Category: e3

In Memorium: Ryan Davis.

1

I wanted to let some time pass before I posted this. I struggled with whether or not to add the humorous moments in it. But I think it’s something Ryan would have wanted.

 

 

It was a hundred degrees in Austin. I never understood why cities where it climbs that high temperature-wise have airports mostly made of glass, allowing the sun to magnify the heat. Airports where you can claim it’s air conditioned but the ambient temperature at any given point in the place is 78. I was standing outside the gate for my first leg of my trip home, to Dallas then on to Seattle, waiting for my boarding group to be called.

I was operating on about three hours of sleep having just finished a fantastic weekend at RTX 2013, and having just gotten the worst news possible for a gamer. I was trying to figure out how I was going to do 8 hours of travel without breaking down at least for a bit.

Ryan Davis of Giantbomb.com had passed away peacefully at home of natural causes.* I’d heard the news in passing just an hour before and had to call e to confirm it. Even after I hung up with him I still was not processing it.

The gate agent came on the speaker.

This is American Airlines service from Austin to Dallas now announcing boarding for all American Airlines Platinum Plus members.

My ticket read that I was in boarding group two. I thought back to the first time I met Ryan.

***

I had already been a Giantbomb fan for a long time when I got the opportunity to see their live podcast (heretofore referred to as its rightful name The Bombcast) at PAX 2010. I was especially excited because of all the people I knew who were on it in addition to people I was a fan of: Michael Pachter, Gary Whitta, Jeff Green, etc.

It was for me the first time I had gotten to see the Giantbomb crew in person. I’d seen their pictures of course and the occasional Internet video but those things were nothing compared to the real thing for a fan of a show that delved so honestly into gaming and gaming culture.

Afterwards I managed to catch Ryan. I introduced myself as the “Head of Enforcement for Xbox LIVE.”

He blinked a minute as he was shaking my hand. I explained, “Head Banhammer.”

He threw back his head and laughed and clapped both his hands on my shoulders.

“Oh my god you’re Stepto! You have the shittiest job in the world!”

When Ryan grabbed you liked that and laughed like that, *and* knew who you are, it was like feeling you made the big time.

***

This is American Airlines service from Austin to Dallas now announcing boarding for all American Airlines Platinum members, Platinum Alliance members, and One World Platinum Alliance members.

***

Over the next year Ryan and I would trade emails or twitter comments. There’s this weird world now where you can be a continent away from people you make a physical connection with friendship wise and that just carries through to social media. Ryan was well known for his wit and humor, but as a gamer he was someone who embodied the very concept I try to espouse of “Be excellent to each other”**

When Gary and I had problems with the new SimCity Beta in building our cities, Ryan immediately tried to help us:

Ryan1

When he tore apart a game he didn’t demean it, he honestly gave criticism on how it could be better. And if a game was bad, he tried to see what nuggets of good were in it.

How many people in the snark-filled festival that is our Internet commentary can say that?

***

This is American Airlines service from Austin to Dallas now announcing boarding for all American Airlines Ruby members, Flawed Ruby members, Premium Plus Alliance members, and Guild Navigators members.

***

Ryan and company asked myself and my friend e to be on the e3 Bombcast for the 2011 e3 which is where Microsoft announced a project e and I had been working on for quite some time: Kinect.

We were going to be on with Gary, and Jonathan Blow. This resulted in the infamous “Jonathan Blow vs. Microsoft” discussion. The thing I remember most about this was that A) HOLY CRAP BUCKETS OF CRAP I’M ON THE BOMBCAST and B) how Ryan and the Giantbomb crew were this bizarre and awesome mix of laid back and professional.

“Grab a beer, sit over there, oh we need a sound check. Ok remember the Internet is listening.”

The conversation devolved so totally into inside baseball. Jonathan had legit criticisms about Xbox LIVE policies and e and I had legit explanations. Everyone to this day thinks e and I hate Jonathan from that exchange. Truth be told, just afterwards we all exited the house where the podcast was being recorded and said “wow what a fun time!” and Jonathan gave e and I a ride back downtown.

While the fans and commentators devolved quite rapidly into calling e and I shills for a corporate monster that wanted to destroy all good and the entire episode the worst ever, later Ryan told me it was by far the most substantive and fun podcast for him he’d done yet.

“But your fans hated it,” I said.

“Oh those guys. I mean I love them, but I do this for stuff we would never get to do otherwise! I think it was one of the best discussions we’ve ever had. How often do you get to argue the rules of Xbox LIVE in front of both sides of the story?” he laughed.

Ryan’s laugh was his sincerity.

***

This is American Airlines service from Austin to Dallas now announcing boarding for all American Airlines Passengers who are Service Members in Uniform, First Class, Coach Class Plus Alliance members, and any Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles who may be flying today.

***

My last interaction with Ryan is the one that, if I had not had the privilege of knowing him, would break my heart. Instead it reminds me of how full of life he was.

He once again invited me to the Bombcast for e3 2013 and I invited e too since I thought it would be fun.

The Bombcast was in what was *obviously* a porn studio.

No, really, it was a building filled with rooms all done up in different styles of porn sets, from bedroom to school room to office (black couch included!) to where we ended up: a law office boardroom complete with a wall of law books. I mean real law books.  At one point in the podcast I made some arcane reference and Ryan used one of the law books in the room to call me out on it and it was classic Ryan.

When Ryan made fun of you, he wasn’t demeaning you. He was bringing you down to size. He wasn’t belittling you. When Ryan made a joke about something you said, he made you feel like the center of the world. Like he was your friend and he was just talking to you not talking to the entire Internet just to be clever.

Ryan was about a week from getting married. We were all teasing his obvious excitement before recording. I shook his hand when I left and he said he wanted us on again soon. I congratulated him on his impending wedding, and that was the last time I spoke to him.

***

The curse of Internet friends is that we have this web that connects us and when we see each other in person it’s a big bright moment for us. But when those friends are taken from us we have a harder time believing they are gone because their physical presence is such an abstract and wonderful surprise.

I boarded my plane finally and struggled to cope with how much I’m going to miss that man. Our industry and the world in general is less without him.

 

 

*I’m sick and tired of the Internet speculation. Ryan’s family has made the statement it was natural causes. There’s no need to delve any further.

**Stolen from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, but a mantra we need on the Internet so much right now.

E3: E, cubed. 2011. Part 2. A Song of Things. Book Two. A Clash of Things.

0

I know I am way behind putting this up, but Game of Thrones not only sucked me into bookwise, I made the mistake after finishing book one of watching the HBO adaptation. Let me just say: IT’S TOO LATE FOR ME, SAVE YOURSELVES.

Anyways.

The thing they don’t always tell you about e3 demo theaters is that they are small, poorly lit, hastily built, and hot. And as I sat in the Bethesda theater awaiting the presentation of Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, I looked at the walls of the cramped room wondering if they would buckle from the various strung up Dim-o-lighting fixtures.

Rewind 30 minutes.  E, Major Nelson and I are all standing just outside Bethesda’s booth talking to Todd Howard and I’m proud of myself for keeping my cool.  e3 has become the place where I inadvertently get placed in close proximity to people who cause me to LOSE MY SHIT because of who they are and the influence they have had on me.  But a bit earlier I’d shared the same breathable airspace with Stephen Spielberg and unlike last time that happened my brain didn’t vapor lock, so clearly some progress was being made. 

Todd of course is the executive producer behind Elder Scrolls and Fallout 3.  In other words, awesome.  He was running us through what we were going to see and expressing a keen interest in our Forza 4 party because he’s also a supercar enthusiast. Like just about everyone in the gaming industry except the old school super egos, he’s an incredibly down to earth guy who’s amazed at even his own role in the business.

The Skyrim demo starts and I snap back in time. Right out of the gate I see this is precisely what I wanted.  Forget the class changes and skill tree adjustments, I just wanted another immersive experience like Oblivion or Fallout 3, with amazing graphics.  And that’s what I got.  Skyrim looks astounding, from meticulously detailed and wonderfully animated wooly mammoths, to dirty and primitive looking stone giants, to vast mountain peaks, to perfectly rendered dungeons.  For a period of about 18 minutes I didn’t care a single bit about the stifling heat or the cramp standing room only theater.

When I walked out I knew I had a title that was going to vie with Portal 2 for my game of the year. I was tired already even though it was only 3.  I’d started the day visiting the Sony and Nintendo booths.

Nintendo’s booth was full all the time. You could tell they were the standout this year due to the hardware announcement. Interestingly while access to the Wii U was pretty hard to obtain due to its popularity, there were people walking around the booth with real controllers so that you could hold it and feel the weight, see the screen, etc without having to stand in the main line. The 3DS also had a presence, but the real excitement was around the Wii U. I wish I had gotten a chance to play with it, but their area was just too crowded.

I dread going to Sony’s booth at e3. For the past three years the energy has been very low, as if someone stole their thunder out from under them. This year was a total change. With the release of Infamous 2, the upcoming Uncharted 3, and the Vita being available for play, Sony’s booth was fun and upbeat this year. After an hour and a half long wait I got my hands on a Vita. I’m not sold on the concept of a portable device for gaming that isn’t also a phone. However one thing is clear when you play with a Vita: you are holding the next generation of portable gaming. The fidelity and complexity of the graphics was easily on par with a 360, and while I wasn’t sure I really needed that in a handheld, as I played with the Vita I became more and more convinced. The game I was playing was beautiful and silky smooth. Build quality of the unit was typical Sony, meaning very good. It wasn’t too heavy or too light. At the same time the demo was highly controlled, I only had a couple of minutes with the device and was not allowed to go to XMB or check battery life stats. Still, it’s impressive hardware. We’ll see how it does.

But after all that I knew I needed to marshal my thoughts and consolidate my notes.  I returned to the hotel and spent a good hour writing my trip report for the folks back home.  There was just one more thing to see before I left the next day.  I had an early morning appointment to see Bioshock Infinite.

I cannot describe to you not just how amazing the game looks, but that it will be to Bioshock what Bioshock was to every game before it. The content in the e3 demo was at once jaw dropping, shocking, unsettling, and thrilling. There’s no way this game isn’t going to be game of the year 2012 based on the demo I saw.

e3’s a tiring event, and not quite the same energy as PAX because it’s so industry focused.  But what I didn’t expect was the feeling that the best this console generation has to offer is actually yet to come.

E3: E, cubed. 2011. Part 1. A Song of Things. Book One. A Thing of Songs.

0

I stepped out of The Original Pantry Cafe into a cold LA night. The wind was up and the sky was a white fog lit by….well lit by LA. A helicopter buzzed over, on it’s way to some important thing. In the distance I could see the JW Marriot as a gleaming tower into the sky, and just off to the left my own hotel a few blocks away. It was like Blade Runner. Coming to LA is always like Blade Runner.

photo

My friends were all around me making their plans to get to bed safe, and I bid them farewell as I walked towards my own temporary respite just down the way. I’d just gotten into A Song of Fire and Ice: Game of Thrones: Book One.  A terribly fantastic book that has a fantastically terrible name for a book series. But I was tired beyond belief, and wanted to read a chapter or two before bed.

It’s late, and I looked at the blue neon of the Marriot climbing into the sky, just high enough to touch the smog line. The wind reminded me it’s unseasonably cold as the street people pled for money just outside the place where I stuffed myself on late night breakfast.

I never do this, since I was attacked a few years ago by a homeless person while I was giving money to another homeless person…but I handed the nearest person my last ten dollars as I walked back to the hotel.

All the pre-e3 presentations had been done: Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo. Every time I come here I marvel that that I’m in any way a part of it. E and I had been a part of the GiantBomb podcast earlier along with Jonathan Blow (Creator of Braid) and Gary Whitta (Author of Book of Eli as well as the new Penny Arcade partner on The New Kid).  We were laughing earlier at the Internet forum denizens proclaiming us mindless Microsoft shills. That keeps you grounded I suppose. A shill?  If I could count the number of times my (actually quite nice and awesome) PR team had butted heads for a dime I would be dimes richer.

For my part I was happy about our part, excited about the Vita more than I thought I would be, and the Wii U I thought was a bold maneuver in the crazy world that is the console wars. For titles, Uncharted 3 looked to be amazing and the video of modern titles running on a Nintendo platform had me seriously happy as a gamer. Battlefield 3, Modern Warfare 3, Skyrim, and Bioshock Infinite were my MUST SEE titles.

Wandering back to the hotel, I was puzzled by the Internet reaction to the Giantbombcast. I loved sitting on a couch, chatting with a noted screen writer and author, my friend Eric, the creator of a game I admired muchly, and the GiantBomb guys who held us accountable but also let us talk our side as well. Why would people assume we were shills when we spent so much time talking about games specifically and the fact there were certainly shortcomings in our platform?

Ah well, on the Internet forums no one knows you are a dog.

The whip of the wind brought me back for a moment. Earlier I had been in the Microsoft briefing room at the Galen Theater.  The pomp part and the grandeur are hard to deal with sometimes when you realize you’re a gamer who worked on the things being announced. To have such a spectacle unfold around your efforts and the efforts of people you respected is both a gratification and a surreal moment you can’t quite deal with.

photo (1)

There was a lot of complaint about Kinect from the Internet-erati.  That’s ok.  If anything I’ve learned those most invested religiously in a platform are the ones most likely to hate announcements in regards to that platform if it doesn’t fit their narrow usage scenario. Good thing for them no one is going to turn off their Xbox controllers or anything!  And for those 10 million people who bought Kinects, well we were working on making that even better for them. We demo’d Kinect sitting down, Kinect sideways, new titles, hardcore titles, Bing voice search, TV, so many things to mention. So many things I had been dying to talk about for the past year, and now I could.  We’d made good.

A taxi honked at a passing car.

I actually don’t like LA. Well that’s not fair, I dislike some parts of it. Like any large city as culturally significant as LA I have come to only be exposed to those parts most people identify with because they are the parts most utilized. But downtown, all the stereotypes ring true here: The smoggy skyline, the ersatz body type that attempts to trade fitness for anorexia, the traffic, the impression that everyone who is here is only here to "get somewhere" in life.

It’s not really fair to judge a city by that, I know for a fact there’s places in LA where I have spent time with my friends that I really like. There’s a lot of my friends who live in the area I wasn’t able to see because of the chaos of timing that is E3.

So now as I observe my notes from the moment, they are from 3 am and even in downtown LA there wasn’t a car on the street. The intersection at 7th and Figueroa switched its lights and walk/don’t walk signs without regard. I had no reason to feel melancholy or alone, and I didn’t. I just felt odd as walked.

The past two days as I look at the scribbles of that moment, have been a blur. 48 hours have passed since my landing.  I’ve watched our announcements of new Kinect capabilities and new titles and work that over the past 12 months has coalesced into what I think is an incredibly solid delivery on promises of what Kinect could do, the Internet reaction cast aside.

I finalize this in the past, and post it in the future.  In my e3 timeline, tomorrow I will see Skyrim.  I will hold a Vita in my hands and play with it.  On my last day I will have a private demo of Bioshock Infinite.  These are the things I have planned.

I can say they came true. And I will speak of them tomorrow.

It is accomplished…(e3 2010 Part 1)

0

I’ve been here at e3 2010 for 72 hours and it feels like 2. From the amazing Cirque Du Soleil experience of Kinect to the rush of the keynote yesterday morning to the celebrations of last night, I now have to pause to reflect.

But before I reflect I must rave.  Bear with me a second.

To get down here to e3 I flew Virgin America for the very first time.

BEST.

AIRLINE.

IN HISTORY.

I have not had that good a domestic flight experience since I was a child and they used to take care of every little thing you needed and let you go into the cockpit during the flight. Everyone’s told me how good Virgin was but honestly their starry eyed enthusiasm looked more than a little cultish to me so I never went out of my way to fly them.  This time the cheapest flight to LA was Virgin America so I thought sure why not?

I arrived at the ticket booth to check my bag.  Not only was the ticket guy friendly, he was an Xbox fan.  We chatted about e3 and how many Xbox people he was getting to meet that day while he walked me through not just my baggage claim check but also what was available on the flight, the precise directions to my gate, and the quickest security line. I walked away feeling chipper and had to stop and wonder when the last time I actually enjoyed a conversation with a ticket agent was.

I got to the gate and the people behind the gate desk piped up and asked me if I was flying Virgin America today and I said I was. The girl said they would begin boarding about 5 minutes past the time printed on the ticket so don’t worry if they don’t call it out because the flight will leave on time.

I stood there once again startled by the fact no other airline in history had ever bothered to so much as say hello to me from the gate desk if I didn’t walk up to it first, much less provide useful information unbidden. I decided to tempt fate. Sitting overlooking the plane at the gate I tweeted:

image

Well it only got better.  Inside the spacious Airbus were comfortable leather seats, each with its own detachable screen for watching movies and ordering food.  The flight staff were funny and nice, the food was actually fresh and quite tasty.  You can order it simply from your seat just as if you were in first class, and swipe your credit card through the reader at the bottom of the screen.  The in flight Internet service allowed all of us to keep up with the US/ENG soccer game.

To end this rave, I may never fly again to a place Virgin America doesn’t fly to. It’s like I’m a beaten spouse who has suddenly discovered relationships don’t have to be abusive.

The best part?  These are also the people WHO WILL BE SENDING HUMANS INTO SPACE NEXT YEAR!

Anyway, this is supposed to be about e3.

People sometimes ask me what the worst part of my job is. I think when they are asking me that they are secretly hoping I’ll kind of look a little tired or sad and confess to them that sure, it’s getting to work on the Xbox and LIVE but that’s it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. That there’s a price pay.

Except it’s 100% every single solitary god damned thing it’s cracked up to me, and more so. I don’t say that to brag.  I am incredibly lucky and fortunate and thankful to do what I do. Every single day I come to work and try to perform as if all the video games fans of the world were wanting me to earn it, because any one of them would kill to be in my place.

But there is one part that’s tough.  And that part is knowing about all the amazing things that we work on, but not getting to say a single thing for months, sometimes more than a year, at a time.

The Cirque Du Soleil event was a fantastic way to explore the new technology of Kinect.  I got to attend the dress rehearsal on Saturday night and the full event Monday night.  Our space ponchos made us look more than a little spacey.  But the ponchos lit up at key moments during the event, turning the entire audience into a big projection screen the artists controlled with hand gestures from the stage.  I can’t believe, to this minute, that we managed to get a troupe as prestigious as Cirque Du Soleil to launch our new technology.

Our keynote went off very well too.  There’s been some who felt i wasn’t “big” enough, but I think they fail to understand the audience we were speaking to for much of the keynote was far far larger than the hardcore video game individual.  With integration of Kinect experiences to the dash, and partnerships with ESPN, our console is clearly an entertainment device anyone can use now.  I know the hardcore gamers and jaded gamer press types don’t want anyone to get peanut butter in their chocolate, but that’s simply not the future of consoles.  It has to be more than just great first person shooters (of which we have some great ones in Gears of War 3, Halo: Reach, and the Call of Duty franchise)

The new Xbox 360 is a great evolution of the device.  Whisper quiet, sharp looking and sleek.  I love it.  I know I’m supposed to love it, but I love it beyond that.  The Kinect experiences shown at the keynote are real. Not only are they real, people will get to try them on the expo floor. I can’t say this enough: The product team for Xbox really delivered. We now have a controllerless experience that is useful, easy, and fun. The cheers and gasps of surprise and applause from the audience were well earned. And it was a huge load off my mind to finally see this stuff out there where you can all see it, because we’re just getting started.

My breakfast is done and Nintendo just plucked all my nostalgia heart strings with their keynote and I want to go play with a 3DS. I’ll come back with expo floor reports and another writeup soon.

It is accomplished…(e3 2010 Part 1)

0

I’ve been here at e3 2010 for 72 hours and it feels like 2. From the amazing Cirque Du Soleil experience of Kinect to the rush of the keynote yesterday morning to the celebrations of last night, I now have to pause to reflect.

But before I reflect I must rave.  Bear with me a second.

To get down here to e3 I flew Virgin America for the very first time.

BEST.

AIRLINE.

IN HISTORY.

I have not had that good a domestic flight experience since I was a child and they used to take care of every little thing you needed and let you go into the cockpit during the flight. Everyone’s told me how good Virgin was but honestly their starry eyed enthusiasm looked more than a little cultish to me so I never went out of my way to fly them.  This time the cheapest flight to LA was Virgin America so I thought sure why not?

I arrived at the ticket booth to check my bag.  Not only was the ticket guy friendly, he was an Xbox fan.  We chatted about e3 and how many Xbox people he was getting to meet that day while he walked me through not just my baggage claim check but also what was available on the flight, the precise directions to my gate, and the quickest security line. I walked away feeling chipper and had to stop and wonder when the last time I actually enjoyed a conversation with a ticket agent was.

I got to the gate and the people behind the gate desk piped up and asked me if I was flying Virgin America today and I said I was. The girl said they would begin boarding about 5 minutes past the time printed on the ticket so don’t worry if they don’t call it out because the flight will leave on time.

I stood there once again startled by the fact no other airline in history had ever bothered to so much as say hello to me from the gate desk if I didn’t walk up to it first, much less provide useful information unbidden. I decided to tempt fate. Sitting overlooking the plane at the gate I tweeted:

image

Well it only got better.  Inside the spacious Airbus were comfortable leather seats, each with its own detachable screen for watching movies and ordering food.  The flight staff were funny and nice, the food was actually fresh and quite tasty.  You can order it simply from your seat just as if you were in first class, and swipe your credit card through the reader at the bottom of the screen.  The in flight Internet service allowed all of us to keep up with the US/ENG soccer game.

To end this rave, I may never fly again to a place Virgin America doesn’t fly to. It’s like I’m a beaten spouse who has suddenly discovered relationships don’t have to be abusive.

The best part?  These are also the people WHO WILL BE SENDING HUMANS INTO SPACE NEXT YEAR!

Anyway, this is supposed to be about e3.

People sometimes ask me what the worst part of my job is. I think when they are asking me that they are secretly hoping I’ll kind of look a little tired or sad and confess to them that sure, it’s getting to work on the Xbox and LIVE but that’s it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. That there’s a price pay.

Except it’s 100% every single solitary god damned thing it’s cracked up to me, and more so. I don’t say that to brag.  I am incredibly lucky and fortunate and thankful to do what I do. Every single day I come to work and try to perform as if all the video games fans of the world were wanting me to earn it, because any one of them would kill to be in my place.

But there is one part that’s tough.  And that part is knowing about all the amazing things that we work on, but not getting to say a single thing for months, sometimes more than a year, at a time.

The Cirque Du Soleil event was a fantastic way to explore the new technology of Kinect.  I got to attend the dress rehearsal on Saturday night and the full event Monday night.  Our space ponchos made us look more than a little spacey.  But the ponchos lit up at key moments during the event, turning the entire audience into a big projection screen the artists controlled with hand gestures from the stage.  I can’t believe, to this minute, that we managed to get a troupe as prestigious as Cirque Du Soleil to launch our new technology.

Our keynote went off very well too.  There’s been some who felt i wasn’t “big” enough, but I think they fail to understand the audience we were speaking to for much of the keynote was far far larger than the hardcore video game individual.  With integration of Kinect experiences to the dash, and partnerships with ESPN, our console is clearly an entertainment device anyone can use now.  I know the hardcore gamers and jaded gamer press types don’t want anyone to get peanut butter in their chocolate, but that’s simply not the future of consoles.  It has to be more than just great first person shooters (of which we have some great ones in Gears of War 3, Halo: Reach, and the Call of Duty franchise)

The new Xbox 360 is a great evolution of the device.  Whisper quiet, sharp looking and sleek.  I love it.  I know I’m supposed to love it, but I love it beyond that.  The Kinect experiences shown at the keynote are real. Not only are they real, people will get to try them on the expo floor. I can’t say this enough: The product team for Xbox really delivered. We now have a controllerless experience that is useful, easy, and fun. The cheers and gasps of surprise and applause from the audience were well earned. And it was a huge load off my mind to finally see this stuff out there where you can all see it, because we’re just getting started.

My breakfast is done and Nintendo just plucked all my nostalgia heart strings with their keynote and I want to go play with a 3DS. I’ll come back with expo floor reports and another writeup soon.