Dear gogfellows,

In the last four years I have been writing a book about video games. The title is "The Sins of the Industry" and it is both a compendium and a criticism of the bad practices of the industry of video games aswell as a socio-economical analysis of it. I like to call it a Marxist analysis, but I do not say this very loudly just in case someone who actually knows what a Marxist analysis is may hear me.

The project is in a very advanced state of what I call a "peer review+" process meaning that it can be discussed and criticized as in an academic peer review, but it is also open to contributions. I'm releasing the chapters through mobygames.com and, since I have already explained the project in detail on that site, I will just leave the links here.

If you are interested on collaborating, read the presentations and the rules to the PR+ first. If you only want to read the book, follow the links to the different chapters. Collaborations and communication can be made through the mobygames.com forums or through the mail sinsoftheindustry@gmail.com. I'll answer questions here for some days too.

Presentation

Rules to the Peer Review+

Sins of the Industry
Introduction
Chapter 1: Violence Resolves Everything
Chapter 2: Boys Club
Chapter 3: The Played Player
Chapter 4: Walking Wallets
Part 1: Various
Part 2: Franchising
Part 3: The Marketing Department
Part 4: All your Game Are Belong to Us
Part 5: Games by Weight
Part 6: Case Studies
Chapter 5: “It's a Business, duh!”
Chapter 6: Creativity Crisis
Chapter 7: The Professional Eye
Glossary

Hope you enjoy it and thanks for your collaboration.

Skimmed the first part. It seems to be a good read, so I'll read trough it more carefully in a few days. Seems very good.

Neat. Will certainly take a look as I'm reading a lot of literature and following blogs about the industry. Quite curious about what you have to say.

hmm, skimmed chp1, the violence one. I think you should mention somewhere that the violence steams from that all games needs to have a conflict, AFAIK all definitions on what a game and what play is have this in one form or another, without a conflict there is no play. Now, whether this conflict is violent or not is another matter, but a violent conflict is the easiest and most straightforward to implement. Games are not violent just because they can be, but there are also some inherent structures of the nature of play and conflict.

Also, reading between the lines it seems you are thinking that the violence is games are overdone and not healthy (skimming I did not find a place where you actually say so, but the tone implies it), media effects in general are very controversial and there are no conclusive evidence that they exists. All evidence provided so far have been debunked.

I would use the term "challenge" more than conflict, because not all games have storytelling. In any case, I think the general conclusion I get is that violence is indeed the easiest tool they use to make their games engaging and very, very rarely they do explore where that violence comes from or give alternatives to it. In general, scriptwriting in video games is very basic and functional, so the result is too often violence just because. Yes, I'm aware there is no evidence of violent behavior as a direct result of playing violent video games. My criticism is that it makes violence culturally acceptable. Read the the Conclusions section if you want the details, but in a nutshell, the idea is that video games expose the player to too many examples of violence as a good solution for a problem. For example, an average player may just accept that wars are unavoidable and that modern military has everything under control on a war scenario. Thanks!

not really, as this would the player has not the ability to make a distinction between reality and fiction. If this is the case, then you can draw the same conclusion to TV, films and books also. There is a case for computer games (avatars and agency and so on), but the link is to weak. Violence in games is just a narrative and gameplay device, not very original or the best ones matbe, but still nothing more. The player is aware that it is just such a device, and perfectly capable of drawing own personal conclusions based on 'real' experiences and moral codex when outside of the magic circle. It is difficult to justify a conclusion like this. I will read it a bit more closely when I am not half asleep and in the middle on New Vegas.

I think that's balderdash. If media couldn't influence individuals it would mean that propaganda wouldn't work and denying that such an important and ancient political tool has an effect would be pure ignorance. And literature, movies and video games are propaganda, at least in part. When you see a top comment on a YT video about speznaz (not related to a video game) that states "these guys are badass, I know because they kicked my butt in Modern Warfare 2", doesn't that prove anything to you? Even fictitious works deliver strong messages, perhaps even more powerful ones than non-fiction because of the subtlety. Maybe there's not one game/movie/book that will turn a person into a warmonger but being regularly bombarded with these kind media can and will often leave a mark.

propaganda is different and more about creating and implanting misinformation. The thing about propaganda is that in many cases a society will constantly re-distribute it and consume it, even though the individuals do not believe in it (also many other funny things happening with it,attempting to de-humanising the enemy and so on, there is a good book on it "Faces of the enemy", dealing specifically with it). Also propaganda works when it is being toothed as the official line and the single truth, propaganda is being delivered and reinforced as The Reality, video games have always been presented as a piece of fiction, we humans have a tremendous capability of separating those two (except some individuals, but then they can take inspiration from everywhere and everything) . When it comes to messages in normal media, you also get many counter messages from everywhere (even games...) there is not one single "truth" or reality, so it is up to the individuals moral codex for making decisions. Is it possible that people can be desensitised through media exposure? maybe, but there is still no evidence, only anecdotal, that this effect is real.

I am not sure what you are trying to say about the YT video though.... I did not understand.

I think "over the top" is exactly what is necessary here. The author is trying to raise awareness for some tendencies and choices in the industry that according to him do not receive enough criticism yet. Exaggerating a bit increases the chances of being heard, in order to be taken seriously on the other hand the content has to be intelligently written. Also I've noticed that there seems to be more (if somewhat humorous) analogies to the Seven Deadly Sins in the book - IMO a brilliant move that makes the work stand out and suggests a certain education of the author giving his voice more gravity. I think the work benefits from it.

I am not sure that I would be the intended audience for this book, having the view that I do not care much about DRM, or really have any strong feeling for or against the gaming industry. So all I was saying is that the Title made me not want to read this book. For me if I had a choice of two books about the Car industry lets say "A retrospect of Motown" and "The Dark underbelly of the Auto industry" I would pick the first even though I am interested in the subject of Cars and might like both books.

I kind of agree. A biased tilted book will target and reach a binary audience - either those who have the same belief to start with, which means he will be preaching to the choir, or those of the complete opposite, who will only do so to take it apart and rubbish it.

For the first chapter, you seem to put all the blame on the game developers and studios (the chapter is extremely biased...) You seem to ignore the symbiosis between producer and consumer completely. You focus only on a few well know brands, and it is those that sells. There are quite a lot of games made during the times which has complete non-violent or games about alternative struggles. The problem is that they do not sell very well... so this is the fault of the gamers, there is no any mention of this dynamic there at all, are you suggesting that we should "force" these games on the players? Stop making the games they want to play and pay for?

and you end the chapter on anecdotal evidence of media influence. It is not so simple as you put it here. You are falling in the trap of making a classification between "High" culture and "Low" culture, and there is absoluteness no evidence that the effect you are talking about is real (and there has been a lot of studied done on this...)

You're forgetting about the people who may not have given much thought to the topic before reading the book. A topic that may have seemed simply uninteresting and boring suddenly appears quite intriguing. "Oooh, sins! So there's crime, assholes, conflict!" - and what they get is rather sophisticated analysis. It works. And hinting at your work's premise and stance in the title is not a bad idea (also, the title could just as well be sarcastic, it could accuse others of accusing the industry of sinning - in order to be sure you have to find out more about the work).

And as for your previous post:
Every psychologist and pedagogue will agree upon the fact that kids have a problem distinguishing fiction from reality - and clever psychologists are aware that it's a skill that improves with age but cannot reach perfection, it will always require a mental effort to tell those apart - depending on how well you know the topic you're dealing with it will require mostly subconscious or conscious analysis. And note that all works, no matter whether they are fiction or non-fiction, reflect on the real world. Some are more abstract and subtle (i.e. cartoons and fairy tales), others less.

How often have you had to look something up after hearing or seeing it in a movie? How often did you take it for granted? I for one heard the abbreviation "DEA" for the first time in the game Max Payne. I could have just told myself "it's fiction, so it's not true" but I assumed that there exists something called "DEA" in the US and that it has something to do with the police and drugs. And OMFG, I was right! O_O Also I know about 4th of July but that Americans traditionally blow up firecrackers is something I only know from fiction - I can't be sure that it's true but for now I do assume so because I saw it on the Simpsons and several movies I don't even remember anymore. If you were really honest with yourself you'd discover that large portions of what you assume you know about the real world comes from works of fiction - and giving a second thought to it you'd be surprised how little of that information you have confirmed by looking it up in works which are officially non-fiction.
You should read the introduction where he states:
"Therefore, this work does not deal with the whole world of video games, it deals only with the part that is produced under an industrial method of production. This portion of the medium will often be referred as “the industry” or “the mainstream”. Hence, the study has to be made around what constitutes that industry, which are the big companies that decide the course of gaming history for the most part. As such, the huge majority of this work will deal with the games and the behavior of the largest video game publishers."

His theory is that the power lies with the big companies so he's obviously making them responsible for all the "sins" (including that violent games have a bigger range and sales than non-violent ones). Similar ideas are already established on other media so it's not that far fetched.

Gonna read it after my essay over the division amongst the sexes is done. Sounds awesome :D