End of Gaming as We Know It Announced at GDC: Hello Kitty MMORPG to Be Released in the US

Every so often there is a paradigm shifting event that occurs within the media. Sometimes it is something like Poe's invention of the detective mystery or the Lucas/Spielberg invention of the blockbuster. In the 1980s, one huge paradigm shift in afternoon animation was the shift to cartoons that were blatant advertisements for lines of toys. When the toys being advertised through cartoon stories were things like GI JOE and TRANSFORMERS, children had much reason to rejoice. But when the next shift came, the STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE and MY LITTLE PONY shift, teenage boys throughout America wept as they watched their favorite shows replaced by talking ponies.

This week at the Game Developers Convention in San Francisco, a paradigm shift of monumental proportions was announced. Sanrio, the makers of those cute HELLO KITTY artifacts we find at malls across America, are going to be launching a HELLO KITTY MMORPG in the United States. Just when beautiful women like Felicia Day were giving fathers everywhere hope that their daughters could share the joys of crushing Horde Guilds in PvP Raids, Sanrio dashes all those hopes aside by creating this game. Now the young girls of the world will be able to:



"Just soak up the super-cute atmosphere?!" We're doomed. No instanced dungeons slaying the minions of a diabolical lich. No riding giant tigers and Gryphons. No mining for ore to manufacture our sweet rifles so that we can shoot our Orcish enemies. Nope. We can spend money at malls...interact with Sanrio characters...and cultivate our own farm. This gives new meaning to "farming" in an MMO.

What is the father of twin daughters to do?

Oh well...maybe I can customize my character to be like Pochacco. He's cute as can be after all.

Listen to the Geekerati Inteview with David Gaider

Last night, Eric and I had the pleasure of talking with BioWare's David Gaider about his new book Dragon Age: The Stolen Throne and the upcoming video game Dragon Age: Origins. The discussion provided some great insight regarding what we can expect from the next rpg from BioWare.

Given BioWare's excellent record when it comes to quality PC and console rpgs, David and his crew have a lot to live up to and it sounds like they are likely to exceed expectations. Dragon Age: The Stolen Throne takes place thirty years before the event that transpire in the game and makes a natural jumping in point for those who can't wait until the second half of the year for the video game experience.

In the past, many of BioWare's successful rpgs have been based on licensed products. But with recent games like the action-rpg Jade Empire and the deep play of Mass Effect, BioWare has shown an ability to develop immersive settings with compelling narratives.

David Gaider lives in Edmonton, Alberta, and is a Senior Writer at BioWare's Edmonton studio, where he has worked since 1999. He is currently the Lead Writer on Dragon Age: Origins, responsible for story and setting design, and prior to that worked on such titles as Baldur's Gate™ 2, Baldur's Gate™ 2: Throne of Bhaal, Star Wars®: Knights of the Old Republic™, Neverwinter Nights™ and its expansions.

I don't care how cool Apple iPhone ads are, they cannot top this!

How many phones have viral ad campaigns featuring Formula 1 drivers using their phone to drive their F1 vehicle?

The Blackberry Storm does.

Watch the last minute of this viral video to see Lewis Hamilton use a Blackberry Storm to steer his F1 car.



Now, if only I can figure out which frequency Hamilton was on...then I can guarantee an F1 victory for Kimi next year!

P.S.: I know the remote thing is camera magic. It's still bitchin'

Fox Demonstrates the Madness of the Film Industry as They Plan a "Relaunch" of the Fantastic Four

There are times when studios completely drop the ball and need to remake movies, or reboot franchises. Sometimes the source material underperformed because the initial attempt to tell a story fell short of the mark, either financially or creatively. A perfect example is the 1980s film version of Captain America. The 80s film version of everyone's favorite All-American Hero is arguably the worst superhero film ever made. It was a failure both financially and critically.

Typically, film studios could care less about whether a film fails critically, as long as it succeeds financially. As long as the film brings in money, they'll be satisfied. Likely, they'll make sequels. That seems to be changing. Now the studios seem to be becoming obsessed with making "re-envisionings" of moderately to very successful franchises. First, Marvel decided to remake the Hulk. They argued that the Ang Lee version lacked the quintessential "Hulk Smash" qualities they and fans were looking for, and that the film underperformed financially. Therefore, it was "necessary" to have a remake in the theaters a mere 5 years after the last version of the film.

This was, naturally, a load of crap. Sure, the Ang Lee film wasn't what comic book fans wanted or expected (that includes the good folks here at Cinerati). It wasn't really a Hulk film. As comic book fans, we don't know what it was. But that doesn't matter. There are only 200,000 or so of us comic book fans, and that only comes to $2-million of any superhero movie's box office. For a superhero movie to succeed, it has to appeal to non-comic book fans and put rears in the seats. Did Ang Lee's film, universally panned by critic and fan alike, succeed? Yes. The film made $132-million domestically, and had a world-wide gross of almost $242-million. Enough money that any DVD sales were all gravy.

But they made a re-envisioned remake anyway. Did The Incredible Hulk do scads better than the Ang Lee's Hulk? Critically? Yes. The new version is closer to what people expected in a Hulk film. The film has its problems, not the least of which is the abandonment of the Hulk as metaphor for Nuclear Arms for the more topical Hulk as metaphor for performance enhancing baseball players. That and the conversion of the Hulk's cold-war anti-thesis into a British special forces guy who doesn't like the fact that he is aging. So...it's not the comic book Hulk, but who cares. As I wrote earlier, there are only 200,000 of us comic book fans anyway. Did The Incredible Hulk do better financially? No. It cost $150-million, which given that dollars decrease in value with time means the films cost similar amounts. $132-million in 2003 is approximately $150-million in 2008. But The Incredible Hulk made $254-million in world wide box office, which is also similar to the $242-million that Ang Lee's version made.

While it might have been silly from a certain point of view for Marvel to give us a remade Hulk, it was profitable and it gave us a Hulk film where the first hour was actually fun and where we didn't have to watch killer poodles, so it didn't seem ridiculous for the studio to make the move. If only we had known what was coming down the pipe.

What was coming down the pipe was a re-envisioning of The Punisher in last year's Punisher: War Zone. Never mind that Thomas Jane was compelling as Frank Castle. The film only managed $34-million in domestic box office and had little appeal overseas. Add to that the fact that some fans panned the film as not at all like the comic book. A claim that is patently false. Excepting the lame and over-the-top performance by John Travolta many of the scenes were cut straight from the Marvel Max series. No one understands why anyone hires John Travolta to play villains, he can't pull it off. Cast him as a nice guy and it's often a real treat, but as a villain he's like nails on chalkboard.

The Thomas Jane Punisher was the Punisher of the couple Garth Ennis series and not of the older Steven Grant or Mike Baron issues. So that explains some of the fan backlash. Older fans, who no longer buy comic books, didn't get what they expected. Newer fans got the Punisher of the books, but sadly they also got a villain who was out of the old Batman television series. So...with critical and financial "failure" Lionsgate decided a remake was in order and made Punisher: War Zone. .

If they wanted to make a better Punisher movie... they failed. If they wanted to make more money... they failed. The new Punisher film cost Lionsgate $22-million and made a whopping $8-million. There were some fun elements to the new film, but the box office demonstrated that the character only had so much appeal to him beyond the comic fan base.

That's really the crux of the issue. Some characters have a limit to how broad an appeal they have. The Hulk? He's worth around $250-million. The Punisher? $30-million if you're lucky.

The same is likely true of the latest re-envisioning coming down the pipe. Fox plans to make a whole new Fantastic Four movie with a new cast and a new vision -- less "bubble gum". I guess $329-million and $280-million aren't profitable enough for Fox. They have to dive in with a re-envisioning to make the title less "bubble gum." Because, you know, the Fantastic Four is known for its super grim story lines.

[sarcasm]Super grim stories are so easy to write when one of your characters' superpower is elasticity. Yeah, comics are filled with grim stretchy guys like Plastic Man and Elongated Man. Those guys make Rorschach look like Jerry Lewis. [/sarcasm]

It just doesn't seem to make sense, even given lukewarm critical and fan acceptance of the current Fantastic Four -- especially given how perfect Chris Evans is as the Human Torch. It doesn't make sense...unless you're a Hollywood studio who might have to turn the rights over if you don't make a film using the intellectual property and you think that a sequel might not play as well marketing wise as a re-invention.

The marketing shift for a reboot makes sense when thinking about a studio desperately clinging to IP rights. This quote from ICv2 might help to put a little light on the subject, "with Marvel eager to reclaim its properties for its Marvel Studios moviemaking arm, Fox is in a situation of “use it or lose it” with the FF and Daredevil. Since the Fantastic Four films were far more successful that the ill-fated Fox Daredevil, it makes sense for the studio to concentrate its efforts on the FF first."

You see Marvel wants those rights back and Fox has a limited window to keep that $300-million a film franchise in its stable. They have to make something and make it fast or rights return to Marvel. So instead of negotiating with the cast of the prior two films, who are more expensive now and might have scheduling conflicts, you sell the public on the re-envision angle. You kill three birds with one stone. You potentially make the movie cheaper, you talk the people who were critical of the first two into giving you another chance, and you retain the rights for another sequel if this one makes another $300-million. Win-win for Fox.

You know what this reminds me of? It reminds me of the Roger Corman version of the Fantastic Four. You see...he made that one on a tight schedule just so someone could keep the option.

One Year Ago Today Gamers Lost a Legend

Today's a day to crack open your copy of Chainmail and peruse your copy of Deities and Demigods (the Elric/Cthulhu version natch) and remember the man who helped create an entirely new way to play. Without Gary, there would be no World of Warcraft, no Ultima, and no weekend get-togethers with friends where dragons are slain and dungeons are sacked. There would also be at least one fewer Uwe Boll movie, but I can endure many more of those so long as I can sit around the table with my friends and role play.

Nerdvana at the East Valley Tribune has a nice small reminder up.

Our piece last year can serve as a reminder to not let opportunities, even ones guaranteed to be awkward, pass you by. I still wish I had knocked on Gary's door.

Jhoom Barabar Jhoom: The Conversation Continued

When I wrote my review of JBJ, I did so in the hopes that LA Weekly's Bollywood critic David Chute would read the piece. David has been on the cutting edge of film viewing trends since his days advocating Hong Kong cinema before it was cool to do so. He's perceptive and I wanted to know what he and his fellows over at the Hungry Ghost Blog thought about my little piece.

The blog highlighted my review and I was immediately attacked (not personally) in the comments section for beginning my piece with a discussion of a disconnect between the opinions of the native viewing audience in India and the opinions of those American critics who deigned to review the piece. Tulkinghorn, writing from his "capacious writing-table... on which is a pretty large accumulation of papers," was the one who took me to task by stating (slightly edited):

Gee.

Seems to me that trying to figure out what people in Glendale think about American blockbusters is hard enough if you... live in Glendale.

Trying to figure out from Southern California what people in Bombay think about Indian blockbusters is almost certainly pointless.

It violates either one or both of David's rules in the immediately preceding post.

On the other hand, figuring out why YOU like the movie is very useful...

I take it as a complement that the sinister attorney is interested in my own reasons for liking/disliking a particular film.

Mr. Chute, who for some reason goes by the name Generic on the blog (I will have to talk with him about this), came to my defense in an interesting comment. What was most interesting about the comment was a quote that had little to do with my JBJ review per se. His comment included a kernel of an underlying philosophy of what it is to be a reviewer, a question that I find very interesting -- and will write more about tomorrow when I look at an essay Poe wrote about Poetry criticism. Mr. Chute writes:

As I understood the code of the profession when I was coming up the ideal was not care whether a given film had been validated by the box office or other critics. If you liked something, you said so. To do other wise was dishonest and/or cowardly. Each critic creates his/her own Pantheon. Endorsing something the cool group despised was a badge of honor; in a twisted way this made you even cooler.

This is followed by comments in defense of my original review. Kind and insightful words, but nowhere near as interesting as the paragraph above. There is so much to unpack in this paragraph that one could devote a career, let alone a series of blog entries, to examining the assumptions discussed in it. I should point out that nothing in the above states that Mr. Chute currently agrees with the content of the paragraph, merely that it represents the code of the critical profession as he understood it when he was "coming up." Never the less, it is an exciting paragraph.

I wrote a quick response, which sadly ended up as the last word on the topic. I am going to reproduce my comment in full here, in the hopes of soliciting more discussion.

I believe a critic should always examine his/her own views in relation to the views of others, both other critics and "the masses." One should always be reflective when reviewing. The box office may not be a perfect measurement of the zeitgeist, but I have taken to many economics courses to dismiss Price, and the willingness to pay, as at minimum a proxy for what people enjoy.

I firmly agree that the views of others, the "public" if you will, should not shape what a critic says. Otherwise, their opinion is a mere populist voicing that adds nothing to the medium. And adding something to the medium is one of the legitimate roles of the critic.

Equally, reviling something the cool group likes, merely because they like it (I know this isn't what you are advocating) is as pointless as liking something because other like it. Certainly, another legitimate role of the critic is to champion that which might otherwise be overlooked, or even reviled, were it not for an astute critical mind.

I believe that by examining the disconnect between critical reception and audience reception, one can find both why one enjoyed a film, but also what one might otherwise overlook.

I would never have overlooked the slow first act of JHOOM BARABAR JHOOM, it was readily apparent but as readily overwhelmed by the overall enjoyment of the film. A large rock takes a lot of effort to move, but once it is moving it really moves. JBJ was the same.

I might have overlooked the soft gloved, almost trivial, way the movie dealt with Pakistani and Indian relations if I wasn't focused on thinking about the disconnect. A part of the film takes place in England, and I've read enough John King to understand that setting the film in England involves certain assumptions -- which are barely touched on in the film. Partly because we are dealing with Romantic Comedy and you don't want to go too dark. But that is what separates "Loves Labours Lost" from "Much Ado About Nothing," the stakes are different.

While I would never presume to speak for why the Indian public responded to JBJ less enthusiastic than I did, knowing that they did helps me examine beyond first impressions. One must find tools to break through their visceral and vicarious eyes to get to the voyeuristic one.

The Glamorous Life of a Hollywood Assistant

Wonder what people with Master's Degrees do while they are "writing their screenplays" in the hopes of a great job in Hollywood? The Back of the Class are rapping Truth to Power in this video.

Hollywood ASST from Back of the Class on Vimeo.