Flickr’s co-founders Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake (husband/wife team) recently resigned from Yahoo!. Stewart wrote an incredible resignation letter.

Of course, Valleywag calls it “bizarre”, “rambling” and “entertaining nonsense”, and a majority of the comments are no more flattering. I (and some of the comments) get it, though. It’s rather brilliant. Stewart reveals himself to be a well-rounded, liberally-educated guy who can actually write! Of course, I could feel that in all of the presentations I’ve seen from the Flickr founders who always come across as having a real grasp on the human nature intrinsic to a social website. I think we (designers of interactive content, whether it be the web or games) could learn a huge amount from Flickr and the views of its creators.

In fact, I wrote about this not too long ago (from the UI designer at Flickr). Read the essay. Get inspired to create something for people.

We showed up in the Austin American-Statesman for Tech Monday (out on the web this evening). Digg it. Spread the word. Check it out. Pretty good write-up.

UPDATE: I didn’t notice this, but there’s also a video clip. Interesting…

Another suit (from Jack Thompson) against Take-Two/Rockstar regarding GTA and a murder. The standard “informed” rebuttal: games don’t make people killers… if he didn’t have access to guns… it’s the parent’s responsibility… he was a 13yrold playing a 17+ M rated game…

The problem: arguing that he’s a 13yrold playing a 17yrold’s game kinda concedes the point that the game may have caused the problem. While that may be possible, I kinda doubt it…

Another problem: arguing that playing a game can’t have a negative impact on you (can’t make you a killer) kinda goes against the assertion that games are art and can have impacts on the audience, express emotion, etc.

We can’t have our cake and eat it, too: games either have emotional/psychological impacts or they don’t. And if they do, the question is whether the game in particular has a positive or negative one (or if its even related to the case). Of course games have emotional impacts. The best ones aim for it. That does not mean they bear responsibility for its audience’s actions.

Games, like all media, broaden the consumer’s palette of experience. It’s experience-by-proxy. I wasn’t alive during WWII, but I feel as though I have some degree (incredibly slight, to be sure) of experiential understanding of it due to movies like Saving Private Ryan, Schindler’s List, or video games like Medal of Honor. We have to admit, though, that 2 hours of Saving Private Ryan delivers a far deeper emotional impact than 20 hours of Medal of Honor.

Of course, most video game players focus on the mechanics, with the thematic elements being secondary. Thematic elements become repetitive. Much like a movie may revolve around its characters and their development, a game revolves around the mechanics and their application.

Of course, someone predisposed toward violence or who is desensitized to it or amoral for whatever reason may focus on the thematic elements. In fact, they may be attracted to the game because of the thematic elements, as opposed to the mechanics. And if they play obsessively, it may be a kind of “wallowing” in the themes, as opposed to “exercising” the mechanics.

Porn is an apt comparison, a slightly more socially acceptable pursuit that most males will (hopefully) have more experience with than violence. It’s base, just like violence, and is considered a socially undesirable (if not wholly unacceptable) recourse for certain “urges”. One can probably see the distinction between viewing porn “to get your rocks off” as opposed to becoming obsessed and entrenched in it. There’s a difference between getting aroused by hearing a woman moaning as she’s brought to (a likely faked) climax and being aroused by the male-dominating, misogynistic “fake rape” that can be found in some dark corners. It may be a thin line from some perspectives, and their may be no distinction in the eyes of others, but I’d guess most guys can see the difference.

The same applies to video games… the vast majority of the consumers are relishing the mechanics primarily and the themes secondarily. It’s not the life of a real mob assassin that we’re enjoying thematically, it’s the idealized, sanitized version. And we know it’s different. Hell, a 13yrold should know its different. If he can’t make that distinction, then there’s something wrong. A parent shouldn’t be oblivious to that.

So the parents do bare some responsibility, not so much for the child’s actions, but for the contributing factors to those actions. Now, if Rockstar was advertising GTA during Saturday morning cartoons, including it in cereal boxes, and distributing demos at elementary schools, then they’d be doing something wrong (though still not *responsible* for the actions of the players). But rating a game as M, selling it for $60 for a $200 game machine puts reasonable barriers to entry up, particularly for a 13yrold.

In other words, I’ve got absolutely no problem with the existence of pornography. I would absolutely have a problem with my 13yrdold son watching pornography. But if I bought it for him, and let him watch it, could I really turn around and sue Vivid when he got a girl pregnant? Could I honestly blame the makers of the porn for that?

Please note my comparison between porn and video games: the comparison is apt because in the eyes of those defaming video games they are on equal footing, yet they would never think of suing the porn makers (or maybe they would, but no lawyer would give them the time of day ’cause they’d lose). They are not the same thing, though. Porn is like a documentary: it is real people having real sex. GTA is crudely modeled and animated, very clearly not real people doing very clearly not real things (like running from one end of a city to another, and dying, and being resurrected, and getting hit by cars and not getting hurt, etc…).

So, the next time you witness a “games don’t kill people, people kill people” kind of debate, be clear about the point you’re arguing. Don’t diminish games by arguing they don’t have the emotive substance to effect their audience. Its a double-edged sword that we must be quite careful in wielding.

No one likes working for “The Man.” I previously worked for “The Man” of our little industry, Electronic Arts. And then I was indie… and now, I work for “The Man” again.

Or, rather, I work for “The Bird.”

Last week, in a humble little legal procedure called “incorporation,” a quasi-real (but wholly legal) entity was formed in the Great State of Delaware. Its first act as a corporate entity was to hire myself and my business partner and appoint us officers of the corporation with all rights and obligations thereof.

So, I guess I’m officially employed now. Employed by the corporate entity that only exists on paper and in our imagination. At least I hold a controlling interest!

Our little guy was born last week, simultaneously incorporated in the halls of Delaware as he was given form in the notebooks of our concept artists. His image is lurking about the web (find it if you can!), but I’ll leave you with just the name for now: Mockingbird Games, Inc.

I guess it’s official, huh?

So, now what? That’s the question many folks have been asking me over the last few weeks, since I announced my departure from EA. I’ve had to be understandably coy about the whole thing as to not ruffle any feathers at the mothership… I’ve got enough going on with an international move and such to not have to fight one last political battle.

International move, you say? Yes, we (me, the misses, the baby girl) currently live in Vancouver (well, Burnaby, but that’s besides the point). A week from now, we’ll live in… well, in limbo, as it takes a while for all of our belongings to make the long trek from Vancouver to Austin, Texas. We’ll hang around our parents’ homes in Northwest Arkansas, enjoy Thanksgiving (American-style), and introduce our baby girl to all of her uncles, aunts and cousins. Two weeks from now, we’ll be sitting in our new home in Austin, unpacking what I’m sure will be several million cardboard boxes (now, where’s my crowbar…).

So, that’s the physical “now, what?” over the short term. But what’s really going to happen? What are my next steps professionally?

Well, it’s still a little too early too say. It’s not that I don’t know… I’ve known for nearly six months! But, due to my employment contract with EA, I was unable to act on my plans for world domination. It’d be no good if I went and created the “next great IP” and it defaulted to the folks who paid my bills, now would it? Thus, these next few weeks will see the creation, tangibly in copyrightable form, lots of IP.

What is this IP, you ask? Well… I can’t say now. I’ve spoken to some offline about it, to make sure I’m not crazy, and responses seem to favorably indicate that, at least in respect to this idea, I am not crazy. In fact, it sounds as if I may be providing an honest-to-goodness service for my fellow developers.

Service, you say? Games aren’t services! No they’re not. I am not making a game. You are. We all are. Have fun!

…for me, at least. Today, I gave my notice to EA that I’d be leaving. I’m moving on to (hopefully) bigger and better things. More importantly, we’re moving closer to family so that grandparents can see their granddaughter more than once a year! So, the About page has been officially updated: I am now just an indie game developer, no longer trapped in a corporate game developer’s body.

Apparently, Godwin’s Law applies to US politics as well. While I don’t usually comment on politics on this blog, I couldn’t help but spread the excellent words of Edward R. Murrow (as quoted by the excellent Keith Olbbermann). Of course, this is in response to Rumsfeld’s idiotic Godwin…

Well, I never expected that I’d get to celebrate Father’s Day for real this year, but I did… Georgia Jane arrived three weeks early, which I’d consdier right on time. On Friday, June 16, 2006, at 6:35pm, in Vancouver, BC, baby Georgia was born healthy and crying. Elizabeth was incredibly strong; we went to the hospital at 8:30am when the first contractions started, and 10 hours later our beautiful baby girl was born. Elizabeth didn’t take a drop of pain relief medication. She did take a generous helping of doula, though… Katie, our doula, rubbed Elizabeth’s back literally every second of labor (she even ate a Snickers with one hand while rubbing with the other — her only food during the 10 hours). She was incredibly supportive. All of the doctors and nurses were incredibly impressed with both her and Elizabeth.

So, I may be a bit out of the loop for the next couple of weeks… so far, though, it’s been so much easier than we expected… too easy! Georgia slept for 7 hours straight today! And she hasn’t cried for more than a few seconds at a time since she was born. We even got some sleep last night… of course, I’ve probably now jinxed it and will not get any sleep this evening!