Family game night has been cancelled

Once upon a time and not too long ago, the future of the gaming industry was online multiplayer gaming.

Now, the future is finally here, and I want to get off.

One of the inherent problems with online gaming was in the news this week. Essentially, people are assholes. The second video on that post really drives that point home.

The friendly online gamer in question uses a mod(ification) to ruin a game of Modern Warfare 2 and then proceeds to tell The Pro, an Xbox Live moderator, that he disrespected The Pro's grandmother in some very specific ways.

So, yeah, people are assholes, especially when working under the specter of anonymity that online gaming often proffers.

This also manifests in online sports games, which should have – by traditional understandings – benefitted greatly from online play. The problem here mostly surfaces through particularly dickish players spending their otherwise meaningless time finding ways to exploit the games – essentially finding areas where the gameplay is broken in particularly beneficial ways. For example, in past iterations of the Madden franchise, streak routes with top-tier wide receivers or outside posts with good tight ends were practically unstoppable, and my online opponents generally let me know that.

I would guess that 90% of the eight times I've tried a sports game online suffered from similar situations. (Eight was enough.)

Ideally, I could just avoid these assholes in my online play, and I typically do. (Though with sports games, they seem to be the only online players.)

My real problem – and one that I can't easily avoid – is the assholes who make the games and decide to sacrifice quality local multiplayer for the crappy, crappy wave of the future that is online MP.

My most recent punch to the gut came from Army of Two: The 40^th Day, a game which I positively reviewed and generally liked. The 40^th Day, as is the trend these days, includes an enemy-wave-based survival multiplayer mode called Extraction. Following another trend, this mode was available on launch day only as a pre-order bonus. Extraction was released to the general public about a month later. (And by general public, I mean the people who already paid $60 for the game.)

It's important to notice here that Army of Two, as the title suggests, is about an actual army of two, a pair of mercenaries who double-handedly eliminate entire armies of enemy soldiers. In this sense, the game is about cooperative gaming, and in the campaign mode, the game conveys this very well, allowing either local or online co-op play.

But in Extraction mode – and, in fact, all of what would traditionally be called multiplayer modes – local cooperative play is not even an option, despite the fact that all the enemies and necessary gameplay are contained within (withon?) the included disc. Considering all modern consoles support up to four in-house controllers at a time, there is absolutely no reason to force a game that pits one to four human combatants against disc-contained enemies exclusively into the world of online play. Yet they've done it.

The good news is that not all games have gone the online-only way of MMORPGs or certain shooters, like Team Fortress 2. But some of the decisions being made in this arena are just mind-meltingly absurd.

Consider this comparison:

The Halo series proper, which has always been narratively focused on lone wolf Master Chief, has consistently contained local co-op campaigns and local four-player multiplayer. Halo 3 even allowed for four-player campaign play (albeit only two per Xbox), even though – again – the campaign is specifically about a single hero.

The Left 4 Dead series, on the other hand, has a narrative with the driving principle that cooperation begets survival. More specifically, the series specifically asks for four-person cooperation, since there are four characters working together to survive. And yet, both games in the series only allow two-player local play in any of their different modes.

Here's a brief and incomplete list of other games that have questionably implemented multiplayer setups, most tainted by online-multiplayer fetishism:

• Halo 3: ODST
  
• Gears of War 2
  
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
  
• Uncharted 2
  
• Saints Row 2
  
• GTA IV
  
• 007: Quantum of Solace
  
• Bioshock 2
  
• Crackdown
  

To be fair, I'm sure there are myriad technical and maybe even philosophical reasons why these games' designers decided against four-player online and local multiplayer in all of their various game modes.

But there is one big reason why all of these games don't spend more time in my game consoles: I have actual, real-life, in-person friends and, sometimes, they want to play too.

Question of the Week:

What should I blog about next?

1. Research about touching and success in the NBA
   
2. Tiger Woods' apology
   
3. Apple and iProducts
   
4. HBO's new shows
   
5. The Internet's relationship to TV
   
6. Our fish tank
   
7. Other ________
   

My take: A

I've been sitting on this blog about online multiplayer gaming for awhile. And, by sitting on, I simply mean thinking about but not writing. But by finally writing it, I've skipped some interesting topics. I might – but no promises – pick up one of those topics next week, although each would be considerably less newsworthy by then.

Deeper tones of green

On Monday, M. Jimmie Killingsworth, head of the Texas A&M English department, was on campus to give a lecture on Walt Whitman, as part of a yearly series of lectures held by our English department.

In addition to giving the lecture on Whitman, Dr. Killingsworth met with a small group of students (and me and my former professor Dr. Ashe) that had been reading and discussing his works in preparation for his visit. In this meeting, we covered a range of topics, but what Dr. Killingsworth seemed most interested in – besides House and NCIS, which he talked about extensively – was the study of environmental rhetoric or ecocriticism.

One of his more interesting points (perhaps because of its simplicity) was that people tend to call themselves environmentalists during moments of environmental crisis. In other words, green is trendy.

One of my students wrote a paper last semester (and I believe they're doing it again) about the different uses of words like green and eco-friendly in marketing and advertising. Monday night, I saw a Sunchips commercial advertising, primarily, a fully compostable bag, not Sunchips. Pepsi is big on an environmentalist kick with their "refresh the world" campaign. Right now, corporations see an advantage to being green.

But, according to Dr. Killingsworth, the green trend is on a downward slope, as all such activist movements have breaking points, so to speak: moments at which the often intangible benefits (and trendiness) of such ideologies are outweighed by their more tangible consequences.

He used an example that focused on private property, particularly beachfront property. Essentially, there comes a point – because of erosion, currents, and other natural causes – where beachfront property owners have to decide between holding on to their trendy environmentalist ideals and their actual beachfront property. In many environmental discussions, these decisions are just now bubbling to the surface.

And, the result is that people are jumping off the environmentalist bandwagon.

My guess is that when any position is trendy enough to reach popular advertising, much of the valuable progress has already been made. From that point on, I think the remaining bandwagoners are mostly just treading water.

My students, of course, seem ahead of the trend (as young people so often are).

I've tried, in the recent past, to hold conversations with my classes about environmental issues, but they've shown a consistent disinterest or even exhaustion with environmentalist discussions. Todd Gitlin might label this an effect of the media torrent. More conversationally, people tend to describe the sensation as numbness (often in relation to violence).

Environmental rhetoric may currently be too pervasive to have much effect.

I also talked to Dr. Killingsworth about football because he was recruited to play for Tennessee but couldn't because of an injury. I just thought I should throw that in there.

Quote of the Week:

"When an author appeals to a position of value, it is always one among many possible appeals. Choosing one possibility over another creates risk, and rhetoric is always risky."

M. Jimmie Killingsworth, Appeals in Modern Rhetoric

Dead(line) deals

On a day when the biggest news in the world – not just the sports world, the entire world – is Tiger, Tiger, Tiger Wood ya'll, I'm going to write about something that nobody cares about: the NBA trade deadline.

In the passing glimpses of NBA coverage (between the pervasive Tiger Woods coverage and the delayed Winter Olympics coverage) on ESPN's many services, I've seen a number of complaints about the NBA's trade system, as reflected in this year's trade deadline deals.

The general consensus seems to be that the NBA trading system is somehow flawed or even broken. This sentiment, I think, can be summed up through just one of the deadline trades:

Darko Milicic for Brian Cardinal.

While poor old Darko has been the butt of many NBA jokes throughout his career, the real problem in this trade is Cardinal, whom the Knicks received from Minnesota. About four hours after Chad Ford reported the Milicic-for-Cardinal trade was official, Chris Sheridan reported that the Knicks would release Cardinal.

In other words, the Knicks essentially traded an (admittedly disappointing) #2-overall draft pick for absolutely nobody. This is the kind of trade that the current system inspires: expiring contracts for expendable contracts, dead weight for weightlessness.

Trades aren't about players anymore; they're about money.

Even the most-reported-on and potentially most significant trade follows the same line of reasoning, at least for one team.

In a complicated, three-team trade, the Wizards sent former-Tar Heel Antawn Jamison to Cleveland for Zydrunas Ilgauskas. Even though both of the marquee players in the trade are two-time All-Stars, the move was definitely a money issue from Washington's standpoint, considering they plan to release the Lithuanian Wonder.

If the Mavericks don't pick up the 7'3" center, he may be selling bootleg DVDs for real.

But the problem isn't just about money. It's also about parity and competition. With the addition of Jamison, the Cavs, who already have the best record in the NBA, have continued the top-tier arms race that has recently erupted between the four teams that everyone expects to compete for the NBA championship (Cavs, Magic, Celtics, Lakers).

But the problem doesn't just end in Cleveland; it starts there too. All of the money deals that went down over the past week are motivated by the LeBron James draft and subsequent 2010 free-agent class. Teams around the league – but particularly in major markets – are dumping money and players like too-hot food in attempts to create cap space (and ping pong balls) for the 2010-2011 season.

In retrospect, I think this is a natural conclusion to NBA trends of the last 25 years. Since David Stern became the commish in 1984, the NBA has made a concerted effort to focus on and sell their elite stars, from Magic to Michael to MeBron, I mean, LeBron. (And Mobe?)

With the exception of the 2004 Detroit Pistons, who won with teamwork, friendship, and rainbows, every NBA champion under David Stern's tenure has included at least one of the best five players of their respective eras. ('84, '86: Larry Bird; '85, '87, '88: Magic and Kareem; '89-'90: Isaiah Thomas; '91-'93, '96-'98: Jordan and Pippen; '94-'95: Hakeem; '99: Tim Duncan and David Robinson; '00-'02: Kobe and Shaq; '03, '05, '07: Duncan; '06: Dwyane Wade and Shaq; '08: KG and Paul Pierce; '09: Kobe)

Now, it seems like the rest of the league has finally figured it out. In David Stern's NBA, every team is just one superstar away – whether he is a 2010 free agent or a tank-job ensured rookie – from being relevant.

With a very few exceptions, in this season's NBA, it's good to be bad.

Question of the Week:

Who wants to buy some DVDs?

-submitted by Puppet Big Z

My take: Mark Cuban.

The Cuban Super Bowl

For the past few years, it seems like the All-Star game has been the least regarded event of the NBA All-Star weekend. But I think that might be changing, perhaps out of necessity, but I don't think it's a bad thing. After comparing it to the other major events of the weekend – the slam dunk competition, the three-point competition, and the rookie/sophomore game – it seems that the penultimate event outpaced each of the other events and their primary mode of appeal.

The slam dunk competition is supposedly all about great dunks, but this year's event was a major disappointment. I've seen more creativity in SportsCenter reruns. Shannon Brown and Gerald Wallace have both performed better dunks in games this season than they did in the event. DeMar DeRozan had the best dunk of the night, when he wind-milled from an off-the-side-of-the-backboard pass, but it was in the first round. The best news from what is often the most-hyped event of the weekend was that Nate Robinson actually deserved to win a dunk contest for once.

Considering all that, the All-Star game included some much better dunks, primarily from the two dunkers that most fans would clamor for in the contest: Dwight Howard and LeBron James. If the dunk contest verdict was delayed until Sunday night, one of those two would have won. Easily.

This year's three-point contest was a bit more interesting than the dunk contest, with old-guard Paul Pierce finally winning over up-and-coming Stephen Curry. But the All-Star game had some arguably-as-interesting three-point storylines. After Howard, who has no business shooting three pointers, made one early in the game, he evidently promised three more, creating some odd suspense. Chauncey Billups, on the other hand, didn't have much use for suspense and shot from the left-hand side of the top of the three-point arc pretty much every time he touched the ball. It was fun to watch in a weekend-reality-TV-show marathon sort of way. Both three-point stories from the game added to the TNT-sponsored drama.

The rookie/sophomore challenge does seem to have a slight edge over the main event in terms of showcasing young talent. But with players like Derrick Rose, Rajon Rondo, and Kevin Durant already promoted to the big-boy rosters and players like Taj Gibson, Jonas Jerebko, and Anthony Morrow filling out the rookie/sophomore benches, the advantage isn't all that pronounced.

All that combines with the fact that the best players in the world actually played some defense in the final few minutes of the game, leading to a two-point win on, of all things, free throws. It seems that, for the first time in a few years, the All-Star game was the most interesting and important event of All-Star weekend.

Well, other than the Mavericks/Wizards trade (which led to both a very giddy Mark Cuban and a potentially giddy Charles, since he can now watch Josh Howard in person again).

Event of the Week:

UNC starts its baseball season this weekend with a series against visiting George Washington.

USBS

This blog is a little different than my norm. Be forewarned.

I think it's time to eliminate the United States Postal Service. I have a number of reasons for this, some personal, some practical. So rather than take the time to create transitions and such, I'm relying, once again, on a list.

1. My main personal gripe with the Postal Service is nothing like Kramer's from Seinfeld. I don't even have a Newman-like postman. My gripe is a little more basic than that.
   I don't like envelopes.
   When I get email (the base-level reason for eliminating the USPS), I can usually tell what each missive is about through the title or fairly simply read the contents through Microsoft Outlook. But when I get snail mail (an appropriately derogatory nickname), I can't always determine what's inside the generic looking envelopes.
   So what happens is that I pile up envelopes on my desk (and other places) that I can't quickly and efficiently deal with without (re)examining the contents of each one. The result is that I forget to pay my cable bill for three months. [Dramatization]
   Ostensibly, one of the issues here is that I have no other point of contact with envelopes, no other purpose to interact with that medium, whereas I have about a billion or so other reasons to interact with computers, where my more preferred mail arrives (or even my phone where some of my preferred mail arrives).
   
2. And about the email thing: there are very few mailable items that can't be sent through some sort of electronic channel nowadays. As much as possible, I try to receive my important information through one of my four email accounts or some other internet repository. Fortunately, outside of Scranton, PA, much of the world is moving towards paperless modes of communication.
   In fact, much of what I receive in my real-life mailbox would be considered spam if sent online. I wouldn't really be upset if I didn't receive my weekly mailer telling me how awesomely priced canned yams and tire changes are this week. On top of that, a lot of the mail my mailbox accrues isn't even addressed to me but, rather, former inhabitants of my lovely home.
   
3. Of course, one of the arguments for maintaining the USPS is that some documents just can't be sent electronically because they need to be signed or in some other way "official." This argument applies, as well, to material items, like CDs, Snuggies, or ray guns.
   I have two gripes with this line of reasoning:
   
   1. Handwritten signatures and other bodily mediated forms of making documents official are antiquated procedures, considering the average American probably has 13 different online passwords and password certifications to guarantee that he is who he says he is. And if a signature is required, scanners, fax machines, or touch screens are all at least as reliable and honest as a handwritten signature and, of course, much quicker.
      
   2. The USPS isn't necessary to send packages or the official document and, in many instances, isn't even preferred. Compared to companies like FedEx and UPS, the USPS seems an underachieving and bloated iteration of an increasingly unnecessary service. In other words, privatize.
      
4. But Brett, some might say, if we privatize and eliminate the USPS, millions of postal workers will be out of jobs and really sweet government benefits. I agree that's problematic, particularly now, but it isn't the sort of long-term excuse that should (or should have) maintain(ed) the USPS for any extended amount of time.
   

Time to check my email.

(It turns out I had pretty useful transitions anyway, but at this point, I like the list.)

Question of the Week:

Now that UNC is pretty firmly out of the NCAA tournament – particularly after the news about Ed Davis missing six weeks, I have a rare opportunity to hope for a different national champion. Even though the tournament is still about five weeks away, I think I might start my (mostly silent) cheering now. So, what is the Question? (Not that.)

Who do you want to win the NCAA men's basketball championship?

My take: Villanova. I like Jay Wright and his Wildcats. Wright's style of coaching is very guard-centric, which is both valuable come tournament time and entertaining to watch. I think it's also hard to root against a Jay Wright team because he clearly belongs in "the bubble."

I’m having trouble coming up with a blog title today.

I'm having trouble coming up with a blog topic today.

I would write about the Super Bowl, but everyone who is reading this either watched it or doesn't care. I'd write about the Super Bowl ads, but the same rule applies. (I might write about them later.)

I'd write about UNC basketball, which is at a terribly low point right now even as it gears up for one of the perennial high points of the college basketball season. But Adam Lucas wrote a column that is much more interesting than anything I'd write. If I wanted to revisit this past week through written word, I'd just read his column again. Because it's worth rereading.

So, I don't really have a topic today. Here are a couple of thoughts:

I'm working with students in conferences this week, and everybody is rescheduling from today to Tuesday or Wednesday, probably because they all watched the Super Bowl instead of working on their drafts. I can't say I blame them.

I've said this before, but I really enjoy conferences. They give me a chance to work with my students on a one-on-one basis. More than that, they give me a chance to get to know them. I like people, and that principle generally extends to my students. So I like getting to know my students.

[Page break]

I have mixed feelings about Bud Selig, but the Brewers evidently don't. They like him, in case you didn't follow that link.

I like the Wild Card addition to the playoffs – what I think Selig will have engraved on his Hall of Fame plaque. I think it's one of the most valuable additions to any professional sport during my lifetime, unless you count HDTV, which wasn't really added by sports.

But I don't necessarily like the "steroids era" or Selig's claim that any such era that may have existed is officially over. I don't necessarily blame Selig for the steroids era, but I think he is culpable, a slight but necessary distinction. Unfortunately, if "added Wild Card teams to the playoffs" goes on his HoF plaque, "presided over so-called 'steroids era'" will probably be engraved on his HoF-statue forehead.

His statue is going to need a big forehead.

Event of the Week:

My college buddy Spencer Yoo is performing in the NC Comedy Arts Festival in Chapel Hill Thursday.

Objects in the mirror

One of my "research interests" is the subjectivity/objectivity dichotomy (four times). More specifically, I don't think there is one (when applied to human beings). Though I do like dichotomies (five?), I think this particular dichotomy is a myth, like the difference between Sasquatch and Bigfoot.

I like to think, instead, that human subjectivity is a continuum, with varying degrees of subjectivity possible. In this sense, objectivity is like zero in division: no matter how many times you divide subjectivity, you never get to zero.

This belief can make it difficult to do my job(s), since I'm constantly asked (by some ambiguously present entity) to be subjective.

The research I'm interested in currently relates to how subjectivity is navigated in video game reviews, which is something I want to research in a quantitative study of game reviews. (Speaking of which, my review of Mass Effect 2 is on the line.) One of the first principles I was taught as a journalism student was objectivity. It's a golden chalice, of sorts, that most journalists search for, quest-style. Odd then, that I would reject it so wholly.

Here's why:

I don't think video game reviewers or any reviewers can be objective because of myriad socio-cultural forces that paved the path for that review to even exist in the first place. In some cases, these forces may even be consciously applied. If, for example, a PS3 fanboy reviewed an Xbox 360 game, the review would probably be "flaming," due to fanboy code – there are bylaws. In smaller measures, I think all reviewers/people are infected, like zombies, with their past understandings and biases. Louis Althusser would call this interpellation.

A good example from my own life would be NBA Live, because I have a complicated love/hate relationship with that series and what it does to the sport of basketball with which I'm familiar. I always disagree with the sub-par review scores the game receives but then blast it myself while playing. There's no way I could objectively review any game in that series. So I don't.

My disbelief in objectivity also problematizes my teaching when I'm asked to grade papers, something I'm doing right now, well not right now because I'm writing this, but in the time that is immediately adjacent to now.

I think objectivity is a myth, so in grading papers, I just try to get myself as close as possible to the mythical-objectivity side of the subjectivity spectrum. One way I increase my objectivity, ostensibly, is by allowing my students to create – in part – their own grading rubrics. Also by creating and using grading rubrics at all, I am required to apply some sense of near-objective subjectivity since these grading rubrics have certain objective rules.

Objects are objective. Human [subjects] are not.

I'm cautious to discuss my grading too much on this public forum, but I want to stress that I try my best to be close to objective, even though I philosophically disagree with the principle as applied to human beings.

If this were Wednesday, I'd quote Bo Burnham's song "i'm bo yo," in which he says, "don't sit on that couch 'cause I treat my objects like women."

Question of the Week:

I'm going to steal one of Matthew's questions (since he wrote his blog before I did):

Who will win the Super Bowl? Saints or Colts?

My (biased) take: Colts.

“New Math” is the new comedy

Most nights, as I go to bed, I'll watch some TV. On weeknights, I usually watch the late night shows. But that doesn't work on Sunday nights, so I tend to flip through channels.

At some point, I surfed onto Comedy Central's "Stand-up Showdown 2010."

I'm so glad I did.

Number 2 ("that sounds like a bathroom code") on their list was Bo Burnham, and his stand-up special was amazing.

Musical comedy is really hot right now, thanks to the success of comedians like Flight of the Conchords and The Lonely Island. Burnham does the same sort of comedy, and in my mind, it's just as quality.

The difference is that he's only one guy, and he's only 19. He's younger than most of my students.

He's also pretty raunchy and very non-PC, but a lot of good comedy is. My favorite part of his comedy, though, is his wordplay, which is generally incredibly smart and well-informed if, again, a little non-PC. And by "a little," I mean a lot. He claims he's satirizing in many cases, and good satire is usually purposefully unsettling. Either way, his comedy may be NSFW.

Burnham is incredibly hilarious, and I'm going to keep an eye on him. He's apparently writing a movie for Judd Apatow. But after watching his videos all morning, the only things that surprise me are that Austin didn't find him earlier (since he's a YouTube celebrity) and he's #2 on Comedy Central's list. He should be #1.

Event of the Week:

I've been a bit sick over the past couple days, including a fever Saturday, so the EotW is when I get better.