July, 2008

Last week, discerning gamers among us discovered that Obsidian Entertainment’s ‘Alpha Protocol’ Will Have Plenty Of Sex Scenes. Well, hurrah! Who doesn’t want the option to vicariously experience pelvic hyperdrive?

In fact, Obsidian has been fairly eager to emphasise the shaggability factor throughout. And in addition to the beast with two backs, we’ve got “at least one date mission”, and dialogue about shopping in there as well – a veritable menagerie of googlie mooglies. Now this isn’t anything extraordinary, or Hot Coffee 2 (so Jack Thompson and the invisible Parent Army can go back to their cabals), but it’s an interesting PR move – it doesn’t seem to initially match with the image of a company known for its traditional, high fantasy RPGs.

Michael Thorton: Spy by Day, Pimp by Night

The ‘word on the street’ these days is that the games industry is-a changing. As games are beginning to reach a wider market, and become a 'mainstream' entertainment media, the kind of games we make, the public perception of games and the culture is changing. The basement nerds are dead: long live the Wii family – it’s the future, and we can’t stop it. I mean, look at them. Their IKEA living room and enthusiastic father figures cannot be stopped. Look how happy they are, and all the character is doing is running down a path.

Exhibit A: Look, that kid on the screen is walking! Walking!

This corner of the Alley is under construction. You see wagons full of wood and stone and various holes and cracks on the street floor. A fat, corpulent labourer sits slouched nearby, coated in dust. As you approach, he cocks his head and blurts out, "You won't find much here." He raises a particularly hairy hand, and carelessly waves at the general area. "Might be ready soon, but who knows? Best to come back later, I should think."

First posts, like first pages (and first takes), are always horrible. They are what happen when great fantabulous ideas first pop out. You think they’re going to be great and wonderful when they’re in there and you can’t see them, and you feed them good food and go to yoga classes and everything, but then they pop out and they’re just blobby fats covered in blood, and you just want to quit right then and there.

But I persevered through all that, and bring to you, the world (two people and googlebot), The Alley.

This place is, in short, a blog/site about the world of video games. But not in the sense of talking about why this game is cool/not cool/should die in a fire. This site will be a soapbox for commentary and analysis on video game culture, industry and society. That means subjects like video game PR/marketing: the (for some) notorious area of video game journalism: the kind of trends we see in game development: indie/fan productions: game communities. As both personal and academic an interest, hopefully it’ll give you something to think about – without going down the ‘wannabe intellectual with a thesaurus’ route.

For these early, toddler days, there should be something new every day or couple of days. We may see a small interview with a certain industry man (roll out the carpet) soon. And ultimately, I’d love to hear from, and ask questions to, all kinds of people – not just the devs and whatnot we normally hear about. What about those guys that work in production, or localisation? What about game journos themselves? What about the guys that camp out all night for a PS3/360/Wii/Phantom(heh)? We will see if, eventually, the Alley grows past the bleeding baby stage. Until then, it’s just me, my blanket and googlebot, folks.