It's been awhile since I last wrote for the Escapist, so I'm glad it appears I haven't forgotten how to do it. "1988: the Golden Age of Game Piracy", went live today. Many thanks to Paul Reiche for providing insights; in addition to his actual quotes, his perspective pivoted the article away from a first draft that had a rather different tone.

I had intended to post about the article with some "bonus features" in the form of a section that was ultimately removed (rightfully) for being too academic. Maybe I'll post that another time, since I'd really like to know whether I was properly applying some economic theory.

But instead I'd like to draw your attention to this post from Russ Pitts, "Goodbye is Still Goodbye".

As you might gather, Russ is moving on from the magazine, and while I've worked with a great number of wonderful folk in the last five years, I don't think any of them would disagree that Russ's departure in particular marks the end of an era.

My first article for the Escapist back in 2006 was a rather impetuous call to arms for the modern game industry, when the E was quite a different place. It had almost none of its current features and was instead "purely" focused on what would become its "feature" articles; there was a beautiful graphic cover and full spread art for each feature. Even then, in the magazine's youth, I thought it was a tremendous honor to write for them, and over the years I do believe they remained the best and most thoughtful source of game journalism in the US. They aimed to set a standard of excellence, and Russ was a big part of that success.

Joe Blancato and Jon Martin (both also by now departed) made my introduction to the magazine, but Russ was the consistent editorial steady hand on the wheel throughout -- even, interestingly, when he'd moved on to fresher pastures to grow the magazine's new video content. Where many game magazines have a very well-intentioned but limited tunnel vision view of the industry and the market, Russ had a worldliness that gave the magazine breadth and, I think, greater relevance. He published some tremendous stuff, and as the magazine grew and changed -- even when it transitioned away from some of the thoughtfulness and cultural forward-thinking that had first earned it my loyalty as a reader and a writer -- I always respected his ability to ride the leading edge of a wave that made new careers even as it destroyed many others.

So, as Leah would say, tip your hat, folks; the times they are a-changin'. There is little doubt that the Escapist will remain a powerhouse in game media for many years to come, and even less doubt that Russ will go on to even greater adventures. But among other things, Inside Job, the quality of life column I wrote from 2007-2008, wouldn't have existed without him, nor, I'm sure, would many of my feature articles. I am a better writer as a result, and I will always think back on the production of each -- even when edits and deadlines plus a "real" job resulted in all-nighter catatonia -- with great fondness.

You can keep up with Russ's rather strange blog here, and peruse records of his own odd internet notoriety.

Despite all blogular evidence to the contrary, I am merely buried, not dead -- and nearly emerged. Since last we met, there was Thanksgiving (driving to San Diego), Christmas (see "Thanksgiving"), my father's 70th birthday (flying to San Diego), three Escapist articles, a two-month-long still-in-action sinus infection ("chronic sinusitis") with accompanying horse-pill-sized antibiotics, a game careening toward launch, and assorted press wrangling -- I did mention that I was appointed to the Board of Directors of the IGDA in November, right? Maybe not. Pop my name into google "news" and you'll find a bit of what's been eating my brain the last couple of weeks. And -- I'm two thirds of the way through the novel, pushing toward a March deadline.

You read (well, a lot of you did) the ever-inflammatory "Why Your Game Idea Sucks" -- joining it in controversy is "Riot Grrrls Wanted", which I will have more to say about later -- much more, once I shake off this blog rust, but for now will just say it's very peculiar how threatened boy gamers are when you say women should be making more games. A bit before that, the slightly less controversial "Ditching the V-Word", discussing why the word 'virtual' is dead and should be stomped on until it stops moving. Today, the (I think) entirely non-controversial but hopefully equally (or more) interesting "When the Stars Align", a piece on the development of the completely fascinating 1986 multi-platform Starflight -- Greg's first game. One of the many reasons I took this job was the opportunity to learn from, I now feel confident in saying, one of the most unique and excellent game designers alive today, and in studying his work (in order to understand his design aesthetic better so as to be better at my job as well as learn) I discovered how shockingly underappreciated and under-remembered Starflight is. So this is my attempt to share a small piece of what I'm fortunate to have access to.

In fiction: the good folk at Electric Velocipede were kind enough to select "Darkest Amber" for this issue's web fiction, so take a gander while you can. This story was the product of a writing challenge from jsridler and justinhowe, and is cyberpunk set in a world I hope to do quite a bit more writing in in the future. It has a talking baseball bat and Greek philosophy -- what have you got to lose?

In poetry: I am told that "Oneness" will be appearing in the latest Not One of Us special collection, called Hidden. It is yay.

...I think those are all the updates. At least the topline, anyway. I do not promise to bring no IGDA/Rockstar troublemaking over here, all things considered, though I expect the flurry to remain mostly on Gamasutra. And this is assuming I don't think better of my rather aggressive current opinion.

Hope that you all are doing well!

I do live! According to recent reports, anyway. I've actually been trying to post this for a week, but am only just now getting to it. I have a lot of things to catch up on, and hopefully am getting to a portion of them this weekend.

The move, a high volume of chaos (and travel) that followed it, and then rocketing full bore into the new job have all conspired to eat my brain. Many things to catch up on, some of them sad, most of them happy. But since this is time-related, I'm posting that friend/editor/Homeless Moon co-conspirator scott_h_andrews's online fantasy magazine Beneath Ceaseless Skies is now live, with its first issue featuring work from Chris Willrich and David D. Levine. It's a beautiful issue, and the first line of Willrich's two-part story caught my attention in particular:

One storm-lashed sunset in the Eldshore’s antique capital, beneath Castle Astrolabe’s crumbling perch and near the Zodiac Coliseum’s bloody stones, Gaunt and Bone scaled Heaven’s Vault, there to make a hellish deposit.

A very pulpy but fun story.

David Levine's "Sun Magic, Earth Magic" is a complementary pairing, smooth and clean but distinctive. Check them out!

With these, sneaking in a few sale announcements that I've also been remiss on... "Stormchaser, Stormshaper", an Of Fire and Sea universe short story, to Beneath Ceaseless Skies. As others will tell you, Scott has very exacting tastes, so I was thrilled that he liked this story. After many exchanges, "Impress of the Hills" is officially sold to Spacesuits & Sixguns, and Mythic Delirium picked up "Beauty Sleep", a short poem/alternate perspective on a fairy tale you can probably guess.

I also twittered about this, but didn't mention it here, that "We the Gamers" went up on the Escapist last week. It picked up a mention on kotaku, and even got (so far) 617 diggs, though mostly, it seems, because of a single quote that was pulled out by one of the journalists along the way and got them thinking I was talking primarily about DRM. The subcultures of these places are interesting -- apparently "meatspace" is a word one does not use around digg folk. I wish I could even claim I'd been using it to be pretentious -- it's actually part of my common vocabulary, which, given where I work, isn't surprising, but possibly is sad depending on your perspective. ;) The comments vary, as they usually do, from RTFA-bait to insightful, but it does amaze me how many in the gaming community persistently dismiss anything having to do with MMOs. Obviously because of where I work I have a biased perspective on this, but at the moment I'm convinced that not only is the MMO, in one form or another, the dominant genre (with WoW's subscription figures alone there's little disputing this), it's simply the future of gaming, end of discussion. And yet clearly there's a talking-point dismissal of MMOs as subject matter in gaming circles, which leads me to believe that there is a market gap in a definitive news and discussion source for these millions who actually play online games (The Escapist, much as I love what they do, isn't it, by its demographics, and TerraNova is too riddled with academics [no slight on academics, I love them, I'm just limited in my maximum dosage]). But thoughts for another time...

So, I am sitting here in my silk kimono robe (don't get too excited, I'm also wearing a t-shirt and jeans) and my slippers and I'm feeling very writerly. It's a nice feeling considering that over the past few days I've been going through one of those crises of conscience about what constitutes "important" writing (thanks, Time book). But now I have to go buy groceries. It's a glamorous existence.

Sometimes, though, there is praise. The writing life is enough of a persistent beatdown that I am always shocked when this happens.

First, Kieron Gillen enjoyed "Slave to the Beat", which went up a week ago and I kind of forgot to tell you folks about (oops):

Erin Hoffman writes about Audition Online for the Escapist. I’ve played a little of this MMO rhythm action game, and went away a tad depressed, but Erin goes completely native in an entertaining fashion. I’m probably alone in my wish for an actual game-of-the-film Audition though, in a kirri-kirri-kirri kind of way.

Kieron recently made yet another top-game-journalists list; he's certainly one of the better guys working in the field, so anything from him feels like high praise while I trudge along as a sort of confused non-game-journalist.

And Alvaro Zinos-Amaro Reviews issue #27 of Lone Star Stories at TheFix, including "Whatever Shall Grow There, Dear":

Annamarie’s viewpoint is expertly developed. The way she catches fragments of conversation and meaning from her parent’s arguments but is completely sensitive to the underlying emotional reality of which those arguments are symptomatic rings true. There are numerous images that are beautiful without being ornate, touching and innocent without being sentimental (“Pale late afternoon sunlight filtered through the gauzy white curtains in the living room and made the oiled oak floors glow burnt orange.”) They place us in Annamarie’s world and convey a sense of ethical sensitivity, an almost ennobling naivete, by acting as metaphors for her thoughts and emotions.

The storytelling technique is deceptively simple, and the characters all fully realized. Hoffman centers the tale around Annamarie’s coming-of-age, to great effect, and delivers a knockout ending that bears the bountiful fruits of transformation.

As mentioned when I announced the sale, it's a special story and a difficult one for me, so it's extremely gratifying to see someone "get" it, reviewer or otherwise. I would say there's even a difference between "praise" and when someone "gets" your writing -- they extrapolate meaning from the original work that was there in your heart but not obviously stated on the page, painting a picture that resonates with the emotional framework of the story's origin. It's a feeling of kinship, and it's at the core of why I send this stuff out, to test for those precious connections between experiences and minds. Otherwise it could all just stay in the trunk; it's dangerous, after all, to dissect a part of yourself and spin it into something that you invite people to poke with sticks. But I'm glad this one got out.

Alvaro's review is worth note because he actually covered the poetry in the issue, too -- something that I wish more reviewers would do on The Fix and in spec-fic reviews in general. The poetry in that issue was terrific and well deserving of contemplation and highlight.

Okay, groceries now.

In more of the rollercoaster that this week has turned into, I give you:

Cyberpunked: The Fall of Black9

Note that the Escapist server seems to be having some indigestion; I can only intermittently get to all of the pages. They should have it worked out soon, though, they tend to be pretty quick on stuff like that.

This was by far the most difficult piece I've ever written for them, the one I had the most apprehension about having published and the one I angsted over getting just right. I still don't know if I did. With everything that happened over the last couple of days, I actually forgot that it was going up today until I got the alert in my email, but there it is. The opportunity to write it rose up out of nowhere a few months ago; the calendar went out and I saw that they had planned a postmortem issue, and I knew it was finally time to get all of this out. Some of you were reading my LJ when all of it went down, so you know the story, but now it's all in the open air. We'll see what happens.

Happy birthday to nalroth! May his vivacity and zest for life be eternal.

Since some of you (caerbannog, I'm looking at you) might be interested in this, the Escapist has my "Hail to the Kitty" article up this week, a retrospective on my disturbing affinity for the Kitty. Stay tuned next week for the next phase in my game industry troublemaking...

I am making travel plans for Ion, where I will be speaking next month on BetterEULA stuff and all that jazz. Let me know if you're in the Seattle area and would like to catch up!