Susan Senator, writing for Cognoscenti, on “Webster Goomez” the stuffed Goomba:

A day or so later, Ben remarked that Webster was ‘kind of adorable.’

Adorable? Did I hear that right? Never had such a word come out of Ben before. I quickly recovered my cool and tried not to make too big a deal out of it, so as not to embarrass him. But inside, I cradled that word, longed to hear it again, hoping I hadn’t imagined it. But no, this was for real. A few days later, I heard Ben describing a different character as ‘cute.’

Cute :)

Howard Tsao of Muse Games on publishing Guns of Icarus Online, blogging on Gamasutra:

Part of our embodiment of steampunk was to infuse it with influences from cultures of the world. In their attempt to exploit this, the publisher then asked for “stereotypes” of different cultures. Reason? They claimed that stereotypes are more easily distinguishable. We thought this was flirting with racism, but once again, the publisher claimed to know better. The art style that we settled on was more in the spirit of Miyasaki or early Final Fantasy games. That is not inherently a bad thing; it’s just not what we wanted or agreed to. We decided to make a compromise to keep the relationship going.

With the project hanging in the balance, teetering on collapse, I made the trip to Taiwan. After a day of sitting in a claustrophobic meeting room, it came down to either accept an extended prototype with the lower pay or be terminated. We decided to terminate and get out of the contract and the relationship. Then, I got a phone call from the publisher’s CTO. On the phone, he posed this question: ‘If you wanted to go through with termination, what do you think about us copying the game?’

Hooked after part 1. Looking forward to parts 2 thru 5.

Comments from Darrell Rodriguez, CEO of Trendy Entertainment, as they appear on GamesIndustry International:

Currently, we are not profitable, but we have products in the pipeline to get us there. We are in between launches, so our cash flow is a concern. We are taking the necessary steps to fix this to ensure Dungeon Defenders II gets out the door at the great quality people have come to expect. We’re at a critical time where execution and performance is essential to our ongoing success.

…

We are doing this very unpleasant action with respect, empathy and compassion in consideration of the great work that these people have contributed to Trendy.

…

As discussed last time, a lot of the culture had already shifted upon my arrival. I’m working closely with devs and leads to create more openness and better communication at all levels of the company. Cultural change does not happen overnight, but we have ongoing efforts to work on better cross-departmental communication, getting the leads directly involved in product planning and holding consistent company wide meetings to ensure we are all on the same page. There’s a long way to go, but we’re on our way

Rodriguez’s statements on culture change are well met. Healthy company culture is key and appears to be a hot topic in light of the layoff crisis plaguing development studios as of late. My thoughts to those affected. Layoff list updated.

Excerpt from “Three Strikes, You Shout” by Philip Michaels:

The people who read Moneyball as teenagers and had enough talent to play baseball are just coming into their own as Major Leaguers. The ones who became sportswriters are working their way up the chain in journalism, where they’ll eventually supplant the columnists who see advanced stats as something to be derided instead of understood. And the rest, the vast majority who simply remain fans of the game, will wonder why anyone ever argued about something so obvious.

‘The world is run by people of a certain age,’ [Rany] Jazayerli said in his podcast. ‘And once people who grew up with these principles reach a point in their life where they are naturally in positions of influence, that’s when you’ll start to see changes made.’

My thoughts on the importance of video games and the influence on those that play to a tee.

Jagger Gravning, Kill Screen:

While there is no modern Hays Code equivalent in contemporary American video games (the ESRB rates but does not censor) the manner that LGBT characters are being introduced to a broader audience in major games is through this same blowback-wary method of diligent self-policing. The writers allow space for an audience member to overlook or deny the homosexuality of a particular character if that’s the way they would prefer to see things.

Game writers like Rhianna Pratchett, who has stated that part of her would have loved Lara Croft to be gay, are instead artfully presenting these characters in a manner that is more aesthetically palatable to players (and likely their concerned parents) who might find explicit same-sex love too lurid or off-putting a subject to handle with frankness in a video game.

Gravning continues:

For many years, if a film did focus on a black character, the story would generally be about that character’s experience being black, like The Jackie Robinson Story or Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and many blacksploitation films. It took time for producers, and perhaps audiences, to realize there could be stories involving non-white characters that didn’t have to revolve around their ethnicity.

I wish I had read this prior to Harper’s post. A brilliant contextualization of today’s human rights issues displayed on a canvas of modern media; ethnic tip-toeing in early 20th century filmmaking vs. LGBT tip-toeing in early 21st century video game making.