Notably included: ESA honcho Doug Lowenstein “This man is fending off attacks from rabid, misguided politicians who are looking for a galvanizing election issue. He’s got his work cut out for him.“; Professor Edward Castronova (MMO economy expert): “ He writes about games from an academic perspective. Pretty cool gig, if you can get it.“; Sam Houser, Rockstar Games: “ He’s the “Quentin Tarantino of videogame designers.”

Notably not included: Jack Thompson

It’s not often you see understatement used on the internet so I thought that last line was well worth a mention. 😀

GTA – Now offending a prostitute near you

It appears that, however shakey your moral grounding may be, you can always point at GTA and claim it offends you.

Game Politics (another miraculously unblocked site at my POW) presents a news piece that reports how sexual workers (not my phrase) are taking issue with Grand Theft Auto in it’s depiction of the treatment of prostitutes. It goes on to suggest the glamorisation of the ill-treatment, violent behaviour and killing of prostitutes is depicted in the game as a positive thing.

Firstly, I’m not here to argue about prostitute’s rights or whether they are entitled to an opinion. These people are human and have the same right to express any opinion as you or I. As the GP article points out, they have particular reason to sensitive to the issue of violence as prostitutes have been the target of serial killers and maladjusted individuals. I totally sympathise with their concerns.

However, I believe they’re wrong on this one.

I recently beat GTA San Andreas by mainly focusing on the core missions that advance the game story and take you through the central game. A central part of the story sees the player’s character being double-crossed by his old friend who, it appears is part of a much more organised drugs cartel (which may be behind his mother’s murder) than just the amusing stoner we think he is. The player’s character has to infiltrate and earn the trust key members of the cartel to gather information and, ultimately destroy it.

One member of the cartel is Jizzy B – a purple-clad pimp. Some of his demands are missions involving you couriering his girls to a destination, picking them up, beating up customers who attempt to violently attack the women and, in one tongue-in-cheek piece of narrative, kill a sugar daddy who attempts to ‘steal’ one of Jizzy’s girls. The sugar daddy is, of course, a man of the cloth.

As the narrative proceeds, the player dispenses justice on the pimp who pays the ultimate price for his crimes.

I’m pretty sure I’ve got it covered there. Those missions must be played out if the player is to proceed with the core narrative of the game and wishes to further their progress.

I’m not convinced that, through these missions, GTA is rewarding the player and teaching them that acting violently towards prostitutes is a good thing. If anything it is demanding the player to protect them from those that would do them harm – including their pimp.

Of course, GTA offers enough tools in the game to allow the player to do what they wish when they’re not focusing on advancing the game’s narrative. You can steal a taxi and the game lets you earn money by taking passengers to their destination. You can haul cargo in trucks cross country. You can export and import cars. You can indulge in some illegal street racing. You can steal a certain type of car and undertake ‘pimping’ missions – which differ very little from the taxi missions in that a person must be picked up and dropped off at a certain geographic location within a time-limit.

None of these ‘gameplay-tools’ are essential in completing the core game. They are available to the player if the player wishes to use them. In some cases the player may be rewarded (earning fare for acting as a taxi for example). More challenging optional tasks – such as finding all 100 opposing gang graffitti tags and respraying your gang’s tag over them – unlock hidden bonuses on their completion. This tagging task is akin to looking for 100 needles in a very large haystack. Good luck with that one!

The player can also run around doing small cash-earning tasks, decide to buy a weapon and hunt down every prostitute-shaped character in the game. They don’t have to. But the combination of tools make it possible if the player decides that is what they want to do.

In real terms, a gun is a tool. A hammer is a tool. A pencil is a tool. But with the will of the user they could all be used to kill someone. Does this instantly mean the tool is evil or its production and existence should be moderated or questioned? The National Rifle Association, I’m sure, have a very clear perspective on whether a tool is inherently evil or destructive or whether the user of the tool is the one that actually defines it’s use.

GTA is a nice, high profile target – for anyone with a grievance on anything. But, in my opinion, the argument have no credibility in the world we live in today.

Videogames are the new rock and roll. The work of the devil and, it seems, the reason for all of society’s ills.

That’s another statement I don’t believe is true.

Mum’s Army

I’m of the firm belief that my employer has access to a range of books with titles like “How to de-motivate your staff” and “How to make a bad situation worse”. For the time being I won’t go into a full list of their actions (not whilst I remain employed there at any rate) but one cute move is to block pretty much all the gaming websites I have in my bookmarks. That’s quite a lot of sites. I appreciate that web access and the means to use it are by no means a given right for me to complain about. However, in the context of keeping your staff happy and motivated it does a lot of good.

Somehow, a site that has slipped under the radar is GamesIndustry.biz. A fantastic, British-focused site with good articles and informed commentary. Thank heavens for small mercies.

A recent article “Videogames’ worst enemy is lazy parenting” responds to the actions of women’s magazine “Take A Break”, their readership group entitled “Mum’s Army” and the group’s belief that violent videogames should be banned.

The article goes on to make the distinction that many measures have been taken by the games industry to inform the concerned parent of a game’s content and to control what degree of access their child has to it. Age ratings, content description, in game warnings and hardware with parental lock out controls are just some of thse measures. It appear’s that Mum’s Army believes that if the content is ‘out there’ then they have no means to intervene before it hits their child’s retinas than an outright ban.

The article is worth a read – whatever side of the fence you happen to sit on.

I can’t help conjuring up a mental image of Johnny-12-year-old playing the 50 cent game in the front room, gazing transfixed at the pixellated thuggery on screen whilst his mother is sat on the sofa behind him engrossed in Take A Break magazine.

My opinion is that these sort of parent needs to stop taking a break from parenting and to start taking it seriously.