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© Copyright 2011, EGM Media, LLC, all rights reserved. ELECTRONIC GAMING MONTHLY (ISSN #1058-918X) is published monthly by EC add $10.00 US. International orders outside US and Canada, please add $30 per year for surface mail, US funds

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THE EGM INTERVIEW

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

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ELECTRONI i

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PUBLISHER AND FOUNDER

Steve B. Harris

EDITORIAL

EXECUTIVE EDITOR, EGM: Brady Fiechter EXECUTIVE EDITOR, EGMIi]: Andrew Pfister SENIOR EDITOR, EGMI[i): Patrick Klepek CONTENT EDITOR: Marc Camron PREVIEWS EDITOR: Paul Semel

REVIEWS EDITOR: Sterling McGarvey CONTRIBUTORS: Dan “Shoe” Hsu, Dernian

inder copyrights reserved herein, no part of this publication may be reproc , stored in, « notice of EGM Media, LLC, Electronic Gaming Monthly, EGMNOW, EGM, and EGMi: The I

DONALD & GEREMY MUSTARD

The leaders of Chair Entertainment talk of growing

Linn, Aaron Thomas, Brett Bates, Aaron Boulding, James DeRosa, Harold

Goldberg, Mike Griffin, Alexandra Hall,

Andrew Hayward, Brandon Justice, Gus

PRESS START GAMING HABITS GONE

TOO FAR

up as brothers and dreaming of the day they'd innit = THE RISE OF SOCIAL GAMING P g y Any Mastrapa, Mike Minotti, Alejandro Quan

create the games they once played... Marri’ Taemine Reb Adem Bosenh se cemsaenaels adrid, Jasmine Rea,Adam Rosenberg,

Hk ABPLNVERTE OF Rebecca Swanner, David Wolinsky, Omar

COST VS. VALUE Yusuf

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THE HUGELY ANTICIPATED FIRST-PERSON 1g

SROUTER ENTERS THE EPIC GATILE FOR

THE EGM HOT LIST FEATURES WRITERS: Anthony John FEATURES Agnello, Kyle Orland, Tom Russo, Evan Shamoon, David Thomas, Michael Thomsen iPhone Editors: Arnold Kim, Eli Hodapp,

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THE EGM INTERVIEW COVER STORY LAUNCH REPORT: 3DS

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electronic gaming monthly 24?.0

EDITORIAL

A WHOLE NEW WORLD ON THE HORIZON

WWW-egmnow-com

oward the end of my conversa- tion with Shadow Complex and Infinity Blade creators Donald and Geremy Mustard for the EGM Interview, we started talking about our eternal love for the download space, and how games like Pac-Man Champion- ship Edition and Geometry Wars come along and remind us of how much fun it is to engage in basic, pure, mechanics- driven gaming experiences again. Games that take you back to the days before the epic, cinematic, story-driven worlds like Assassin’s Creed or Uncharted were even possible to make. It’s a big deal that | can power up my PlayStation 3 and play a smaller-scale,

classically-spun game like Pac-Man CE, and without getting off the couch switch over to an Uncharted and get swept away in a world of fantasy that is truly beautiful at its best moments. It’s exciting for me to have Uncharted 3 as our cover feature, exciting as a gamer looking for the next step in the evolution of our medium. | look at Uncharted 2—for all the ways it can

be so much better—as one of the most important examples of where games are heading. We need to continue to have games like Pac-Man, and we will, but it’s the Uncharteds of our gaming universe that are pushing us forward.

When | asked Donald and Geremy if they felt capable of even making one of these purely mechanics-driven games like a Pac-Man, |’m glad they didn’t take it as an insult and throw me out of their office! They got what | was reaching for.

“That’s just not where our passion is. We’ve certainly talked about game ideas that would be a purely Pac-Man-esque experience, but you can’t give your all to it if you’re not fully passionate about it. Infinity Blade is about as close as we'll probably ever get to that pure gaming

experience.”

“| think if we made Pac-Man,” adds Geremy, “it would have to be wrapped in a giant universe. It’s just part of us.”

’ll always be playing fun games—I’m obsessed with the new NBA Jam—but it’s the spirit and emotion behind those universes Geremy and Donald speak of that captivate me. Living in these virtual worlds and playing out their fiction is the real power | see in games. We’re not even close to achieving full potential. It’s another reason I’m excited to see what Naughty Dog has learned and where they take Uncharted 3.

When | was at their studios for our cov- er story visit, the conversation spanned all sorts of topics, but it was the theory of architecture and its place in a game like Uncharted 3 that fired my imagination.

“When elements like columns and windows repeat on the front of a build- ing, they set up a pattern—a kind of ‘visual rhythm’ —as your eye plays them,” explains the game’s co-lead designer Richard Lemarchand. “Architects use this interplay between different repeating elements to create varied kinds of visual rhythm, which in turn creates different im- pressions or moods for the person looking at or moving through the building.”

Lemarchand goes on to point out how you can imagine this architectural tool carving out the gaming world you’re moving through. By employing various visual cues and beats within the design of a setpiece, you can “evoke different emotions, from solemnity to wonder to expressions of modesty or power. Archi- tects plan these rhythms very deliberately, and it made me think about game design and level layout in new ways.”

Naughty Dog speaks passionately about building their own worlds, and feeding those worlds with narrative and character. My expectations are pretty sky high for Uncharted 3. Maybe unrealisti- cally so, but that’s part of the fun of being a gamer and watching the bar continually

rise. EJ

LOGIN

HAS GAMING BECOME TOO REAL?

HLNOW S3HL 40 Y3SLL3T

WWwW-egmnow-com

| am serious about gaming. | fell in love with videogames when | first played Atari’s Yar’s Revenge at age five. This letter is very important to me—it’s is the first time I’ve written to a magazine—| am from Mexico and | heard something about the governor of Juarez not being very happy about the release of Ubisoft’s Call of Juarez: The Cartel. The state is actually trying to ban the game and | wanted to share my opinion on this, specially as a Mexican gamer.

| think that people from Juarez, includ- ing the governor, should back off and concentrate on REAL threats. Crime will not stop because they’re trying to ban a videogame. |’m sorry, but I’m not about to stop playing a game just because of their prejudice. They have the right to stay away and express their opinion if they don’t like the game. | believe in freedom of speech and it’s their right to express their disgust, but not at the expense of my right to watch an action film or play a shooter. It is MY RIGHT. You really want to see blood, violence, and death? Turn on the television and watch the news.

Parents should raise their kids, not the television, and they should check the ESRB rating of a game before buying it. They should become RESPONSIBLE. So I’m all against banning the game. | played Ubisoft’s Ghost Recon 1&2 and it’s fright- ening to see soldiers throwing grenades around, but then again [gaming is] just fiction. It’s not about killing Mexicans in Red Dead, Americans in GTA IV or de- stroying Shanghai in Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days. It’s gaming. And if we start ban- ning games because they make us feel uncomfortable, then | guess we'll have to stop making movies and reporting news altogether? This is the first part of my letter, it might not be a letter of the month or anything but | would love to share my thoughts with all my gamer brothers and sisters. — Christian Leon

...AND A DISSENTING VIEW

| just received the March issue of EGM in my mailbox and must say I’m disap- pointed by your choice of cover story. Do we really need to desensitize the world

to the very real challenges going on along the southern border of the US by turning those events into fodder for a game? Seriously, is this really something that we needed to make a game about?

Ubisoft would have been better served if Techland had focused on zombies instead of drug lords. Personally, | have no interest in buying another Call of Juarez game and think they made a big mistake in taking the series out of its old west setting. The success of Red Dead Redemption makes this move even more mystifying. - CH Lowry

EGM_Response: Thanks to everyone who weighed in on the issue of the very real violence along the border between the US and Mexico and whether our Call of Juarez: The Cartel cover story was warranted. It created a lot of dis- cussion, including stories on Fox News as well as the aforementioned call for the game to be banned by politicians on both sides of the border.

While it’s ultimately up to each per- son or parent buying games to make their own purchasing decisions, the creative and technological advantages that the industry has made in the past decade shouldn’t be held against it. To listen to some legislators and members

of the media discuss the issue, you’d think the gaming audience was com- prised primarily of ten-year-olds. As the industry has matured, so have the consumers that play games (according to the Entertainment Software As- sociation, the gaming industry’s trade organization tasked with following such things, the average age of today’s gamer is now 34). It is understand- able that an older demographic would crave, if not demand, experiences that become more adult as they do.

The comparisons with other media are too obvious to pass up and the hypocrisy of gaming detractors impos- sible to ignore. Imagine the outcry that would result from government action to curtail the freedoms of expression enjoyed by film or literature.

People offended by the adult themes of games like Call of Juarez: The Cartel should spend their gaming dollars elsewhere. And they should applaud the fact that they have the right to make that decision— instead of having it made for them by a politician.

THE DOWNSIDE OF XBOX DLC Here is a scenario some of you might be familiar with:

You have just brought home your shiny

BACKGROUND

NOISI=

new Xbox360 Slim. This is a very exciting moment! The first thing to do is transfer

the data from your old 360 console to your new Slim’s hard drive.

Ouch! When you go to play your favorite game, you discover that Plants vs Zombies is no longer located on your profile, nor is all of your expensive DLC that you purchased from Xbox Live. This is because you are essentially renting your content from Microsoft when you buy DLC.

You CAN re-download all of your DLC, but unfortunately, since you cannot share the DLC between consoles, the DLC you purchased for your seven year old son’s Transformers game will not stay on the console you are giving to him even when you get the DLC switched. You will have to buy it again if the poor little tyke wants his extra autobots and multiplayer modes. But at least your DLC is once again yours, though the [transfer] tool can only be used once per year.

| think it is high time that Microsoft re- viewed this issue. There is no reason that my DLC should not play on any console | attach my hard drive to, most especially the ones that | own. | bought it—it should be mine. The fact that it truly is not is something more gamers should voice their opinions about. —- Ron Sharkey

EGM_Response: Change is always diffi- cult and, when it comes to technology, often painful as you described. Given the growing prevalence, even neces- sity, of some DLC, however, the need for such collateral content to remain accessible in a cloud environment is becoming vitally important. One could give console makers a pass given how the consumer demand for DLC and downloadable content has exploded, but given the emphasis placed on this market a better solution needs to be provided.

HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE

Patrick Klepek mentioned at least twice in the “The Gamification of Education” article that he learned all about “ancient Rome” from the Assassin’s Creed games. Okay, AC2 and AC:B are set in and around Rome, but when you refer to “ancient Rome,” most people are talking about the Rome of Antiquity, not the Renaissance, which is the actual time setting of the two latter games in the

Assembling the May issue of EGM is always particularly challenging considering it starts to come together on a short month wedged in between must attend shows DICE and PAX East. Toss in a swell case of the geek flu that was handed out with the Prototype T-shirts at GDC and you have all the ingredients for an entertaining deadline experience. Not quite 400 pages in two weeks classic EGM kind of fun, but fun nonetheless. Now, time to go bleach the brain and start over...

series. | wonder if Mr. Klepek knows the difference. — Grant Wagner

EGM_ Response: Of course Patrick knows the difference. He also knows that the best way to score with a princess is to consume large quantities of fungus and that painting your car is the quickest way to elude a high-speed pursuit with the cops.

NINTENDON’T GO THERE

| just received the April 2011 Issue of EGM, but | have only one compiaint: Where's Nintendo? Yeah, | know you guys had an article about the 3DS region lock, and a few blurbs here and there, but | find that Nintendo has been overshadowed by the Xbox and PS3, which | don’t have. | purposely let my Gamestop membership expire just to get away from the biased nature of Game Informer and their preju- dice against Nintendo. | stopped watching X-Play for the same reason. Do you guys really want to go that route? Aren’t you better? If not, you’re losing subscribers to other magazines. — Patrick Finnigan

EGM_ Response: We don’t hate Nin- tendo, Patrick—honest. We do our best to focus attention on high-profile games, regardless of system, as well as those titles that we believe deserve special attention. In this issue you'll find a detailed overview of the 3DS and many of the launch titles now out and you can expect to see more coverage on this system in the months ahead

OUR MONTHLY iPAD APP’ QUESTION...

| read EGMi and enjoy the extra cover- age, but | Know I’m not the only one who really wants to read it on the iPad. You’ve promised a couple of times that it should be ready by now but so far all | find is a Kane & Lynch 2 magazine. If the EGM app is anything like the K&L2 app | know I'll be happy but what’s the hold-up? —Buster P.

EGM_ Response: We've been hard at work creating an interactive digital magazine platform for EGM that allows us to create and distribute digital ver- sions of both EGM and EGMi—with all the embedded video, audio, and other

features we know you want on the iPad.

If it’s not available by the time you read this you can check out www.screenpa- permedia.com for updates! &

371,326

Units of 3DS sold in the 48 hours after the new handheld

launched in Japan

April 2011

The point at which GameStop will offi- cially stop accepting GameBoy Advance hardware and/or

games

9% ~ 10%

Percent of space reserved on NGP cartridges for re- writable memory to store content such as game saves and DLC.

150MB

amount of space Sony now gives to PlayStation Plus subscribers for backing up game saves to the “cloud”

$60

The cost to get your Xbox Avatar made into a Figureprints statue, one of three new custom products based on Microsoft's virtual

characters.

$100,000

the cost of a camera that Professor Nikolaos Papaniko- lopoulos says can be replaced by the $150 Kinect in helping to diagnose mental disorders such as OCD and ADD

LOGIN

Shout

Holy crap EGM—! didn’t real- ize you were back! | flipped on the tube ten minutes ago and watched Jimmy Fallon giving a shout out to my all-time favorite gaming mag on national televi- sion! Welcome back from the dead, zombie EGM, you were sorely missed!

- James Raye

A NOTE FROM THE EDITORS:

It was with great sadness we watched the tragic events that recently unfold in Japan. For a hobby that owes so much of its spirit and creativity to a country so rich in both, it was heartening to see the resilience of a nation in the immediate aftermath of the disaster. As many of you may remember, EGM was originally produced by Sendai Publications in the 80s and 90s and that com- pany’s namesake city endured a direct hit from the tsunami that followed the March 11 earth- quake. We urge all EGM readers to visit the charitable organization of their choice to help our friends in Japan as they recover from this disaster.

electronic

gaming monthly 247.0

THE PROBLEM WITH PROBLEM GAMING

HAVE YOUR GAMING HABITS GONE TOO FAR?

by KYLE ORLAND

wWwWW-eegmnow-com

Is there such a thing as too much time spent playing videogames? Many dedicated gamers would doubtlessly say “no,” but extreme anecdotal evidence of players dying after multi-day gaming binges offers some powerful arguments to the contrary. Just look at the most recent example last

month in China, when an obsessed player reportedly passed out at a Net café and died after 3 straight days of marathon sessions. Now, scientists are beginning

to get a better handle on what is being referred to as pathological or “problem

gaming” and how it may relate to other psychological issues.

Unlike the stronger (and more loaded) term “gaming addiction,” problem gam- ing isn’t necessarily characterized by an overwhelming need to escape to virtual worlds, or even by an inordinate amount of play. Rather, problem gaming is simply play that causes stress or dysfunction in the player’s daily life. So someone who plays World of Warcraft for 40 hours a week isn’t a problem gamer unless that gaming time leads to things like issues sleeping, worsened performance at

school or work, or a deterioration of real- world relationships.

Multiple studies have estimated that anywhere from 8 to 12 percent of people who play games could be classified as some degree of pathological under this definition. So is there something inherent to videogames that causes these prob- lems? Or is problem gaming merely an outgrowth of other personality problems?

A recent study published in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking was the latest to try to answer that question. Researchers from Eastern

Michigan University took a group of just over 200 college students and surveyed the extent gaming had caused problems in their lives. They also measured the students’ time-management skills and levels of ADHD symptoms, to see if these problems were more common among problem gamers.

The results found a surprising split between men and women in these asso- Ciations. For men, those with weak time- management skills were more likely to see problems stemming from time spent play- ing games. For women, however, ADHD symptoms better predicted whether game playing negatively impacted other aspects of their lives, regardless of their time- management skills.

“These findings suggest that interven- tions to address problematic play may need to vary as a function of gender,” the researchers wrote. “Specifically, for men, time-management training may help alleviate problematic play, but for women, reducing ADHD symptoms may be more effective.”

Of course, it’s hard to tell from a study like this whether problem gaming is the result of these outside problems or actually the cause. To determine that, we need a longer-term study, like the one lowa State University’s Dr. Douglas Gentile and his colleagues recently published in the journal Pediatrics.

Gentile’s study tracked over 3,000 Singaporean students over a period of two years, looking for self-reported symptoms of pathological gaming as well as other traits like impulsiveness, social competence, emotional regulation and school performance. Gentile focused especially on two groups— those whose gaming became more pathological over the two years, and those who became less pathological over that time—to see if the incidence of other problems changed along with gaming problems.

The results don’t paint a great picture

PRESS START

for pathological gamers. While some so- cial problems —like reclusiveness— tended to show up before students became problem gamers, many other problems began to worsen only after the gaming problems started.

“The relationships between pathologi- cal gaming and other variables are not as simple as first imagined,” Gentile writes. “For example, although impulsivity is a risk factor for becoming a pathological gamer, impulsivity worsens after a youth becomes a pathological gamer. Further- more, depression, anxiety, and social phobias worsen after a youth becomes a pathological gamer and improves if an individual stops being a pathological gamer.”

The Entertainment Software Associa- tion was not happy with this finding, to say the least. The trade group took the unusual step of criticizing the study and its authors publicly before it was even published, calling the effects shown “mainly trivial” and attacking the definition of pathological gaming as “neither scien- tifically nor medically accepted.”

“We commend credible, independent, and verifiable research about computer and videogames. However, this research is just more of the same questionable findings by the same author in his cam- paign against videogames,” says Richard Taylor, ESA senior vice president for com- munications and industry affairs.

Gentile defends himself, pointing out that he’s also authored studies show- ing the more positive effects of gaming, such as increased hand-eye coordination among laparoscopic surgeons.

“My position is and always has been that games are powerful, and that they can have many effects,” he says. “Some effects are beneficial, others can be harmful. The various effects depend upon many different features, upon amount of time spent with the games, and possibly upon characteristics of the player. By being aware of both the potential benefits and potential problems, families can

“MY POSITION IS AND ALWAYS HAS BEEN THAT GAMES ARE POWERFUL, AND THAT THEY CAN HAVE MANY EFFECTS.”

maximize the benefits while minimizing the harms.”

It's a debate that seems unlikely to be settled anytime soon, and all parties seem to agree that more research is needed to clarify the extent of problem gaming and what can be done about it. What the sci- ence is making increasingly clear, though,

is that gaming isn’t always harmless fun. For some players, in fact, it can actually turn out to be harmful.

WHAT WE NEED IS MORE GAMING

While there are plenty of studies showing the poten-

tial negative effects of too much gaming, at least one researcher is arguing vociferously that what we actually need is much more gaming, in aggregate, to solve some of the world’s largest problems.

Jane McGonigal, director of game research and development at The Institute of the Future and author of the book Reality is Broken, argues that we as a species should be playing eight times as many games as we are now—up to 21 billion hours annually—”if we want to solve problems like hunger, poverty, climate change, global conflict, and obesity.”

How can playing games help with these problems? Gamers, McGonigal argues, are used to the idea of “epic wins,” the kind of achievements where they had “no idea it was even possible until you achieved it.” By mak- ing the real-world more game-like, we can show these “super-empowered hopeful individuals” that they’re just as Capable of changing the real world as the virtual worid, she says.

What’s more, McGonigal cites research showing that gamers are more likely to help people in the real world, less likely to have nightmares, and more likely to feel good about themselves after controlling a powerful avatar, proving that the side effects of gameplay aren’t entirely negative.

“Games are absolutely not escapist,” she says. “We are not escaping our real lives when we play them, we are powering up our own lives.”

electronic gaming monthly 24?.-0

PRESS START

TIME CAASULE on

Rak= Samntnbe + PS pars PSY rebgay Benemtast+

YEARS AGO MAY 2001

METHOID FOR THE GAMECUBE;

lf you loved Metroid Prime, the hallmark Nintendo series’ first foray into FPS-land, you might be surprised to learn that Shigeru Miyamoto hated it at first. In our feature on the game, we revealed that the company routinely came down to “rip on most of [Retro Studios’] games,” with an unnamed employee describing these sessions as “the Emperor visiting the Death Star.” Well, uncomfortable as they might have been, the Prime series was far more successful than Other M. As Samus herself said in that game, “confession time,” there probably isn’t a Metroid fan around who prefers the latest Metroid installment to the GameCube ones.

THE ULTIMATE COMBO? VATUA RGHTER 4

YEARS AGO MAY 1991

Flipping through all these old dusty issues from our warehouse almost always unveils a treasure trove of forgotten titles and glowing press of titles today so ubiquitous they seem as omnipresent as air. (For example, it’s kinda funny to see such a long expose on Sonic...but a little less so with our preview of American Gladiators.) This month, we were reminded of little- known Game Boy sequels to cult NES hits Solomon’s Key and Snake Rattle ’n’ Roll—Solomon’s Club and Sneaky Sneaks respectively. But what really made us feel old was reading about the Lone Ranger game for the NES, due for release that coming summer. Summer is traditionally a pretty dry time for games, but making a NES game out of the Lone Ranger is a bit like making an Atari game about Calvin Coolidge.

YEARS AGO MAY 1981

Details are sketchy on when the original Donkey Kong hit arcades, but our research suggests that one of its most popular knock-off “homages,” Crazy Kong, was released this month in time to scoop up all those hot summer quarters. (It’s also known as Monkey Donkey.) You’d have to be Steve Wiebe to pinpoint all the minute differences, but one of our favorites is the fact that when “Mario” jumps he lets out a mighty “hii-yah!” Even a cursory glance of game footage on YouTube reveals that Crazy Kong is, somehow, even tougher than the game it’s based on. That’s probably due to how crummy the collision detection is here: We saw Mario walk over pits without jumping, but also getting walloped by fireballs that were nowhere near him. Regardiess, it’s a good thing Donkey Kong prevailed with its fans—could you imagine hearing the faux- comedic phrase “It’s on like Monkey Donkey”?

WWW-egmnow-Ccom

A SOCIAL NETWORK

OF ONE’S OWN

THE NATURE OF GAMING IS CHANGING AS WE FIND

NEW WAYS TO CONNECT

ame designers have become massively preoccupied with social networks over the last several years, and the fast rise of Facebook shook the fundaments of game design. Yet social networks have been a part of gaming for years. Groups such as clans, guilds, and message board communities all show that social connection is a historical, indispensable part of all gaming, digital or otherwise. Is this new migration towards social net- works impoverishing the game industry or widening it, revealing something that had always been there?

“We have different expectations for

how we treat our friends on gaming systems versus other social networking sites,” says Ben Medler, a PhD candidate studying digital media at Georgia Institute of Technology. “Game networks allow you to connect to random people because you're all doing the same activity, where- as Facebook is much more broad.”

On Facebook, people tend to behave defensively when encountering strangers, ignoring requests from people without an immediate connection to their social circle. Games offer the opposite experi- ence, and have throughout history.

“Offline we immediately assess other people and are hardwired to assess them as like us or unlike us,” says Dmitri Williams, associate professor at USC’s Annenberg Schoo! for Communication. “It’s really all about genes. You recognize someone instinctively and say, ‘that person's a little safer,’ as opposed to ‘that person’s unlike me, they could be dangerous.’”

Throughout history games have al- lowed people to role-play, act out, and transgress social taboo, from Greco-Ro- man wrestling to French flirtation games in the 17th and 18th centuries. Networks like Facebook and LinkedIn provide inter- actions that reinforce our tendencies to be mistrustful. The proliferation of social networks on game consoles offers a relief from this skepticism.

By MICHAEL THOMSEN

In a game setting, the rules enforce a uniformity of behavior that dramati- cally lessens the uncertainty of another person’s intentions and makes it easier to accept them in one’s own network. The goal is always clear and people not work- ing towards the goal are much easier to spot. In Facebook you have to interpret to a much greater degree, inferring motiva- tion, tone, and expected outcome—there are no obvious rules.

Having social networks on game consoles is also changing the way we look at consoles themselves. “It places games on a more level playing field with films, television, other videos, and so on,” say Mia Consalvo, author of Cheating: Gaining Advantage in Videogames and associate professor at Ohio University’s School of Telecommunications.

Because some consoles no longer boot directly into a game but first run users through an OS menu where they can stream movies and music, chat with friends, browse the Internet, and download demos, the nature of games is changing to embrace the new connec- tivity. Just consider the proliferation of game-expanding downloadable content. “Super Mario never changes from its origi- nal cartridge, but Dragon Age on the 360 is endlessly updateable,” says Consalvo.

Console games are still experiment- ing with DLC, digital distribution, and incorporating player-made content. But some PC games have been very open to letting their users reshape the nature of the experience. When World of Warcraft launched in 2004 it was a much simpler and less social experience than it is today. Soon fans began filling in the social gaps with websites like wowhead.com, an online database that catalogs every item, quest, weapon, and character class in the game.

Blizzard hadn't originally wanted the game to be viewed through a purely ency- clopedic lens, but the number of players who wanted to play for pure achievement grew. Blizzard responded by creating

“WE HAVE DIFFERENT EXPECTATIONS FOR HOW WE TREAT OUR FRIENDS ON GAMING SYSTEMS VERSUS OTHER SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES.”

the WoW Armory—which stores players’ avatars —and linking back to to database sites like Wowhead.

On consoles, LittleBigPlanet 2, Halo: Reach (via Forge Mode), and Blast Works have already begun to allow players to affect their experiences. For Portal 2 Valve promises “more Steam features and functionality in DLC and future content releases.”

The addition of social layers to vid- eogame design adds the difficulty of ac- counting for preferences among different social groups. Just as social habits differ across countries and cultures, so too do gameplay habits—from the importance placed on aggregated single-player achievements to players sharing user- generated content.

“Think about Danish differences in the way they use Facebook— it’s a small country, people live very close to each other, even the odds of running into someone you know on the street are very

sor at IT University of Copenhagen’s Center for Computer Games Research. “That changes the way in which people view social media and social networks here. It’s a much more neighborhood-

GAMING’S GREATS GO SOCIAL

high,” says Rilla Khaled, assistant profes-

village feel.”

In Denmark people tend to be much more open to strangers in their Facebook networks, but much more selective in

playing games with strangers. Playing games !s a private entertainment space that offers relief from the friendly accep- tance one finds in normal social settings. In America the opposite often seems to be the norm. Skepticism defines normal social interactions, but anonymous play sessions offer a break from the socia separation.

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Talking about social games and Face- book may be the easiest way to encap- sulate all of these changes. But games have always been about social networks, requiring two or more players to connect with one another. As game players know, t's not the connection that matters most but the nature of the rules. Now that Xbox 3, Wii, PS3, Nintendo 3DS, PSP, NGP, and iPhone a

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think about games as separate from the people who play them.

Facebook games are sometimes thought to be the work of outsiders who have no understanding of video game history. In many cases the opposite is true. Some of the biggest names in PC game design have migrated to social games in recent years.

John Romero, the man behind DOOM and Quake, recently designed the Facebook title Ravenwood Fair, a settler game that has over 10 million players a month. Romero has also set up a new studio, Loot Drop, with a deal to make more social games for publisher RockYou.

Zynga has also attracted a number of renowned game designers from gaming's early generations. Brian Reynolds, who worked on Civilization Il and Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri joined the company

in 2009. He is Zynga's chief game designer and helped bring the

hit FrontierVille to Facebook.

Bruce Shelley is also an important designer at Zynga and helped create the Facebook sensation FarmVille. Shelley was previously a revered PC designer who worked on Railroad Tycoon, Civiliza- tion, and the Age of Empires series.

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TECHLAND’S ASSOCIATE PRODUCER MACIEJ BINKOWSKI TALKS ABOUT THEIR ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE DEAD ISLAND...

George Romero's zombie movies have always been mentioned as an impor-

tant influence. Now that Dead Island is approaching the homestretch, are you proud of certain design or presentation elements that really celebrate that classic Hollywood zombie-survival experience? BINKOWSKI: We're very proud and happy to be able to make our vision come to life. Naturally the entire zombie genre owes Romero a debt of gratitude and we also draw inspiration from some of the iconic zombie encounters he created. Still it’s important to note that Dead Island isn’t a “wacky” game. We're treating the subject as seriously as its nature allows us to. This means that we cannot rely on the stupid- ity and carelessness which dooms so many characters in the classic zombie flicks, This

time we have live gamers controlling the

survivors. They won't walk into obvious traps or fall for any of those annoying horror clichés which Pablo Francisco sum- marized with his classic line, “I'm gonna get naked and get a shower.’ So while we want to keep some of the unreal contrasts from the legendary zombie films, we're faced with smart, adaptive, badass protagonists and this completely changes the equation.