Yesterday I had a sort of throw-away thought bubble article over at Gamers With Jobs, and pulled together two things I generally enjoy thinking about: Massively Multiplayer Games and the design/production elements of the Disney corporation. To be fair: I know it’s weird that I spend time thinking about things like resort design, ride queues, and theming … but I do. /shrug

I love Disney. Not the company, which is increasingly reaching to foul and loathesome depths in its push to get marketoys into the hands of little girls. Not even the man, though obviously he was a person to respect. I love Disney the gestalt, the overall combination of customer service, ambition, creativity and innovation that lets places like the happiest place on earth exist. Their Walt Disney World resort in particular is fascinating, a microcosm of a country all within the space of a few former swampy marshes.

Particularly engaging is the idea that – in almost every way – Disney is the ultimate MMO developer. Though their forays into the genre have been tentative so far, the house of mouse is poised to be the designer of the happiest places on meta-earth as well.

If you’re tired of my using this site for self-aggrandizing linkage, I apologize. It’s my blog and I’ll link if I want to. You would link too …

Anyway, I got pinged for an article about Activision/Blizzard about a month or so ago. It’s just now shown up on the Gamasutra site, and I’m in some unexpected company. Along with “the game attorney”, Thomas H. Buscaglia, usual-suspect Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan weighs in on the merger. If you’re not familiar with Mr. Pachter … you actually probably are. He’s an analyst who weighs in on the games industry fairly regularly, and it’s very surprising to find myself sharing article space with him.

I uhh … don’t remember being as pithy as I’m quoted, but apparently I was in a ‘mood’ that day:

“Will the new company try to use the Blizzard folks as sort of internal consultants on other MMO projects in the organization? I’m probably going to go with a no,” Zenke continued. “While certainly there are areas of development, design, and certainly technical areas where Blizzard is an industry leader, most of those concepts are on the institutional level. That is to say, I’m not sure a quick consultation from Rob Pardo would be all that helpful to another group’s game.”

Also in me-centric news: My very first appearance in print is going to be hitting the newsstands soon. As Simon notes in a roundup of the next issue of Game Developer, I’ve got a piece in there about the rise of the “small” MMO. I did a bunch of research on relative size of titles for another project for them that I kind of let fall through, and they were nice enough to let me turn that into a GD article. I think it’s interesting stuff; at the very least I’m sure it’ll stir up conversation.

In another notable feature, Michael Zenke examines free-to-play MMOs such as Nexon’s MapleStory, and why they might be more important than many subscription-based MMO developers might think: “Smaller, non-subscription MMOs have been slowly but surely making their way into the hearts and minds of the game community. But now, they’re getting too big to ignore. Are tiny MMOs eating away at your subscribers?”

If you read me this week, make sure to let me know what you think.

Friday I put up my third GWJ article, this one exploring the dark mirror that is Grand Theft Auto IV.

I like Niko Bellic, and I’m not sure what that says about me. Grand Theft Auto IV’s protagonist is kind of a dick, no two ways about it. While he stumbles into a situation far removed from what he was expecting, the demands placed on him soon balloon far beyond a rationale person’s tolerance. Not five hours into the game’s main storyline you’re killing people in cold blood for not much more than a verbal insult.

Still, despite it all, I like Niko. I enjoy his tale in a way that I haven’t enjoyed the story in any other GTA title, and that makes me profoundly uncomfortable. GTA is fundamentally about 3 things, and they’re all uncomfortable: violence, race, and sex. That these things speak to me is troubling and intriguing, tapping into the basest elements of humanity. It feels like there are three monkeys on my back. Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil … it’s so archetypal it’s almost silly.

Ready for a peek into my subconscious? Me neither.

I finished up a huge project over the weekend, and have been working on another one of moderate size since last Friday for tomorrow … so I’ve been a bit off.

I wanted to take a sec to throw back some links, though, because I’ve gotten a lot of love recently. Actually (and don’t ask me why) the posts from last week got a really warm reception from folks – I even got email about them. I never get email about MN.

• I’ve gotten LOTS of feedback on my Bullet Point List, which I am not too surprised about. I jotted it off in a hurry, probably should have thought more about it. Still: fun to write. The -gards of 38 Studios commented on the post (thanks, guys!), and Grimwell even offered up a way to make my dreams of shard-free gaming a reality.
• My back-of-the-napkin poking at numbers got a lot of good-hearted flack (though nothing like poor Cameron got back in the day). My favorite comment about this post wasn’t even here on the site; Angus made it the topic of an entire post. I didn’t even know Angus knew about MN. (Heya Angus!) It’s really hard to dislike someone disagreeing with you when they do it so *well*.
• My post a while back about Microsoft and Sony’s duel over console MMOs has reappeared on CMP’s network, polished up a bit and wearing a bowtie. Make sure to read the comments; Sony hate knows no professional boundaries.
• Stephen was nice enough to mention me on the MTV Multiplayer blog after he, myself, and Chris Grant had a spot of the GTA IV multiplayer. Y’know, I think you should ignore what everyone else is saying … it’s actually a pretty good game.

Thanks for reading, folks.

I have another piece up on GWJ, a little rant that sort of all tumbled out in one go on Sunday. I’ve um, been watching a lot of Ron Moore’s show. Right now just working my way through early season three. I expect to be caught up soon so I can start working through the current season. Oh Baltar. When will you ever learn not to trust the crazy Robo-females? There’s a life lesson in there somewhere I think.

“Battlestar Galactica” is important. It’s not just a fantastic television show, a landmark series in the history of the medium. It’s not just a high water mark for the concept of ‘reimagining’ older stories. It’s important because Ron Moore and the show’s production crew absolutely destroy the crufty sameness of what ’sci-fi television is.’ The tropes of Star Trek and Star Wars are so familiar, so well-tread, that they’re almost played out. Sci-fi TV shows are still being made as if one mediocre show from the 60s is the template for modern storytelling.

In many ways games are operating in the same model.

The folks at Gamers with Jobs were kind enough to invite me into their fourth chair, again, for the GWJ Conference Call podcast.

Dark Sector, Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core, Mythos Revitalized, Rock Band Malfunctions, Michael Zenke From Massively.com, A Chance To Win A Limited Edition Risk: Black Ops, Your Glorious Emails and more! – We called and you answered! We got so many emails this week we’re dedicating the whole show to them. Not only do we have new GWJ contributer Michael Zenke joining us, he was kind enough to offer a limited edition of Risk: Black Ops (the upcoming Hasbro board game) for a glorious new contest! All you have to do is send in a funny picture that involves a board game of some kind to contest@gamerswithjobs.com! What could be easier!?

If you like board games you should totally enter. That version of Risk is pretty much kickass.

It is an unmitigated pleasure to drop a new offsite link on you today. The folks over at Gamers with Jobs were kind enough to ask if I’d be interested in writing with them. If you don’t dig games writing as much as I do, a decent analogy would be if one of your favorite bands asked you to join them on stage for a jam session. Not like, top-40s band. But not local, either. Something with regional appeal.

My first post with them went up today, detailing the on again/off again love affair I’ve had with console and PC gaming. Anyone who read the site last year will know of my tech troubles and the long stretch of time when I was writing about MMOs more than playing them but … this is written all fancy-like.

The PC became a workhorse, nothing more than my portal to work or whatever virtual world I was inhabiting at the time. Early last year, I wasn’t even really playing MMOs. I was writing about them, thinking about them, but my game time was spent with my hands wrapped firmly around a controller. At my lowest point I actually repurchased Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion to play on the 360, because my PC just couldn’t handle the load Tamriel represented.

I enjoyed it, but I felt shamed. My sad old gaming rig had done so much for me, and I was leaving it to rot. Many long months passed, seasons changed, and the only reason I sat down to my PC was to put in few hours of work. For every decision there are consequences, and every week I spent ignoring my roots another mark was made on my karmic tally stick.

This kind of dude-ed up writing, with imagery and stuff, is the way I write in my head. It’s a lot of fun to see it on screen. Thanks for the opportunity, guys.