OTM producer PJ Vogt and I have been very public about our love of a video game called Team Fortress 2 (or as we nerds call it, "TF2"). So much so that in April of last year, after much goading and pleading by the two of us, Bob spoke to Robin Walker, a developer for Valve Software, the company behind TF2. Specifically, we wanted to talk to him about the frequent statements that Valve has made to the press about how in order to beat video game piracy, content providers just have to make their product more enticing than the pirates could.

ROBIN WALKER: I think it’s looking at the things that pirates are providing and asking yourselves how you can provide something better than that. So, to pick an example, if you purchased a product from us, we're going to continue working on that product after we've released it. We're sort of making that initial purchase of the product significantly more valuable over time. And so, if you somehow manage to get it for free initially but not in a way that lets you plug into that system, you know, that’s going to be a big hassle for you as you continue to try and figure out how to get each of those incremental improvements over the next few years for free, as well. 

In September, we spoke to game designer Jane McGonigal about her game Superbetter, which was designed to help players recover from injury and illness. On the Media producer Alex Goldman, who was hit by a car in May, played the game for the last six weeks and blogged about his experiences on our website. Brooke talks to Alex and Jane about how they played the game.

CLICK HERE to read On the Media Producer Alex's Goldman's blog entries about using Superbetter.

Vangelis - Chariots of Fire

Last weekend was the weekend of my epic win - doing a lap around Prospect Park on my bike. This week Brooke and I did a sort of debriefing interview with Superbetter designer Jane McGonigal about my experiences playing the game to recover from being run over by a car. In the interview, I described my feelings about riding my bike around the park, but my comments didn't make it into the final cut. Brooke has entreated me to write a blog post about my ride to share with the people who have been following my progress over the past 6 weeks, so here it is!

Six months ago, I was hit by a car while I was riding my bike, and spent months in and out of the hospital and recuperating from incredibly painful surgeries. Six weeks ago, I began using Superbetter, a game designed by game designer and theorist Jane McGonigal, with the express purpose of helping people recover from traumatic injuries and achieve health goals. This weekend, I will wrap up my 6 weeks stint using the game. 

Unfortunately, this week's entry will be kind of short. My work week has been incredibly busy, and I haven't been able to devote as much time as I like to Superbetter. I'm hoping that next week, I'll have more time.

I'm now in my fourth week using Superbetter to deal with a traumatic injury I sustained in a bicycle accident, and my co-workers (or at least Brooke) have been talking about how uncharacteristically sunny my disposition is. I would say that at least part of that is due to my continued use of Superbetter.

In my second entry on Superbetter, I discussed my confusion about the usefulness of a couple of aspects of the game - achievements and resilience score. After using the game for a few weeks, I wanted to post a short update about my feelings on the utility of these two aspects of the game.

I'm now entering my third week using Superbetter, a game desgined to help people who have been injured or are trying to reach health goals, to deal with an traumatic injury I sustained in a bike accident. If you missed the previous articles and the story on the show about it, click here for our archive of Superbetter stories.

Since my last post, I've dispensed with all the setup and explanation, and I've recruited several of our listeners as allies in the game. Thanks to my allies, I'm starting to see the great potential of using this game to aid in my recovery.

I've now spent roughly a week using Superbetter after a traumatic injury I sustained in May, and I'm coming to understand the game mechanic a little better. In my last post I detailed the seven missions that I needed to complete in order to set up my "secret headquarters." In this entry, I'll share some details about how I've been using the game, as well as some information about my secret lab, and about the achievement and resilience scores.

In May, I was severely injured in a bicycle accident. I heard about a game that was being designed by Jane McGonigal called Superbetter, which is specifically designed to create "gameful" incentives to help people recuperate physically and emotionally from injury. Brooke interviewed both me and Jane on our most recent episode and I pledged to try using Superbetter for six weeks, blogging about the process and how it potentially helps my convalescence.

After suffering a traumatic brain injury, game designer Jane McGonigal developed Superbetter, a game that creates point systems and incentives for reaching health goals. Brooke talks to McGonigal about how the game works, and OTM producer Alex Goldman asks how he might use the game on a recent traumatic physical injury.

To follow producer Alex Goldman's blogs about using Superbetter, please follow THIS LINK

Video Games are seeping into nearly every part of our lives, and game designers are trying to seize the opportunity to imbue these games with newfound meaning and purpose. Brooke talks to game designers and futurists about where games are going and how they are shaping the future of collaboration.

Despite the comparisons, video games are a wholly new medium, allowing an interactivity, agency and complexity most other media just can't provide. Brooke talks to Kill Screen Magazine editor Jamin Brophy-Warren, novelist Nicholson Baker, and journalist Tom Bissell about the power and potential of video games and video ...

The original Nintendo console, the NES, turned 25 this year. OTM producer PJ Vogt reports the cautionary tale of Nintendo’s rise and (relative) fall, and why both were good for video games.

According to the market research firm The NPD Group, 27 percent of America's entertainment dollar is spent on video games. According to New York Times Magazine author and game aficionado Clive Thompson, whether you play them or not, video games have changed the way way you interact with technology.

Tom Bissell is one of our favorite writers on videogames.  His book last year Extra Lives, was a study in how videogames work (or don’t), why they’re a singular medium and why Bissell finds them so terribly addictive.  Last summer, when we talked to him about the book, he told us that his call for better writing in videogames had been answered – he’d been approached about developing a game.  He hoped to bring the skills of a novelist to bear on character development, plot and dialogue in a big, ambitious, shoot-em-up blockbuster.  Well … it seems things didn’t entirely work out.   In a recent piece on Grantland Bissell lamented:

Last year I published a book about video games called Extra Lives. A couple of developers read it and came calling. This excited me, given that one concern of my book is how poorly video games have told stories. Video-game storytelling is a more challenging conceptual problem than it may seem, and the manner in which this problem might best be addressed is in no way apparent. I was eager, all the same, to storm the castle. But of the various projects to which I found myself attached or within an eyelash of being attached, one imploded, one was canceled, one I removed my name from, and one entered stasis. But the whole reason I was playing so many games I neither liked nor loved was to see how they had stormed that same castle. At least, this was what I was telling myself while playing, say, Crysis 2 at four o'clock in the morning. So a month ago I decided to quit playing video games.

Luckily for us Bissell didn’t exactly quit playing videogames.  In fact the rest of the lengthy piece is a review of the latest offering from Rockstar/Team Bondi, a Los Angeles based noir entitled, unfortunately, LA Noire. Bissell certainly played the game.  And he proceeds to do the other thing he advocated heavily for when we talked to him last – offer a thoughtful critique.  Bissell thinks that videogames will only be taken seriously when they get the sophisticated criticism that every other art form receives.  So he’s a man with a mission.  And part of that mission is unique to the medium …

Video games can do a lot of things other storytelling mediums cannot. Their penance, however, is to have to deal with things foreign to other storytelling mediums, one of which is a uniquely damaging form of audience disruption. Just about every storytelling game employs various masking systems that attempt to anticipate internally disruptive player behavior. Say you have an in-game friend — what happens if you try to shoot him or her? Does the bullet fire and blood fly and nothing happens? Or does the bullet fire and blood fly and does the friend say, in so many words, "Hey, what gives?" Or does the friend actually die and cause a restart? Or does the gun maybe lower when you pull the trigger? As everyone who plays video games knows, masking systems can be greatly amusing to test and prod, and the first thing I did in L.A. Noire was drive my car directly into some pedestrians and plow through a few streetlights, after which I insisted on driving my partner and me to our first crime scene in a dump truck. Once we got to the crime scene, I stranded my partner there and took off, still in my dump truck, spreading more mayhem. Had this been GTA or Red Dead Redemption, the law would have come calling, but the most incisive criticism I got from my partner during all of this was: "What are you doing?" Isn't it obvious, partner? I'm playing.

 

As it turns out, L.A. Noire's masking systems are not so great.

But part of that mission is a kind of textual analysis. What’s the author’s intention?  And it’s only when Bissell has gotten frustrated with the limitations of the videogame-ness of L.A. Noire, the clumsiness of its gameplay that he starts to understand what it does best.  Good, old-fashioned character development – the kind you’d find in a more traditional narrative.   

This weekend we’re rerunning our special hour-long look at videogames.  I hope you’ll listen to Bissell’s contribution and check out his full review of L.A. Noire.  And I hope Bissell will break his resolution and start obsessively playing videogames again and give them the tough love they deserve.

This week, we're rebroadcasting our special hour on video games. In celebration of the occasion, the Supreme Court (huge OTM fans), struck down a California law that would have levied a $1,000 fine to against retailers who sold violent games to minors on Monday.

"video games qualify for First Amendment protection.  Like protected books, plays, and movies, they communicate ideas through familiar literary devices and features distinctive to the medium," wrote Justice Antonin Scalia in the court's opinion in Brown v. The Entertainment Merchants Association. "The basic principles of freedom of speech . . . do not vary' with a new and different communication medium.

"California’s argument would fare better if there were a longstanding tradition in this country of specially restricting children’s access to depictions of violence," Justice Scalia wrote, "but there is none. Certainly the books we give children to read—or read to them when they are younger—contain no shortage of gore. Grimm’s Fairy Tales, for example, are grim indeed."

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito wrote a concurring opinion that stated the existing California statute was simply too broad as currently written, skirting the First Amendment argument altogether. Dissenting Justices Clarence Thomas and Stephen Breyer both wrote their own dissenting opinions. Stephen Totilo of the video game blog Kotaku has posted a concise summary of the key points of each of the opinions.

Bo Anderson, CEO of the Entertainment Merchants Association, said in a press release on their website "We are gratified that our position that the law violates the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of expression has been vindicated and there now can be no argument whether video games are entitled to the same protection as books, movies, music, and other expressive entertainment." Other video game trade associations have made similar statements in support of the ruling.

Leland Yee, the California state Senator that authored the law, also posted a response to the ruling on his website, saying "As a result of [the Supreme Court's] decision, Wal-Mart and the video game industry will continue to make billions of dollars at the expense of our kids’ mental health and the safety of our community. It is simply wrong that the video game industry can be allowed to put their profit margins over the rights of parents and the well-being of children."