I suppose the timing is just about right for these rumors to pop up. Fudzilla, quoting unnamed “industry sources” is saying that ATI has secured the GPU rights to the next generation Xbox.

To be fair: It may have. It wouldn’t be all that surprising, given the smooth graphics of the Xbox 360 and the lingering bad blood between Microsoft and nVidia over the pricing of graphics chips in the original Xbox.

But, folks, we’re still a good ways away from the next Xbox. And Fudzilla hurts its credibility by saying the console refresh was planned for 2010. That wasn’t the plan before the recession and it wasn’t the plan when the Xbox 360 launched.

The Xbox 720 - or Phoenix (as it’s reportedly code-named) – has always had a 2012 street date in mind. (That might be pushed out even further depending on how well Project Natal is received.) This has been reflected in Microsoft’s pricing of the hardware, which is still well above the $149 sweet spot for mass-market consumers.

And while we’re swatting at rumors, I wouldn’t pay a lot of attention to the whispers beginning to float around that the next Xbox will be driveless and will only sell games digitally. Xbox Live is big – and has been growing fast – but its revenues are dwarfed by traditional retail channels.

Even if you’re convinced that game retailers are a doomed species, do you think Microsoft is going to eliminate a method for people to play their DVDs or (for the next generation) Blu-ray disks? The company has bent over backwards to position the 360 as a home media center – and has been quite successful in doing so. Eliminating that option would be a significant retreat.

The speculation game about what features next generation systems will sport is a fun one. And, as we start to get within a reasonable period of manufacturing, we’ll likely play the game here on the Cut Scene just like everyone else. But, for now, you’re better off ignoring the speculation and wild-ass guesses that are beginning to pop up from various corners of the online world. 

A few years ago I co-wrote a book about how politicians use the tools of public relations to deceive the public without lying called "All the President's Spin." George W. Bush was our primary example, for the simple reason that he was president at the time and an expert at deceiving without lying.

I've never brought it up before because it never seemed relevant (though I will note for anyone interested that's it's available used on Amazon.com for literally one penny; and I promise it's worth more than a penny). But today it seemed relevant when I was reading this piece that has been spreading around the Interweb like wildfire by PSXextreme editor Ben Dutka that epitomizes some of the, ummm, rather rabid response of Playstation 3 fans to any less than stellar reviews of Sony's upcoming action game "Killzone 2."

In particular, Dutka (and many of his commenters) is worked up about this review in Edge Magazine, which had the temerity to say some negative things about the hotly anticipated game and score it a 7 out of 10 (a score that is above average and means the reviewer liked the game, but let's leave that aside). I haven't played the game yet (though I have a copy and am eager to try it soon), so I have no personal beef one way or another with the review. But let's remember, it's a review. There's no way it can be "wrong" unless the reviewer cites factually incorrect evidence or makes indisputably illogical arguments. As far as I can tell, Edge's anonymous reviewer didn't do that.

Nonethelss, Dutka went pretty much ballistic, calling the review a "lie." After writing "All the President's Spin," I was particularly intrigued by these descriptions:

Notice the language used: "Elite" twice. "Superiority complexes." "Know more than everyone else." And who do these elitist know-it-alls stand in contrast to? All of us, the average consumers, who just "know" (without having played it, in the case of 99% of us) that "Killzone 2" is one of the best games ever.

"Killzone 2" defenders are the regular people, you see, the common folks who know the truth without having to do the research (in this case, playing the game). Those know-it-alls at Edge may have done the research, but the fact that they disagree with us is prima facie evidence that they're elitist snobs who just want to prove they're smarter and know better. They think they're something wrong with the game we like (or are sure we will like). Oh, and did I mention that Edge is British? (OK, Dutka didn't say that, but the fact is out there and you know that Brits think they're so much better than us Americans.)

Anyone who has followed political discourse knows this routine: It's the set of charges that have been used, often to great success, against Democrats for 20-plus years. Every Democratic presidential candidate since at least Dukakis has been called an elitist, a snob, someone trying to impress his friends in the media or in Europe or the coffee shops and colleges.

It's a classic dirty tactic of political discourse: Delegitimize your opponents' views not by engaging them on the issues -- Dutka doesn't once argue with the substance of what Edge said -- but by questioning their motives and associating with with dislikable groups.

Obviously I'm not saying Rush Limbaugh is orchestrating the "Killzone 2" backlash backlash, or that there's really any crossover between Sony fanboys and Republicans (except perhaps the fact that they've both been supporting losing causes for the past few years <thank you folks, I'll be here all night>). But a nasty rhetorical tactic is a nasty rhetorical tactic and it would be great if those of us who write and talk about videogames could do a little better than the bottom of the barrel of political discourse.

(For a more amusing take on hardcore Sony fans' reactions to a positive "Killzone 2" review, check out this rant from X-Play's Adam Sessler)

It's finally online, or most of it anyway. Unfortunately, for reasons I'm not quite clear on, the recording is cut short just a little bit before the end. But we've got a solid hour from the panel that I hope proves interesting.

I think it was a great discussion abut the current state and future of videogame storytelling. Fellow speakers on the panel (which, I should note, was sponsored by Activision) were Activision R&D Filipo Costanzo, Game/TV/Movie writer Flint Dille, Neversoft Chad Findley, and game/movie writer and journalist Bruce Feirstein.

Apologies for the fact that the video is broken up into four segments, and the 15 seconds of black at the beginning of #1. And a special thanks to Stuart Oldham for uploading them all.

In Hollywood we're very used to the concept of the "review-proof" and even the "unreviewable" movies -- ones about which reviewers struggle to say anything relevant that perform extremely well commercially. This past weekend's $39 million grosser "Paul Blart: Mall Cop" springs to mind. As do some of the biggest movies of the past few years, like "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," "Twilight," "Transformers," Pirates of the Caribbean 3"... You know what I'm talking about. They may get reviewed, but reluctantly, and there's rarely much in the way of follow-up discussion and online buzz the way there is about, say, "Slumdog Millionnaire" or "The Wrestler."

I always thought that videogames were different. Most of the top sellers were usually games thoroughly discussed by reviewers (and, more recently, bloggers), usually very positively. As recently as last year, four of the top 5 titles (Halo 3, Call of Duty 4, Guitar Hero II, Super Mario Galaxy) fall exactly in that category. Out of the top ten, "Wii Play," "Mario Party 8," and maybe "Pokemon Diamond" were games that didn't exactly have critics buzzing.

Even three games seems like a lot, historically speaking, But this year, and this holiday season especially, I think, the number of top selling videogames that simply eluded critics exploded. Here's NPD's top 20 games of December, ranked and followed by the number of reviews each title received in Metacritic (that doesn't include everything, of course, but for comparison's sake, it's a good sense of what videogame critics are talking about):

Notice a trend? Eight of the the ten least reviewed games are for Nintendo consoles. Only five of the top ten and two of the top five are (and two came out more than a year ago, making them only arguably relevant).

Then there's the vaguer issue of buzz. I can't quantify it, but I'm willing to argue that videogame bloggers, message board posters, etc. were talking a lot more about "Fallout," "Gears," "Call of Duty," "Left 4 Dead" and even titles that sold beneath the top 20 like "Dead Space," "Mirror's Edge," "Prince of Persia" and "LittleBigPlanet" than almost all of these Nintendo games.

The simple reason is that most of these Nintendo titles are either the umpteenth revision of very familiar formulas ("Mario Kart," "Animal Crossing") or "games" that aren't really games, at least in the sense that we critics and writers usually think and talk about them ("Wii Fit," "Wii Music," "Personal Trainer: Cooking," etc.) And then there's the multi-platform titles like "Call of Duty," "Shaun White Snowboarding" and "Guitar Hero" for which we clearly prefer to review and discuss the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions.

It's a growing trend, but again, I feel like it really exploded this year as, for various reasons I and others have discussed, Nintendo took control of the sales charts and did so with a very different slate of titles. Last December, by contrast, videogame critics and writers were eagerly discussing four of the top five titles ("CoD 4," "Super Mario Galaxy," "Guitar Hero III," "Assassin's Creed") and a much bigger percentage of the top 20 (see for yourself).

 I don't really have a proscriptive take on all this. Should we find more to say about "Wii Fit" and "Club Penguin: Elite Penguin Force?" (Hey, Variety reviewed it!) Well, if all artistic criticism mirrored the sales charts, that would be a sad thing for our culture. Should we review the Wii version of multi-platform franchises more often? Perhaps, but if it doesn't have as many features as PS3 or 360, that seems a bit bizarre (at least for publications like Variety without the resources to review multiple versions).

It may in fact be a good thing. The videogame industry is maturing and we need our review-proof blockbusters just as much as we need everything else. It's also, perhaps, no coincidence that 2008 was also the year that we saw an explosion of interest in, discussion about, and a business model coalescing around independent games. The market may simply be expanding and some parts of it need critical attention more than others.

I said in my earlier post about innovation and "Mirror's Edge" and that I wanted to see more critics engaging each others ideas and that's exactly what I got, albeit at a much more meta-level than I anticipated.

Newsweek's N'Gai Croal wrote a rejoinder to recent posts by yours truly (here and here), Leigh Alexander and the Guardian's Keith Stuart in which he gives a big fat "red light" to our arguments about videogame critics not valuing innovation enough, or in the right ways. And hey, just being the subject of a post by a veteran writer like Croal, let alone his triumphant return to blogging after several months away, is pretty cool.

But I think he gets something wrong. Or perhaps I didn't express myself well and he nailed me on it. Either way, I think my disagreement can be easily targeted at this snippet from his response:

Stuart and Alexander would have us believe that the fault lies with reviewers and gamers who have disparaged any of the game's mechanics--movement, shooting or hand-to-hand combat--while being insufficiently laudatory of the breathtaking way Mirror's Edge simulates the experience of le parkour. They're wrong and, if we can turn back a phrase from Fritz, they're wrong in a way that misses the big picture. Because while the locomotion in Mirror's Edge is praiseworthy and innovative, the game it's wrapped it not only fails to amplify and focus said innovation, the game by and large works against it.

What do we mean by this? Mirror's Edge, far more so than traditional platformers, is at its most exhilarating whenever you achieve an unbroken chain of continuous motion. But because it uses a first-person camera, it drastically reduces your situational awareness as compared to a third-person camera system. That fact, combined with the need to create varied, challenging gameplay scenarios, results in a good deal of trial-and-error--which is precisely the opposite of Mirror's Edge at its most exciting. Why? Because it breaks the flow and grinds the action to a halt.

First of all, I agree with Croal. His critique very closely mirrors my largely negative review of the game. But I think it's a point in favor or my bigger picture argument, as well as the ones made by Leigh and Keith (Leigh and I are co-workers and friends, so I'll use her first name; in the case of Keith, I'm just being presumptious). Why? Because the first person POV, by and large, is the innovation. That's exactly how "Mirror's Edge" "simulated the experience of le parkour." The's the "movement," which Croal (I only know him very casually, and I'm kind of arguing with him, so I'll be more respectful) lists under "mechanics" along with shooting and combat. He appears to think that by criticizing the way the first person POV makes the game difficult to control, he's showing how a mechanic ruins the innovation. But in fact he's engaging with the big idea of the game, just as I argued critics should.

My point, which I'm sure I could have made more clearly and I gather, based on the response on her blog, Leigh agrees with, is that you have to prioritize your mechanics and other elements. A review of "Mirror's Edge" in which the shooting or story is weighed equally with the ways the game handles running and jumping at high speed through an environment is highly problematic. Sure, you can note that combat weak or that the story's generic (I did the latter in my review and didn't even bother with the combat). But trust me, if I found the parkour engaging and exhilirating, my review would have been much more positive, even if those other weaknesses remained. Too many reviews, I'm saying, don't focus enough on the big, new important elements of games. Instead they focus on the same list of attributes they always have.

To move the argument beyond "Mirror's Edge," I've been surprised to see how some (overall positive) reviews critized "Left 4 Dead" because the story is non-existent and a playthrough of the campaigns doesn't take too long. These are important elements in scripted single player games for sure. In a game that explicitly uses Hollywood cliches to immerse players in a world where dynamic enemy A.I. and co-op or competitive gameplay make for nearly endless opportunities for repeat gameplay, they hardly even seems worth mentioning. (For my take on "Left 4 Dead," you can read my new review here)

Of course, critics can argue about priorities. Maybe somebody strongly believes the brevity of the campaign really does matter in "Left 4 Dead." But you've got to make a case. When a game is innovating, you've got to really engage with the fresh mechanics/elements, or else try to demonstrate why they actually don't matter much. In the IGN review of "Mirror's Edge" that Stuart criticized, we've got the following, in order: an introduction, two paragraphs about the story, two paragraphs about the visual design, two paragraphs about parkour movement, one paragraph about combat, one paragraph about "runner vision," one  about the time trials, one about the graphics, one about the sound, and a conclusion. It's basically a checklist, in other words. That's the kidn of thing I find annoying, particularly for an innovative game that doesn't neatly fit the standard criteria.

I highly recommend reading this Guardian post about how videogame reviewers need to value originality a bit more and not focus so much on a checklist of familiar and more quantifiable criteria. I also recommend Leigh's SexyVideogameLand post that pointed me to it. I'm sure one of the reasons I like it is that it somewhat mirrors a recent argument I made here on this blog, though less succinctly and probably less persuasively.

That being said, I think the Guardian's Keith Stuart is dead wrong to use "Mirror's Edge" as his example. There's a game that has one innovative idea (first-person parkour), but it's a fundamentally bad idea that, no matter how well its implemented, just doesn't work very well. Furthermore, it doesn't take into account the many areas in which "Mirror's Edge" not only doesn't innovate, but takes steps backwards, like the generic story and repetitive, under-detailed visual design. But I've made this argument in my review of the game and besides, it doesn't invalidate Stuart's argument.

The bigger point is that I would welcome and love passionate debates about a game like "Mirror's Edge." It's new and exciting and has critics moving in wildly divergent directions and that's an awesome thing. So I think it's bad innovation and Stuart think it's great. Let's make our claims on our reviews, hash it out on our blogs, and invite readers to further the discussion in the comments or on their blogs. That's exactly what I said I wanted in my post from last month and get the feeling it's the kind of thing Stuart would welcome to.

What I think we both dislike is the cowardly critic, the one who focuses on the details and refuses to engage with the big picture ideas of the game. That can lead this kind of idiotic statement from IGN's review of the game, which Stuart highlighted:

The ideas are there for a very cool experience, and I truly hope that a sequel is spawned, but this first attempt falls just a bit short.

On the one hand, it's kind of a dismal acceptance of reality -- we all know there probably will be a sequel and EA/Dice probably will address specific issues. But that's hardly the most interesting thing about "Mirror's Edge," love it or hate it. This game made some very high level choices and those are what reviewers should be engaging.

Contrary to some of the hostile e-mails I got about my review of "LittleBigPlanet" (jeez, imagine if I had given that game an actually bad review), I think disagreement about innovative games is an awesome thing. I can't really recommend that people buy "Mirror's Edge," but based on the fact that some very smart people disagree with me about it, I'd definitely recommend reading more and thinking about it. And if you've played it and have an opinion, joining the discussion. There's probably a lot more to say about it than, ohhh, "Call of Duty: World at War" or "Rock Band 2."

Side note: Leigh also has an awesome piece on Kotaku today about the vast middle ground of people who play games, but dont engage with videogame "culture," such as it is. Perhaps they're Richard Nixon's "silent majority" in the videogame world. I don't actually have anything insightful to add to Leigh's comments (at least for now). I just advise that you read it.

Sorry that I'm not posting as much as I should -- trust me, it's not for lack of ideas.

But I'm currently working on two really big stories that I am sure Cut Scene readers will find really interesting. One is definitely in tomorrow's paper, meaning it goes online in a few hours, and the other will probably go up at the same time. If not, then it'll be in Monday's paper and online by Sunday. So check back in a few hours.

As noted below, Variety critic Leigh Alexander has an interesting post on her SexyVideogameLand blog that uses her uniquely positive review of "Silent Hill: Homecoming" as a jumping off point to rant (her word, not mine) about reviews in general. I wanted to comment on it, so first, here's the important part I'm responding to:

I feel that we -- both reviewers and audiences -- get so hung up on certain minor debates with important titles that we miss their accomplishments. Most of the discussion around Metal Gear Solid 4, for example, hinged on criticizing Hideo Kojima's aggrandizing, overburdened directorial style. And it's a fair criticism, but wouldn't it be also fair to note that the late-game "microwave hallway" scene and the visceral, psychological impact it evokes deserves to be one of the most memorable moments of the year, or that the all-female, emotionally traumatized Beauty & Beast unit is one of the most interesting slates of villains we've seen in the comparatively short history of our medium?

Stuff like that is all there in any game if you want to look -- and it saddens me when I see that what we most want to do is to nitpick, make self-referential comparisons, and grab quick and easy answers on whether something is "good" or "bad," or "better than" or "worse than" what we're used to. Especially when we were all too happy to criticize "what we're used to" in the days when it was still new.

Critics should be critical; I'm not suggesting people should stop raising complaints when something doesn't strike them right. But I definitely feel that we -- again, both reviewers and audiences -- have created a culture wherein we are deliberately searching for things to dislike, issues to take up arms over. And the discussion and debate that's taken place here at SVGL in the last week just about genre definitions and combat design mechanics demonstrates, I think, that there is not always a "right answer," there is not some universal standard-meter that starts at one hundred percent and just keeps dropping for every flaw we find.

Basically, I think Leigh is right. Game critics (broadly speaking) do attribute too much to minor details, especially ones that are already present in games they love, and fail to give credit to bigger picture advances in storytelling and gameplay.

On the other hand, this sentence strikes me as very wrong: "But I definitely feel that we -- again, both reviewers and audiences -- have created a culture wherein we are deliberately searching for things to dislike, issues to take up arms over." If this were true, one would expect videogame reviews to be consistently negative. And that's obviously not the case, right? On the contrary, I would argue that videogame reviews are by and large too positive. I didn't see many critics deliberately searching for things to dislike in "Grand Theft Auto IV" or "Halo 3" or "Mass Effect" or "Super Mario Galaxy" or "Super Smash Bros. Brawl." On the contrary, these AAA, heavily marketed franchises (mostly sequels) with gameplay very similar to what the hardcore audience has seen and loved before got overwhelmingly positive reviews. Sure, many admitted, the story in "Halo 3" was inpenetrable and the the combat in "Mass Effect" was wonky and "Brawl" is barely an advance over the last installment and has major problems with online play, but those were largely brushed aside as minor considerations.

What I think (and this is of course my interpretation; I'm not trying to put words in Leigh's mouth) is that in the case of games that are different in some way (like a new IP, or a sequel from a new developer as in the case of "Silent Hill: Homecoming"), a lot of videogame critics obsess about the small stuff because they don't like the big picture. Here's my best example: "The Simpsons Game." Yes, it had some camera problems and yes the gameplay wasn't too fresh. But it was a parody of videogame and gamer culture and it was (at least as far as most videogames go) flat out hilarious. The gameplay wasn't supposed to original since it was, of course, a satire. People were meant to buy that game to laugh, not to enjoy the innovative controls. And what happened? By and large, critics faulted the game heavily for its camera problems and unoriginal gameplay and didn't give much credit to the humor, the rare attempt to use a videogame to satirize other videogames, or the even rarer successful infusion of the spirit of a popular Hollywood property into its videogame adaptation.

Another example: "Grand Theft Auto IV." Don't get me wrong, I liked this game. And unlike "The Simpsons Game," my positive review was largely in line with most other critics' assessments. But consider what some people said about it. IGN called it an "Oscar-caliber drama." Game Informer wrote, "Grand Theft Auto IV doesn’t just raise the bar for the storied franchise; it completely changes the landscape of gaming. Once you play it, you won’t look at video games the same way again." I'm not saying these guys are wrong. But "GTA IV" had faults, many people now agree. The story gets more ridiculous as it goes on. There's a huge disconnect between the things you can make Nico do and the way he acts and is perceived in the story. If a new game, or a sequel to a less respected franchise, had the same faults and qualities as "GTA IV," do you think most critics would have gone as craz for it? I don't.

We rave about "Gears of War" (great game; love it; play it online all the time) even though it has major wall-sticking issues and come down hard on "Kane and Lynch," which has the same problem. Sure, "Gears" does many things better, but the latter pushes videogame into a darker world of moral consequences than anything else I've seen recently, particularly in its finale. Where's the credit for that?

Basically, I think another way of saying what Leigh's getting at is that many game critics, particularly those who write for avid fans, can obsess over controls or menu design problems in titles that are doing something innovative in tone or theme, but downplay the same types of faults in games that are essentially improvements on the ones they already love.

The result is that we don't value innovation or attempts to do something big and new, like make a funny game that's thematically consistent with an all-time great TV show or create psychological impact through artful storytelling integrated with gameplay, because we obsess on the mechanical problems or the length of the cutscenes. Not that those things don't matter. But they don't matter that much, especially for an artistically immature medium in desperate need of innovation and freshness.

If we re-arranged our priorities, I think we'd have more critics "championing" certain games or developers. In the end, that's what I'm calling for and I think that's what Leigh's implying. In the film world, there were critics who championed the then-radical filmmakers of the '70s who transformed the world of cinema. Wouldn't it be great if there were more videogame critics who championed certain titles or artists, while acknowledging their imperfections, the way Leigh does "Silent Hill: Homecoming" and Hideo Kojima?

Sure it happens, like with "Braid" or the original "Guitar Hero," but even then it's a bizarrely universal championing. Where are the wildly divergent opinons? The champions and haters hashing it out over a controversial developer's new work? The innovative games that get a bunch of 20's and a bunch of 90's on Metacritic?

Of course there will always be those who just want a rundown of gameplay elements and analyses of how good they are compared to what's come before. But it's also wonderful to see critics with completely different orientations as to what matters and what doesn't when reviewing a game. If in the process they pick some fights, get a lot of hate mail, or are even (gasp!) way off of the average Metacritic score, all the better, I say. The videogame audience is maturing, and the result is that there are gamers who want to be challenged by critics to think about what they're playing, or should be playing, in a new way. The more critics who are championing what's new, challenging what we think is good, and engaging with each other and the audiences, the better off the art form of videogames will be.

(PS I very much welcome discussion of this in the comments. But if you end up ranting about how much "Kane and Lynch" sucked or why "Super Smash Bros. Brawl" is pure perfection, you have missed the point and should read the post again instead of commenting.)

Late October is turning out to be an incredibly rich few weeks in the videogame world. I now have in my possession review copies of (what look to be) three of the most exciting games of the year: "LittleBigPlanet," "Dead Space" and "Fable II."(Not to mention "Fallout 3," which I haven't received yet.)

Like most such review copies, all three came with information about the game, tips for reviewers to make sure they don't get stuck and see all the best stuff, etc. But "Fable II" comes with something more unusual -- A letter from Peter Molyneux with a specific request for reviewers:

I have a favour to ask you -- we build this game not only to appeal to gamers like yourself, but to appeal to anybody. So please, please, please, please, pleae find somebody who doesn't play games, watch them play it and see how their world turns out, because I think it's only when you see those differences that the unique experiences comes through.

It's a good suggestion. Then again, I think it's a good suggestion for most games, at least if you're writing for a publication like Variety where a good number of our readers are not avid gamers. On the other hand, I think reviewers (at least for non-core publications) should be able to analyze how a more casual player would experience the game. It's kind of part of the job. And while I sometimes do and probably will in the case of "Fable II" get a casual player to try it out, I can't realistically ask them to play it for 10 or 20 hours in order to "see how their world turns out."

Molyneux also devotes two paragraphs to explaining how great online co-op is going to be, but how we won't be able to review that until after the game comes out, perhaps in the first week, via the promised Xbox Live update. Which brings up an interesting question: Should reviewers wait until online co-op is enabled to run their reviews? Or run a review with the caveat that an important feature isn't yet working? I'm actually not sure of the answer. On the one hand, it seems like readers would be well served by a review that includes an analysis of one of the game's key features. On the other hand, reviews (at least online) can be updated just like games and wouldn't readers be well served by a review that's available when the game comes out, perhaps with an update when that feature is added, rather than having to wait a week or even longer to get a review?

On a related note, I've played most of the campaign of "Fracture" and am ready to review it, but I'm going to wait to see if I can find anybody online to play with tomorrow in multi-player. I haven't been able to find any of my fellow reviewers (or anyone else who has the game) so far. Not to give too much away, but the multi-player would really have to wow me for "Fracture" to get more than an "enhhh" after what I've seen of the campaign.

Update: There's some confusion in the comments here and elsewhere, so let me be clear: Molyneux did not ask anyone to hold their review until after online co-op is added. He just explained that online co-op would be launching via an update soon after launch. I asked the question whether we should wait for that to write a review. The request that he made of reviewers is that we watch a non-experienced gamer play "Fable 2."

Rather than individually respond to the 100-plus comments and several e-mails, I figured I'd just make a few points here that hopefully address some of the points that people who disagreed with me made.

But first, a general point. Some of the disagreements seem to stem from what I'd say is the difference between the general concept of "colonization" and the specific concept of "colonialism." They're pretty distinct as the linked wikipedia references describe. (and let's please not make this a debate about the validity of wikipedia)

Now yes, the game's subtitle is "Colonization." But it does not appear to just be about (quoting Wikipedia) "whenever any one or more species populates a new area." If it involved made-up countries colonizing a made-up land, I certainly wouldn't care.

Because it involves European nations and the "New World," it's clearly about colonization from the roughly 1400s to mid-20th century, which is, as the wikipedia entry says, known as "colonialism." And what's colonialism? "It is essentially a system of direct political, economic and cultural intervention and hegemony by a powerful country in a weaker one... Colonialism was often based on the ethnocentric belief that the morals and values of the colonizer were superior to those of the colonized."

So, if you don't agree with me on that distinction, we probably won't get too far. But for those who at least think there's something to where I'm coming from, I"ll deal with a few specific concerns. The italicized statements are general summaries of points that numerous people made, except where I use quotes. Hopefully they don't appear to be straw men because I tried really hard to be fair.

-It really happened in history! We can't make games about history anymore?

Of course I'm not saying you can't make games about real historical events, even very unpleasant ones. But if you're going to base a game on a series of real historical events, don't you have a responsibility to deal with the major issues of that history? Colonization involved a lot of racism and exploitation and even genocide. "Civ IV: Colonization" puts you in the role of the people doing the colonizing and, unless I'm crazy and every description of the game is off, motives you to "colonize" successfully in order to win. In the year 2008, we shouldn't be uncritically celebrating successful colonization of the "new world" by European nations. If you want to deal with the reality of colonization, that's cool. But it seems to me the bare minimum to achieve that would be including the option to look at events -- or in the case of a game, play -- as the people being colonized. That's not an option here.

-Lots of battle strategy games let you do terrible things

That's great, because real life war involves doing terrible things. But colonization was a very specific historical phenomenom perpetrated (in the modern history this game portrays) by one group of people against others. War has involved pretty much every kind of people fighting every other kind of people in every kind of way. It sucks, but it's reality (perhaps even human nature). Colonization is not just this thing that happens. Especially since the game specifically chooses to show Europeans conquering the "New World," thus firmly putting it in the context of European colonialism, not just a vague concept of people from one nation moving somewhere else.

-Why aren't you outraged that you can play as Nazis in World War II games? Or the South in "Sid Meier's Gettysburg?"

First of all, the fact that those games let you play as both sides is inherently better than the one sided "Colonization," as mentioned above. Second, that's not the correct comparison. The correct comparison, as I said, would be a game where you can only fight as the Confederacy and you're encouraged to preserve the South's values and traditions and not deal with the fact that the main cause you're fighting to is to preserve slavery. Even if you want to simulate it just for the fact of wondering how and whether the South could have won, you should acknowledge somewhere in such a game the reality of what the South was fighting for. Similarly, a game like this should explicitly acknowledge that colonization, as practiced by Europeans in the modern age, was an inherently morally disturbing practice.

-You didn't even play the original Colonization.

True, which is why I focused on my criticism on the new one

-You're just criticizing a marketing blurb.

I'm basing my analysis on that marketing blurb and the description of the game on Firaxis's site. I'm sure both are simplifications of the game. But unless they're inaccurate, I think it's valid to discuss what the game appears to be. Trust me, if there was a movie called "Colonization" described by the makers as portraying "a European nation on their quest to conquer and rule the New World," people would be talking about it and raising concerns. And of course I plan to demo the game at E3 and play it when it comes out and say something more definitive one way or the other based on that.

-"Is this author a member of Critical Mass? Is he a freegan or a vegan? Does he wear v-neck t-shirts without anything over them? Does he have nautical tattoos or swallows? Has he ever kissed members of the same sex not due to any sexual desire or rational urge but for a complete and desperate desire to prove how "progressive" he is? Does he enjoy the Blood Brothers? Because he certainly comes across as a typical indiedolt pushing a shallow view out as if he's a deep thinker."

I had to quote that one at length because it's my favorite comment by far. And yes, sadly, I do sometimes wear v-neck t-shirts without anything over them. Please don't judge me too harshly.

I invited someone from 2K or Firaxis to respond to my post about the problems I have with "Civilization IV: Colonization" and I just received this from Steve Martin, president of developer Firaxis Games:

For seventeen years the Civilization series has given people the opportunity to create their own history of the world. Colonization deals with a specific time in global history, and treats the events of that time with respect and care. As with all previous versions of Civilization, the game does not endorse any particular position or strategy - players can and should make their own moral judgments. Firaxis keeps the player at the center of the game providing them with interesting choices and decisions to make, which has proven to be a fun experience for millions of people around the world.

I literally exclaimed "holy sh*t" out loud when I was reading an e-mail this morning listing the "Games for Windows" coming out this year and I came across this:

“Sid Meier’s Civilization IV: Colonization™” (2K Games). In “Sid Meier’s Civilization IV: Colonization,” players lead one of four European nations on a quest to conquer and rule the New World. Players will be challenged to guide their people from the oppressive motherland, discover the New World, and negotiate, trade and fight with both the natives and other nations as they acquire power and fight for freedom and independence. As a complete reimagining of the 1994 classic, “Colonization” is a total conversion of “Civilization IV^®” that combines the latter’s  addictive “just one more turn” gameplay with all-new graphics and features that add more depth to the franchise. (“Sid Meier’s Civilization IV: Colonization” does not require the original “Civilization IV” product in order to be played.)

Now yes, a simple google search tells me that the game was actually announced two weeks ago and I missed that, so forgive me my tardiness...

But goddamit, am I the only one who think it's morally disturbing to make a game that celebrates COLONIZATION? It's ironic, actually, because just a few months ago a friend sent me a link to some information about the original "Colonization" game from 1994 (pictured left) that this one updates. At first, I thought it had to be a joke, but sure enough, it was real. However, I dismissed it as a relic from a time when neither developers nor players took videogames seriously as media with moral implications.

But the idea that 2K and Firaxis and Sid Meier himself would make and release a game in the year 2008 that is not only about colonization, but celebrates it by having the player control the people doing the colonizing is truly mind boggling.

(A huge caveat up front: Of course, the game hasn't come out yet. So this post is based entirely on that marketing blurb and the description on the website. If the game turns out to be something entirely different than it appears to be, that's fantastic and I'll withdraw everything in here.)

Remember all the debate when Newsweek's N'Gai Croal said of the "Resident Evil 5" trailer with the African zombies that "Even if you are familiar with the franchise, if you are familiar with those images and their historical weight, you look at it and say, 'Man, that’s kind of messed up.'" Well, I agreed with N'Gai on that issue, but in my opinion, a game about colonization is about 100 times more messed up.

And yes, while the description says that you "fight with... the natives," it also claims there is "improved diplomacy." It's entirely possible, even likely, that you can finish the game without killing any Native Americans. And I'm sure there are no options to give the Native Americans smallpox or send them on a death march. But that's irrelevant. A game about colonization that's entirely about controlling the settlers can either force the player to do horrific things or let him avoid doing it and whitewash some of the worst events of human history. Either option is offensive.

Forgive me if this sounds like an obnoxious history lesson, but the lack of outrage over the game does make me feel like I have to explain myself... Throughout history, colonization regularly involved stealing, killing, abuse, deceit, and the exploitation or decimation of native people. Anybody with a shred of a moral concience who studies the history will be appalled. Whether it was British rule of India or slavery in Africa or Aboriginal children kidnapped and taken to Christian schools in Australia or the dislocation of Native Americans in the U.S., there were no positive colonization experiences.

Even more disturbing, though, is that colonization was and is a racist process. The colonizing people ALWAYS thought they were superior by dint of their ethnicity or nationality (often connected to their religious beliefs) and that this somehow justified taking land from native people, exploiting their resources, or simply "educating" them. In modern history, of course, this was always European racism playing itself out as they colonized other parts of the world. But this isn't a "white=bad" argument. It's a "colonization=racism=bad" argument.

So now, in the year 2008, we have a videogame being released by a major public company (2K is part of Take-Two Interactive) in which "players lead one of four European nations on a quest to conquer and rule the New World." The obvious comparison that spring to my mind would be if somebody released a game called "Civilization IV: Confederacy," in which players have to "lead a proud people to defend their values and traditions against their oppressive neighbors to the North." Sure the game might not require you to own and abuse your slaves. But defending the Confederacy is inherently about defending the racist practice of slavery. And "conquer[ing] and rul[ing] the New World" is inherently about engaging in the racist practice of exploiting and abusing native people. (And I'm not even getting into the offensiveness of using uncritically using the phrase "New World" in the marketing material.)

I'm sure you can make a non-offensive videogame about colonization. But it would have to in some way show things from the perspective of the people being colonized and it would have to deal with all the horrible practices that colonization has involved in the world's history. "Civilization IV: Colonization," does not appear to be that game.

And yes, before anyone brings it up, I believe in the First Amendment. Of course 2K has the right to release it. Nobody should stop them from doing so. But I think personally think they shouldn't release it, if it's at all what it appears to be based on the early marketing. And I'm hoping a lot of people agree with me and will say so publicly.

As Leigh Alexander aptly put it in Kotaku on Monday, "It must also be our responsibility to uphold a willingness to examine games, to discuss them civilly, to be willing to see what we're saying about ourselves through play." If there was a major movie coming out that uncritically told the story of Europeans colonizing America, there would be a major furor, and rightfully so. Why should it be any different with a videogame?

(map of European colonization from the 18th century taken from here.)

A couple of interesting links for those who like really thoughtful discussions of games:

-The final installment of N'Gai Croal and Stephen Totilo's "vs. mode" discussion about "GTA IV" got really interesting as they addressed some good reader questions and comments. I was particularly intrigued by this one, which is a much more extreme version of the same thing I said last month:

I also found the story to be a fraudulent bill of goods, between the laughable artifice in some of the NPCs (Michelle after 10 seconds in the car: "I'd really like to get to know you better, Niko...") and every time the writers build up a little good will in terms of your emotional investment in Niko they squander it on something completely out of character in the name of a violent filler mission.

Another commenter calls that problem the "'uncanny valley' in terms of gameplay," which is a pretty apt description of it, I'd say. N'Gai responds that maybe we're putting too much faith in Niko Bellic as a person, but I think Stephen's more right when he wrote "The game left me no choice but to think of Niko as scum. I think the game designers wanted me to feel some sympathy for him. No way." That's how I felt and it's how I feel even more as I keep on playing. And it's a comment I've heard from more and more people.

I feel like with every major videogame (and many movies and books, for that matter), that's a general consensus about a problem the game has that wasn't too apparent at first that develops over time. In the case of "GTA IV," my perception is that the huge conflict between the person the game's writing tells us Niko is and the person we have to make him be in the gameplay is it.

-Regular Variety critic Leigh Alexander has a good piece on Kotaku about fans need to stop responding to critical debates by saying "it's just a game." As she writes:

“It’s only a game” is a phrase that agrees with all of those who ever looked down their noses at the medium, who want to nutshell it as a child’s plaything, who want to promote the kind of prejudice that will keep games from ever achieving widespread respect for everything they are.

When gamers ask whether the imagery of a white man shooting through a vacant-eyed sea of African villagers feels all right to them, we do ourselves a massive disservice when we simply dismiss questions like that, when we attack each other.

Whether or not you like murdering whores in GTA IV, we do ourselves a massive disservice when we fail to use that as a springboard to consider our own, and our community’s attitude toward women.

So it may be our responsibility to defend games, to explain them when they’re misjudged, to support our right to the full spectrum of emotion and experience they offer, both delightful and disturbing.

But questions like MTV Multiplayer's Steven Totilo's (our kind guest editor this week), asking, "Are Games Our Fantasies?" ought not to be brushed under the rug.

She's dead on, and that leads extremely well into a post I'm working on right now (going up shortly) about a new game that I find really morally disturbing. Look for it very soon.