Water is wet and Rockstar chase money

 

Rockstar games are exactly a complicated beast to predict. Not anymore. If we were to compare studios and their mannerisms to bosses from Souls-Like games- you'd have companies like Larian pulling up like 'Shadow of the Erdtree' major bosses, slapping you with multi-combos, roll catches and back-of-pocket lighting moves you never even knew that boss had after twenty attempts! Rockstar, on the otherhand, would be a miniboss from Lords of the Fallen. Gimmicky, with a couple of easily baitable combos that can be spammed over and over and over again. (I'm really digging into Lords lately, aren't I? That game has not left a good impression on me at all.) Which is to say, I'm actually a little surprised that this recent controversy with Rockstar is even a thing because, well, come on! You didn't know Rockstar buries art for money?

I'm talking of course about the single player DLC for Grand Theft Auto V. That's right, there was actually meant to be single player DLC and it wasn't a Zombie DLC despite the multiple years worth of bait-channels promising that with every other update. (Early Youtube- what a time to be young and dumb!) 'Special Agent Trevor' isn't exactly a secret within the community and I think people had already discussed the possibility that some of the surprise spy-content in GTA Online was actually repurposed single player content but I suppose that became a bit more concrete recently and old wounds opened up. Like a whistleblower coming out to declare that the Cambrian Explosion was actually a Pfizer cover-up job like we've suspected all these years. (Hmm? You haven't heard that conspiracy? Oh it goes deep, let me tell you!)

The revelation that some people are grappling with is the fact that indeed the quality of content presented in the base game of Grand Theft Auto V was purposefully ignored in order to feed the endless juggernaut of the online platform because that is, in the words of the man himself, their "Cash cow". I've said it before but GTA Online makes a sickening amount of money year in and year out, to the point where all those people worrying about Grand Theft Auto suddenly raising their prices to $100 or $150 as was off handily remarked a while back would be a frankly ludicrous proposition- because that would get in the way of the team getting their money printing device for the next decade in as many hands as possible. They would be literally setting fire to their own money- it's never going to happen!

But I mean- it's not exactly rocket science to realise that GTA single player had floundered in the face of Online. Just take into account the fact that after only a couple of updates worth of support GTA Online simply stopped porting their new cars to GTA V- despite the fact they could have easily been injected into the traffic formula in order to make single player exploration more diverse and interesting. Partially it could be argued that the choice was made in order to limit people's ability to 'pre test' these new cars and decided whether or not they want to commit through online. Buyers remorse is king to these kinds of people. But the truth is likely just frank laziness. Why bother when it doesn't translate into direct profit for the company? What's 'integrity' mean again?

Although I do understand the realisation that if this definitely was the case- Rockstar did, in-fact, axe content in order to feed the beast at least once- who's to say they haven't done it again? Could it be that the supposed zombie expansion was at least discussed before the successes of GTA Online killed those ambitions? Let it not be forgotten that one half of the Houser brother duo who started Rockstar to begin with left during the period of GTA Online's success leading towards the release of Red Dead Redemption. Could one factor contributing to that be seeing the direction that the company was headed- where resources were being devoted and no longer finding the spark of fun in being involved with it all? Could that be?

And what's worse- could this be the direction we have to face in the future too? Is the release of GTA 6 going to effectively be the end of support for the single player game as Rockstar happily turn towards the new and improved cash cow with dollar signs in their eyes- giddy at the prospect of an open world infrastructure, this time designed from the literal ground-up to absorb as much extra income off the player as possible? I mean we've already seen Red Dead Online get it's support totally pulled because the team couldn't figure out a way to make it profitable enough after the first year, throwing out the baby with the bathtub in that regard.

There is certainly room for both in this world, should the powers that be decide it's worth pursuing. Even the designer who commented on this in the first place attested that Rockstar could very well have chosen to support both at the same time. Now being even bigger than they were before, Rockstar could very well decide to do so this time around- or they could sink that extra talent into squeezing more easily monetizable online crap. Aside from the common-sense argument, we also have the fact that Rockstar just recently introduced a bevy of long requested quality of life features and then locked them behind the subscription paywall- so they certainly haven't gotten any better with business practices over the years.

I think Rockstar is a company of two halfs, one being a world class developer that developers non-stop masterpieces and the other being an opportunistic waste-of-space that milks all the framework left over by the real artists for a quick buck. And that perception has survived the entirety of GTA Online's life cycle, throughout Rockstar's life cycle and I have no reason to believe anything significant will change going forward. At least not in the 'player friendly' direction. Just remember the Rockstar we care about and support their efforts, and spit on the Rockstar who seems very eager to do so back.

I'm gonna rant about GTA online for a bit, forgive me.

 You probably wasn't even born!

So it's been a while since I've talked about GTA Online, and even longer since I've played it. And that's because I've well and crossed that inevitable point where a game just evolves so much that it isn't the same one you remember. Heck, back when I used to play the game the key grind spot mission of the whole game was still Rooftop Rumble. And I remember it back before the nerf, now I hear that the game was removed from the mission rotation for 'tweaks' only to never return! How the heck am I supposed to return to a game where I can't blow up a garage full of nobodies in 5 seconds flat and then quickly snipe the escape car that spawns with that same flick of the thumb I'd rehearsed a million times previously? (It's practically not even the same game at this point!)

But like my very own quipu, my time with the game hangs around my neck and the knots in it's strings are testaments to the days I must have killed grinding it's shores for the next released supercar. (Never realising at the time the sheer astronomical buy-in prices each subsequent expansion would release with, to the point where that approach would eventually become untenable.) But even though that is a past long behind in a game I now actively wish for the demise of (because that's the only way we're getting GTA VI and we all know it) I still find myself keeping an eye on the old grounds there, just to keep up with the good old days. (Every past day is great when you actively choose to forget the bad.) That's how I knew about the casino update, that's how I've second-hand experienced the eye-roll worthy Cayo Perico heist, and that's how I've heard of this new update coming our way.

Yet I feel it's important first that I introduce GTA Online to you, as a story. I know, I know, you're thinking "What story? It's just online mishaps loosely tied together my missions and updates" And whilst that is largely true, there's actually something of an origin narrative many forget about. You see, GTA Online tells the story of a low level thug who gets thrown into Los Santos before the events of Grand Theft Auto V and finds themselves quickly (and somewhat unnaturally) swallowed up by the criminal underworld. (Seriously, how the hell does Lamar personally know every criminal in Los Santos? That's straight uncanny!) This is important as a set-up, because it gives players a sense that everything they are experiencing is separate from the main game world, not just in character but in time too. Setting it before the story is important to, because with how much of a starring role GTA cities always have in the narrative, the world after the story is invariably one shaped and owned by that game's protagonist. So it has to be set before in order to give online criminals a chance to make their mark.

And how do we know for certain that this online mode is set before the events of GTA V? I mean, aside from Rockstar remarks made at the time of release indicating such, we actually have verifiable evidence from the sorts of missions that you take from certain people. (Spoilers for GTA V, one of the most played games in the world, ahoy) For one, we take on Martin Madrazo as a client for some of our missions, and he's supposed to be in hiding after the events of GTA V for fear of Trevor cutting him up into little pieces and eating him. Then there's the fact that the player character of GTA Online is referenced by Lester in GTA V, when he claims that he knows someone who might be helpful for a heist set-up but then dismisses that idea as they are "Too unpredictable". And then there's the bunch of base Online-game run-ins you have with character's from the single player game which wouldn't be possible after the events of the story. Trevor, for one, given the fact that the multiple endings of GTA allows you to pick who lives and who dies, so if this Trevor was from after the events of the main game then that would sully the illusion of that ending choice. (For which, if we're being honest, Ending A makes the most sense and is probably the most poetic way for the narrative to close out. B makes no logical sense whatsoever and C is too fan-fictiony.)

So why is any of this important? Well, it becomes relevant with the brand new GTA content drop which is finally returning a character to the franchise that the stories have felt naked without: Doctor Dre. (I just don't know how anyone can justify playing GTA without 'Ain't Nuthin' But A G Thang' in the background.) No, actually it's Franklin Clinton, the middle child of the GTA V main characters and the only person who canonically survives the events of the game no matter which ending you choose. And this isn't prequel Franklin, oh no; he is explicitly portrayed as a successful retired criminal for several years that is looking for a little more excitement. This is clearly a return to the character, indicating that all the time since GTA V has passed in the game world and the next expansion is set in current year. (huh, I missed the Covid update.)

In fact, the implication that things were going this way was first bought up to me with that Casino update I talked about earlier, which introduced a whole new skyscraper to the Los Santos skyline as though that's something no one would have noticed in the main game. And then there was the heist from that very update wherein a careless piece of dialogue with a side character from the main game reveals not only that this story had jumped several years beyond the events of the main game at some undetermined point, but that she was 'nearly killed' during an action scene that only occurs in Ending C. A double confirmation to side up with the Smuggler's Run update, during which Trevor is referred to as being alive (Only in Ending C) and the update before that had someone directly state the year as being 2017, which is four years after when the GTA main story is canonically set.

So does this mean there's some sort of clever narrative manipulation behind the scenes that is deftly being wielded by ingenious world builders? It doesn't really feel that way, does it? A slip-up bit of dating here, a misplaced character there, directly stating which ending is canon thus robbing emphasis out of your main story somewhere along the line. It all comes across as a little... accidental. One might even go so far as to say 'incompetent'. Which would match the quality of effort put into keeping the GTA Online ecosystem going, at least when it comes to all of those polishing details that make every new Rockstar game near perfect masterpieces. If you'd never played a Rockstar game outside of GTA Online you would seriously struggle to understand why this company is considered one of the best in the industry today. And that's not just because of the rampant tech errors or the server issues or the cheating menu problems. It's just the presentation. The gameplay is fun, go figure considering it's largely just recycling the building blocks that the main development team left over, but the story writing, world development and characters verge from average to mediocre caricatures of lobotomised lab mice.

I think that this upcoming update is the literal first time that Rockstar have just come out and confirmed that GTA Online is now set in modern day, although by featuring Franklin it almost seems like they're trying to maintain some illusion of 'the multiple endings are still real'. Why bother? Just call up Steven Ogg and Ned Luke already for one of your silly unrewarding Online heist missions, bring the gang back together. (Although, after stealing several hundred million out of the Union Depository, one might wonder why they'd get together to do a much more dangerous heist in exchange for two or three million at most.) Still, at the end of the day we may mock the sometimes amateurish job that the Online team does of handling GTA Online, but when they do a job right they do it right, and finally bringing back everyone's favourite GTA character, Chop the dog, is definitely a job done right. So good, maybe job, perhaps team.

Speedrunning

  Gotta Speed fast!

So perhaps I haven't always afforded the art of speedrunning, or those who partake, with the respect it and they deserve. That comes from an inherent disconnect between what I fundamentally seek out of games and the way that they make a career out of twisting systems and breaking sequences in order to get to the end faster. I'm all about the adventure of delving into another world, experiencing a new story and becoming immersed in any life other than my own; whereas Speedrunners are all about breaking the magic box down to see all the machinery underneath, then rearranging all that machinery however they so choose. (Actually, that analogy makes them sound a little like modders. Ideally there should be a difference between those two branches of the gaming community) My particular leaning towards games is the very reason why I don't exactly gel with those 'playground' games which pop up every now and then, such as the Just Cause games. I just run out of reasons to come back after the explosions lose their appeal, which for me is around about the third explosion, and thus I've no reason to really clamber after the series. Now admittedly, this is a problem of my personal perception which I've struggled to rectify, but I'm made some inroads now that I'm helplessly addicted to some speedrunning content. (Send help.)

Now the speedrunning world that I'm currently invested in revolves around the sort of game you'd usually not expect to see in these circles; Grand Theft Auto V. Yes, it's one of the biggest and most talked about video games of the last generation, (Or should I say 'the generation before that') but it's also an openworld adventure game with a simply ludicrous amount of uncontrollable factors. This isn't like a straightforward 'A Link Between Worlds' sort of game where every single run of the game is more or less the same, there's things like randomly generated traffic to watch out for, inconsistent ragdolls, several physics based script moments; it's boggling to try and break down into a speedrunning game. And yet there are folk who do it, and the sit down and grind out this 20 hour game in ludicrous times that make one quite honestly balk. And the things that you can learn about how this incredibly intricate videogame works just by watching one of these runs is fascinating.

I think what really grabbed my attention then, for the kind of running game that GTA is, is the fact that it's a very freeform kind of run where pretty much anything can happen and so the talent in charge has to be highly knowledgeable about intricacies. Such knowledge such as how in Blitz Play your AI companions are actually programmed to be unable to kill enough enemies to move the scene forward. As in their guns will just stop doing damage and they'll effectively be shooting blanks for most of the mission whilst the player cleans things up. Really shatters the illusion of 'three man money heist', now doesn't it? Or how about in The Paleto Score, when you're tasked with driving Micheal and Trevor to the steelworks in a bulldozer and the national guard are called in, the tanks that arrive on the scene are actually programmed to miss you. All these little tips and tricks and quirks of the programming aren't enough to shatter my realm of immersion but to just edge in a little to the development minds behind a genuine masterpiece of a game, and I appreciate that chance.

But then, as with any community, the meat of the speedrunning circles are the people behind the scenes that try they hardest to keep everything official, and that's what really impresses me. When it comes to speedrunning, afterall, you're talking about people who are competing to attain an accolade as coveted as 'the best in the world', with a world record run. (At least until that record is inevitably broken) To everyone's credit this is actually a whole world more professionally handled than 'The Guinness Books of World Records' in that there's no system in place to buy yourself a world record for free marketing rights. Rather, runners typically Stream and have their whole process viewable for any judge to view, or there's some sort of save file offered around for specific runs that ensures everyone is playing on the same playing field. These judges and moderators have such passion and dedication that they can disseminate even the slightest inconsistence and pull it apart, all because they have a desire to keep the art of Speedrunning somewhat legitimate. (Or maybe that obsession is just a kneejerk reaction to the 'Billy Mitchel' effect, I don't know.) 

And even with my stipulation which got me into GTA V speedrunning 'It didn't shatter my immersion too hard', there still has been another speedrunning game that's caught me up in it's world, although that might just be a reaction to the ludicrousness of it all. 'Mr Krabs Overdoses on Ketamine' might not officially licenced Spongebob product, but it is a real game. (One I actually saw the launch trailer for and decided not to cover on this blog for some reason) This is a little joke game about collecting Ketamine in order to... okay, let's not pretend the game has any story. But it managed to somehow get the attention of the speedrunner community and now it's a title with a dedicated crowd around it as well as some drama involving a slightly muddled run. All in the space of couple weeks. (Wild how these things develop, no?)

Then of course there is the Minecraft Speedrunning community who's entire premise makes even less sense to me than the GTA one. Whereas GTA V has some huge RNG factors that can leave runs in the hand of chance, Minecraft is literally a game designed around procedural generation, so runs are destined to be scuffed almost every second. Some streamers spend hours resetting until they get that perfect start to launch themselves off, and I just cannot fathom the amount of precision one would have to nail to speedrun Minecraft. So you have to track down, kill and get lucky with Enderpearls, go to the Nether and get blazerods, then trackdown the End Fortress and kill the Elderdragon? The amount of chance behind each of those actions rattles my mind. Heck, I can't even get my head around the strats other than the lava bucket strat to get around building a nether Portal without needing to find diamonds.

Of course, when anything as invaluable as pride is on the line, there's bound to be controversy and Speedrunning is in no way immune to all that. I mentioned before how a 'Mr Krabs Overdoeses on Ketamine' run was called into question on accounts of allegedly doctored footage, but that's just the absolute tip of the iceburg in these sorts of scandals. Recently a popular Minecraft record, which wasn't number 1 but still insanely high scoring, was called into question over allegations of teaks to probability systems in order to make things drop easier. All of this calls back to mind the classic aforementioned debacle with Billy Mitchell who maybe wasn't a speedrunner, but the way that these communities delved into the microanalysis level to unravel the subtlest of lies is honestly quite humbling to watch. It's the sort of dedication you'd see from organised professional sport, and I love to see that people care that much.

So whilst you'd never catch me on the grind to knock my run down in the microseconds, I've developed something of an appreciation and understanding for those that do. Rather than unravelling and depreciating all the things that I love about my favourite games, I understand that it's another way of expressing that love through competition. (Although, that being said, I'm sure there's some guys out there who just hate the games they speedrun with a passion.) Now with that out of the way, I have a 4-hour livestream speedrun to watch... 

Crime pays- except when it doesn't

Dame da ne, Dame yo , Dame na no yo...

Back in the days of nearly a decade ago I used to be an avid and regular player of Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto V. For the time I think you could easily attest to it being the most played title in my entire library, with probably thousands of hours invested into it yet somehow not a dime beyond the base asking price of the game. This is astounding, when you consider that most of that time was spent lounging in Rockstar's incredibly lucrative online side-hustle; Grand Theft Auto Online; a product built and funded under the assumption that it could outpace simple folk like me and force me to spend money to keep up with the trend. (I guess that's when the industry learnt that people could grind quicker than their developers could develop, who'd a thunk) In-game currency, though entierly earnable ingame, is the premium currency that has shot Rockstar to one of the best earning entertainment brands in the world consistently, and the extent to which players are willing to go in order to earn these shadow upon real currency have often pushed past the boundaries of fair play and even legality. (But who reads those EULA agreements anyway, right?) What we have today is one such story of low down means to achieve the highlife, only with consequences. (And a whole lot of salty responses.)

When I played I remember a friend of the time telling me a theory about the sorts of players who indulge in Grand Theft Auto online, and the way that their methods and personality mirrored that of the game's protagonists. It went something like this: Those who are willing to play the game by it's own rules, struggle for every single milestone and grind themselves ragged, they were Franklins. Those that jumped at the chance to uses glitches or buy their way into the latest expansions and fast cars, well clearly they were Micheals. And those that acquired money not to indulge in the activities of the game but to fund their single man crusades against everyone else's good time, (see: Everyone who ever purchased a tank) there's your Trevors. I, being the sucker that I am, was always a Franklin, but I knew my fair share of the other two and so I'm familiar with the cycle of money making glitches that forever plagued the GTA Online community. (Or graced it, depending on which side of the fence you were on)

In my day it was the car cheat which, and forgive my hazy memory of almost 8 years ago, I think used the garage and so hot-switching to clone expensive cars that could then be sold off for considerable amounts of money. This was how a lot of people I knew made their fortunes off the game, all the while whilst I was grinding that one decently consistently paying mission over-and-over. What was that called again... That's right- Coveted. Oh, Coveted. This was the mission that everyone played in order to make the big bucks. I'm told that Rockstar have changed the mission reward structure since my time in order to discourage... legitimate play? (Seriously, you were getting the retention time Rockstar; what was the problem?) Rockstar were actually responsible for a lot of micro-transgression like this which kept punishing those that had found decent ways to make money in the efforts of pushing them towards newer content; which usually paid like ass thus demoralising people. What I'm saying is, Rockstar's Online didn't exactly incur the best relationship among the players in the community as everyone feared the patch boogey-man everyday.

Of course, since I was there for so long and saw so many of the cheats which swept the community, I also saw the repercussions when they landed as Rockstar (who had jokingly become known as the IRS) swept across servers rolling back funds of those who had sold a few too many identical cars for their own good. my friend, however, did manage to keep his garage full of identical supercars even after losing his wealth, so the team still weren't the best at honing in on culprits. (Pretty crappy IRS that doesn't even bother to check assets) I even heard some stories of legitimately earning folk who got caught in the wave of punishments, simply for the act of generating ingame income a little too quickly. (Not sure if that was actually truthful or just the guilt spinning a web, but the accusation is there.) But that was the cycle of the GTA Online world. A glitch would come out, a chunk of the community would exploit it, and Rockstar would crack down with wrist-slaps galore. I'm sure things are significantly newer and different these 2020 days!

Well recently the economy of the Grand Theft Auto Online world has been rocked by a glitch which has allowed folk to illegitimately make ludicrous amounts of money with very little effort on their part. All it took was buying some apartments, messing with the active game memory through application suspensions and overwriting those apartments with other apartments which forced a refund- or something; I'm not clear on the specifics. But, wait a minute... isn't this eerily familiar to the car glitch? And countless others from over the years? How in the world is Rockstar still falling for the same old tricks in 2020? Unless- No. That's too ridiculous. This must be a legitimate bug which popped up out of nowhere and unfortunately ended up in the hands of Redditors; the single most dangerous hands for any even remotely sensitive information to end up.

Thus the cycle did as cycles do; it repeated itself. People flocked like wildfire to get the money they felt they deserved after 8 years of hard grind, only to find themselves out of pocket when Rockstar swung around their might hammer of repercussions. (Oh Noe, who could have ever foreseen this?) Only, things are distincly- harsher than what I remembered. (Or maybe my memories just crap, that's wholly possible.) Because alongside the resets that have rocked the community, apparently Rockstar have rolled around issuing complete account resets. As in- having your character and all 8 years of your experience with them rolled back into nothing. (Scary stuff indeed) That would mean all the quest progresses, levels, cars, probably purchased money packs, all that has been flushed down the drain in a hard slash back from Rockstar mods. (Way to go nuclear)

And, it's safe to say, people aren't happy about this at all. I've seen a considerable number of tweets and images over the past few days of people absolutely melting down over this grave injustice upon their person. Some bemoaned the years of history they lost, others argued that they'd only bought cars with the money so therefore shouldn't have been punished as harshly (not following the thread of the argument there, but okay) and even some people have taken to wantonly flashing how they didn't get caught in the wave and that they still have their illegitimate funds. (What are those people, masochists?) One fellow even showed off a picture of his Xbox-One disc-copy of Grand Theft Auto snapped in three; symbolic of the way that he probably has the game on digital like everyone else. (Real powerful message there, buddy.) Most curious of all, however, is the people who declare their retirement from the GTA Online world, most commonly matched with a variation upon the phrase 'you messed up, Rockstar'. Yes, I'm sure the single most profitable gaming mode in the world is missing their, clearly non-paying, contribution to the infrastructure. How tragic of a break-up story.

But as I said, this sort of stuff happens every year so why, then, am I so interested about it today? There were stories like this last year, what's changed? Well the account wide bans got me thinking. Thinking about the regularity of these glitch waves, how they'd always rise in the Spring and be quelled by Autumn, how I always heard about them despite not being involved in the GTA world in the slightest. And how these glitches seem so similar to the ones from 8 years back. Like, seriously Rockstar- learn from your mistakes. And I've come up with a theory. That this is manufactured for regular publicity stunts. Now I'm not saying that the glitch isn't real, nor those who exploited and got caught; I just think the glitch was created to be found, in order to justify a ban wave and make the news. Think about it; why else would GTA Online be in the gaming news if not for deleting 8 year old progression. How could Rockstar miss so many folk if not just to embolden them for the next time GTA pulls this stunt? And why is it always revolving around the purchasing system? It may be conspiratorial for me to say, but we live in a bold world of marketing nowadays and it makes total sense to me. If it's true, then let me be the first to congratulate Rockstar for another job well done, you worm your way into the news cycle like no other. Your reward was this blog, hope you liked it.

Safe Houses in Games

Little pigs, little pigs; let me come in...

With the recent announcement of the 'Saints Row 3 Remastered' I was reminded of a few things; firstly of how hilarious the concept of the first level is: with the Saints robbing a bank whilst dressed as themselves; and Secondly how I always had trouble replaying that game due to one thing: the amount of time it would take to unlock the main safe house. (Seriously, in Saints Row 3 it takes the entire first act. No, that crappy apartment from the beginning doesn't count.) And that got me thinking about what exactly it is about video games Safe Houses that we gel with so much. (Or should I say "that I gel with"? Does anyone else feel this way? Am I a freak?) Why is it that open world games feel like they're missing something essential when you lack a home HUB to return to, even in situations when that HUB is a space wherein literally nothing of consequence ever happens. (As is the case almost all of the time.)

I do find it exceptionally odd as when you come down to it shouldn't the allure of a video game be derived primarily from the gameplay? And yet we enjoy times when our game has great story to it and world building, throw in a strong character arc and things are perfect. Is this just the leftover pretentious pandering that arises from creative critique in general or is there something primitively satisfying about a rounded experience that is common across all forms of creative expression. (Am I getting too general? I'm gonna focus into "Why are there still safe houses in games") Before I explore this subject I should preface this with the same warning that I do with all blogs like this, I am not an expert and this will come down to personal preference so feel free to vehemently disagree with literally everything that I say.

Firstly, let's define what exactly we mean by 'Safe house'. This is a term borrowed from police terminology and popularised in games by titles like GTA to infer a 'base' who's location is largely secure and/or unknown to the public, thus designating it 'Safe'. Although to be even more literal to gaming, a 'safehouse' is merely a type of HUB for players to return to between missions in order to perform some necessary actions like saving the game. As the art of game development evolved and things started to become more intuitive and user friendly, even die-hard Open world titles like GTA started to leanoff on having to return to your 'safe house' and those locations started becoming less and less essential in video games, although you'll still find them in the majority of open world games.

So perhaps the obvious question to ask in regard to 'safe houses' is whether or not they still have a relevant place in modern game design or if they are a redundant hold over. Should there be some sort of movement to move past such a concept and leave it in the past alongside 'limited lives', 'points' and 'time dependant levels'. In order to figure this out I decided to look over the way that safe houses exist (or don't) in a few fairly recent open world titles in order to come to a conclusion in this matter. (Obviously, I can only look at games which are released for this so 'Cyberpunk 2077' cannot be counted even thought that game does tease a safe house that I think looks really cool.)

As I started with it for some reason, the first game I will look at in this regard is Saints Row. Or rather the first series, as Saints Row has based itself staunchly on the Grand Theft Auto formula since it's inception and that means each and every game has boasted some form of Safe house. In the first game all this space really served for was a save point and wardrobe service, although in the second game they really bought out player's safehouse as an in-game menu. Player's could use their TV to watch cutscenes, like one would expect from a bonus menu, and even customise the style of their gang. Although the players had no explicit need to go to this place due to rather regular autosaves, apart from the occasional need to pick up a new car or take some revenue from the safe present in each house. So from that angle, Saints Row is actually very minimalist with how they treat safe houses, allowing players to buy more extravagant ones but lacking any real purpose to doing so.

If there could be one point said towards why this system might still be relevant to it's game, it's because Saint's Row is a very fast paced humour dependant title. At the heart of everything the game offers there should be someway to make the player feel powerful in a humorous way, and I guess the team couldn't see many opportunities in that through simulating house life. That being said, the act of buying and acquiring more lavish and opulent houses is in line with the 'gang boss' context that the franchise is built upon, therefore it makes thematic sense to include that dynamic even if you don't really do anything with it in terms of gameplay.

Speaking of Grand Theft Auto, why not take a look at how Safe houses work in their games? For the first 3 2D titles (1,2 and London) these locations didn't really have any presence in the game, even at the start of the 3D era these locations were still just 'save here' zones. San Andreas remains the only game in the entire series that allowed players to actually buy and go inside of bought houses at their own whim, bringing that sense of actually having a home to come back to. There still wasn't a great deal to do at these homes besides save, change clothes and eventually collect upon unlocked items, but it did serve as an interesting measure of your progression of means throughout the narrative of the game. Only once GTA 5 came along did Rockstar finally kill the need to save anywhere (although you'll still always load up in your safe house.)

As I mentioned, the logic of having a safe home to come back to fits neatly into Grand Theft Auto even if such locations lack in actual functionality. GTA prides itself in being a sardonic mirror upon our reality that mimics a day-to-day lifestyle only in a violent world with fewer consequences. It makes sense, then, for the player to have a home and one that matches the condition of the character along their typical arc. (Which in GTA games usually follows the tried and true 'rags to riches' model) Although in Grand Theft Auto V these places also served a great tool for characterising each of the three protagonist by the world which they willingly choose to reside in. Trevor lives in a trailer far away from the big city, Micheal lives in the affluent upper LS neighbourhood and Franklin starts off in the ghetto before moving into a luxury pad in the hills. It's a great way of telling the audience at a glance who everyone is and what their most base, materialistic goals are.

Now here's a wildcard to consider, ladies and gentlemen, as the Far Cry franchise has been a open world game for as long as 2004 and yet only one of the games has featured a safe house system. Now that isn't to discount how throughout the Far Cry games there have been homely locations in the map, but these only served limited narrative points rather than locations with actual gameplay benefits. Only in Far Cry 2 could you explore about Africa and open up safe houses in which you could save, (an incredibly precious action within the surprisingly hardcore action of FC2) store a weapon (equally as important) and change the time of day. (Which supposedly helps for being sneakier in the later hours, but I suspect that's more of a 'placebo' situation.) But for the rest of the games there are no safehouses at all, and in fact all of the gameplay revolves around the moment-to-moment outpost conquering action rather than the moments inbetween which can  make downtime rather boring as a result.

Now as Far Cry is a first person franchise, one could be forgiven for assuming that the added one-to-one connection between the player and the character would make it more likely for the developers to include creature comforts like a home to retreat to, but quite often with FPS games the opposite seems true. I think that is because there is a part of the 'safe house mechanic' that is more psychological in the way that it gives the character a place in their world that makes them feel part of, hence making that world seem a little more real. In a third person game, all of the little things that make the character feel more real to the player are invaluable to ensure the player cares about the protagonist, whilst in first person games that connection is innate, thus character building and sometimes character narrative take a backseat. Plus, in Far Cry's case it makes absolute sense for there to be no place for the protagonist to call their own, as the entire franchise is built around the concept of people being put in situations that are a far cry from their day-to-day. (It all makes sense.)

But if we're going to sit here and talk about first person shooter action it only makes sense that I talk about a game I've played religiously over the past 2 weeks, even if it may not technically be open world, and that's 2016's DOOM. This is a level based story driven game, therefore it should make sense for their to be no home hub for the Doom Slayer, however in this year's DOOM Eternal, the slayer actually does have a base in 'The Fortress of Doom'. So why is there none in the 2016 game? Well, for one there is the narrative explanation which I'll extrapolate upon; 2016's DOOM follows a series of logical narrative events as the Doom Slayer attempts to seal up a portal to hell after stupid humans open it for what must be the freakin' 5th time. Though simple, this chain of events has a certain pace to it wherein Hell threatens to escape the boundaries of Mars and threaten the Earth unless the Doom Guy can wrap things up quickly, which makes it incompatible for that pacing if he had a home base to lounge around in inbetween missions. (Whereas in Eternal the world has already fallen so there's fewer timed stakes at hand.) But there is also another dynamic to consider.

You see, 2016's DOOM served as a revival of the long dormant DOOM franchise which hadn't be touched for 12 years prior and as such it was meant to be a celebration of all things great about the DOOM licence. That meant fast paced bloody action and a blatant intentional disregard for evolved storytelling. This amounts to the point where the team even dehumanise Doom Guy by canonically renaming him as 'the Doom Slayer' to highlight the fact that he exists as an extension of the player through which to channel their demon killing talents, rather than as a character entity of his own. Therefore there is little reason to give him his own space in the world as he doesn't need to appear real, he is the player and they are him. (And the player is real. Right?)

Looking back at another third person open world game we have one title that breaks the rules I just laid out; 'The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt'. This is a game that paints an involved RPG world brimming with storytelling potential and opportunities and yet there is no home base for Geralt of Rivia to set himself down in. (That is, until the post game DLC 'Blood and Wine') Functionally, this makes sense as there is quite literally no need for there to be any home base. Players can save anywhere they want and thanks to Witcher Meditation they can augment the time of day whenever they want to, so there's no gameplay mechanic that requires a safe house. Although that hasn't stopped quite a few other modern open world games so I expect there's a more thematic reason for the lack of a home. (No, I don't include Kaer Morhen. Sue me.)

In the lore, Geralt of Rivia is very much a wanderer who is obliged to help the less fortunate (provided that they can pay) but not to stick around and help people get back on their feet. Couple that with the heavily 'adventure-focused' narrative of Wild Hunt, revolving around chasing down Ciri, and it makes sense for Geralt to always be in motion, even if technically a Witcher cannot survive off mediation alone. (At least I think not, I don't know for sure.) In 'Blood and Wine', however, a big part of that narrative is around Geralt taking a step back to settle down, so it makes sense for him to have a house in which to rest his head, and to live in for the foreseeable future.

Another non-typical Safe House system in a modern third person open world game exists in Rockstar's 'Red Dead Redemption 2'. In that game, the player doesn't really have a home to go back to as much as they have a camp wherein all the members of the Van der Linde gang set themselves up. This is the place where the player goes to between missions and is actually at lost more essential then other homes as it's somewhere for the player to eat, sleep and take missions. These actions can feasibly be taken anywhere thanks to a camping mechanic (aside from the taking of missions, obviously) but the game encourages players to return to the camp as often as possible and become familiar with the place. This base is unique in that it moves across the map alongside the narrative, changing the activities available there as you go.

Again, I think this iteration of 'Safe House' comes down to thematic reasons in that all of Red Dead Redemption 2 exists to create the life of an outlaw. That means living in the woods away from prying eyes, staying close to those you trust and running from the law when necessary. This also serves a functional narrative purpose as you get chased around the country to more secluded places after which you go from 'living free' to 'living like rats' as the gang dream begins to wilt around you. Rockstar achieved something very special with Red Dead Redemption 2 and I think a lot of it comes from the emotional attachment that they establish between the player and the camp. (alongside its inhabitants) Showcasing how the 'safe house' mechanic doesn't always need to be necessary to the gameplay to be valid and justified, they might even get creative with it.

Ultimately, I think that predominate purpose for 'safe houses' are less for the tangible reasons and more for the benefit of world building. Most games that have 'safe houses' and so implement them in that pursuit and those that do not usually do so because they don't have to worry so much about world building. So whilst the functionality of 'safe houses' are mostly redundant and/or forced (I.e. locking manual saves to returning to the safe house) they do pose a viable thematic purpose. For my part, however, I think there's another piece to this puzzle. Just as I pointed out that games with a pace to keep avoid unnecessary down times, those that don't need to keep up such (like RPGs) can utilise downtimes and peaceful moments to amplify the action packed moments down the line. Therefore if the player gets used to hanging around at home and being relaxed it can make those flashes of action just that more impacting and special. So for that reason I do not think that game design has outgrown the concept of safe houses, and in fact they are just as useful/relevant now as they've always been. (Just maybe in ways that aren't exactly obvious.)

Worlds I want to live in: Part III

They slither while they pass

We took things a little far from earth with our astral contemplations last time, so I thought this time would be better served by taking things back down to terra firma. Afterall, one doesn't need to go too far away from home in order to be fraught with adventure (At least that's what we should telling ourselves during this quarantine) so I decided to weigh up three alternate worlds from video games to figure out the positives and negatives of living there. Once again, this analysis focuses on how a normal NPC character could live in this fictional world and whenever applicable I do find it helps to be knowledgeable about the source material in order to pick a relatively strife free moment. However for these three I find that last point to be not entirely necessary.

When thinking about a world that is not just on Earth but also conceptually similar to our own, one can hardly get closer than Grand Theft Auto's America. Excluding the storyline of Grand Theft Auto 2, because that game would have us all living in a Cyperpunk-ian dystopia approximately 7 years ago, Grand Theft Auto's world is largely the same to our own. There is a functional reason for this, and that's because much of GTA's setting serves as the palette for the Rockstar team to paint their sardonic and irreverent commentary upon our current world. In that sense one could conclude that the GTA world exists as little more than a setup for a punchline and cannot be looked upon as a true simulated world, but anyone who's taken the time to play through a game will know that too much effort goes into crafting these worlds for us to just write them off with a clear conscience; so I'll treat them with the bare dignity of acknowledging their world as inhabitable.

When I said that GTA's America was close to our own I wasn't kidding, almost every game's landmass is created to be a direct parallel to a real world space. Liberty City is New York, Vice City is Miami, Las Venturas is Las Vegas, San Fierro is San Francisco and Los Santos is Los Angeles. For the sake of this choice, however, I've decided to focus purely on the games that were released in the HD-era and thus that only leaves me with Liberty City or Los Santos. Now personally I'd rather eat a landmine than go to New York, (No offence if you're from NYC, it's just not the city for me) so that leaves me with LS. This also means I don't have to go into the background of events that shaped the city, such as the LS riots depicted in San Andreas, because nothing outside of GTA V and IV is technically canon anymore. (Yay, no background section!)

On the sides of positives, Los Santos is known for the fact that most non violent crimes are no longer illegal for some unexplained reason. I'm talking about J-walking, going through red lights, driving tanks down the street, as long as you're not hurting anyone you're pretty much free to do whatever. Additionally, if any violent crime does occur near you, you can rest assured in the fact that this fight will be resolved by the authorities due to the fact that the police in the LSPD easily outnumber the amount of pedestrians ten to one. In fact, this place is probably a police state when I think about it, but as a simple NPC I probably won't be thinking about it. Aside from that you can safely enjoy all of the same shallow wonders of tinsel town just as you can in the real LA. (That's gotta be fun for someone, right?)

Now onto the negatives, oh boy. For one, your life is always in danger as Los Santos' criminal underbelly is really more of an overbelly and it dominates every single aspect of your life. These types constantly speed around the city in fast cars and don't just disregard the safety of human life as sometimes actively attempt to run them over. In shootouts you'll probably end up as collateral damage for the criminals or the insanely over-zealous police force and it's almost the customary LS greeting to get carjacked at least once in your time there. Every single businessman or politician is involved in some scheme to screw over the every day man; i.e. you. The state has employed a private military force to serve as a resident army for the state, which should ring just about every alarm bell ever. And the economy is due for a recession due to the fact that three bank robbers will soon hit the federal reserve for an eye-watering $200 million dollars. So maybe book your vacation somewhere else.

Moving away from the bright streets of Los Santos, let's instead dive into the seedy dark alleys of... Los Angeles? That is, 'Vampire: The Masquerade's' Los Angeles, and as it turns out, this is quite the interesting place to be. Now FYI I should preface this by saying that I'm basing all of my information on this world upon my time playing the 'Bloodlines' videogame, rather than playing the boardgame source material. (Again, I lack the friends to play a boardgame.) But from how I understand it the world of V:TM operates with 7 vampire clans which each imbue their members with certain hereditary powers to help them through the night. You have the warrior Brujah, the bestial Gangrel, the schizophrenic Malkavian, the magical Tremere, the alluring Toreador and the aristocratic Venture. Oh, and the butt ugly Nosferatu that are so disgusting that they have to live in the sewers for risk of exposing the vampires. All clans live under a mostly unspoken set of rules known as 'The Masquerade' whereupon everyone is expected to disguise the existence of their order to the outside world under pain of death.

In V:TMB the vampires of the city have mostly lived free from all the hyper-vigilance that some other parts have been forced under, and those of the city have enjoyed their freedoms whilst prowling the nights in peace. (And nibbling on the odd neck where appropriate.) This comes under scrutiny once the Venture-run 'Camarilla' start setting up shop in LA and begin imposing their rules upon the residents, claiming that their authority is helping keep vampire kind safe. As it turns out, however, their 'rules' amount to little more than common sense for most other kindred (That's their word for 'vampire') and this is clearly just a poor excuse for a power grab. Sooner or later all the city's vampire populace is caught up in this power struggle and everyone has to start picking sides.

On the positive side of things, you get to be a freakin' vampire! On a base level this means you'll have abnormal strength, strange magical abilities, inhuman speed and immortality to the mix. You'll also be inducted into your 'clan' of vampires to ensure you don't have to spend your nights preying on the shadows alone, you can team up with peeps. You have a genuine excuse to sleep through the day and wake up at night. You can quit your job, you don't need to feed yourself anyway: you're immortal! And whenever you want you can pull a Tom Cruise and hang out in the Cinema throughout the years to thematically showcase the subtle passing of time through the evolution of cinema technology to the audience... Wait, what were we talking about again?

On the side of the negatives, you have just about everything you can expect to be a negative about being a vampire. You die if  you go into the sun, you have an aversion to holy instruments and you now live in a world brimming with varieties of horrific supernatural monsters who wouldn't think twice about chewing you up and spitting you down a gutter somewhere. You also usually don't get to pick your clan, so you could end up a the world's most shy Toreador or least confrontational Brujah. You'll also find yourself dragged into a land dispute against the free vampires of LA and the Camarilla, ever aware that picking the either side could get you killed. And then there's all the issues that come along with immortality like loosing all drive to pursue anything in life, having to come to terms with losing all your none vampire friends over and over (You'll get over it after the first century, guaranteed) and facing the moral quandary of possessing the cure to practically any disease but having to reserve it for fear of breaking 'the Masquerade'. (I wonder if vampires would be susceptible to the Coronavirus? Probably not, but it'd sure give them a tough time.)

Finally we come to one of my favourite games of all time and, by default, one of my favourite game worlds of all time. To the northern stretches of Tamriel upon those shores first touched by the men of Atmora, I talk of the snowy tundras of Skyrim. As the home of the Nords, Skyrim has a reputation for producing hardheaded meat mountains, but that's just the kind of person you need to be to survive her harsh climates. In ancient history, Skyrim was home of the first men and so is essentially the ancestral home to all humans on the land of Tamriel. This was also the land in which the dragon's of old subjugated man and the place where Tiber Septim first received his title of Talos before embarking to conquer and unite the lands under The Empire. Essentially, Skyrim is the ancestral home of just about everybody, regardless of race, and don't you milk drinking Imperials forget it!

Before the events of Skyrim (the game) quite a lot has happened with the geopolitical situation around Tamriel. The fascist Elven 'Aldmeri Dominion' was revived and conducted a brutal war against the Empire, eventually conquering the Imperial territories; The god-king Talos was banished from the pantheon, demoting the divines to a number of 8; and the High King of Skyrim was recently slain by a rebel upstart looking to seize the throne before launching a war against the Dominion. In a few days that will all be slightly undermined, however, by the resurrection of Alduin 'The world Eater': a primordial dragon from the subjugation days who's destiny it is to, take a guess, eat the world and end all life. (So this isn't exactly the chillest of years that Skyrim has ever had.)

On the side of the positive, Skyrim is a magical, mythical Nordic wonderland of cool. You'll live in a world writhe with ancient magics, exotic races, strange creatures and more living history than you can shake a stick at. Skyrim in particular is also a frontier for freedom amidst the tyranny that has infected the rest of the Tamrielic kingdoms. The land is vast and beautiful, the people keep mostly to themselves and don't waste your time telling you about the thrilling time they met a mudcrab the otherday (damn Imperials!) and due to the odd way that income works in this world, you can easily make a good living for yourself without putting yourself in danger by doing just about anything other than farming. (Farming is literally the worst profession in Skyrim) Once you are ready to settle down, Skyrim is brimming with opportunity for you to do so and just about every major settlement that you touch down in will be a new adventure in of itself.

On the other side, this is probably one of the most dangerous provinces to live in. Due to that 'freedom' I mentioned earlier, Skyrim is top priority for being the next country that The Dominion conquer so you can expect a great war anyday now. But before then there is the very active civil war that is raging across the land and dragging just about anyone who seems able into it. (So fake a limp or something.) Then there is the little issue of Alduin coming back and bringing his Dragon pals back to life with him, meaning even the skies aren't safe from danger. All that is just exacerbating factors to pile on top of the fact that Skyrim itself is dangerous normally. Bandits stalk the roads in the day, Undead stalk them at night. Giants roam the land with half a mind to squash anything that gets 'too close'. Sabertooth tigers roam the northern tundras, giant Frostbite Spiders populate the central domains and Spriggans dominate the southern forests. Wherever you go you are in danger the moment you leave the city, and thanks to the war and the dragons you aren't safe inside those cities either. Basically Skyrim is the land that you will die in, but at least you'll have a magical time before being whisked away to Sovngarde.

So there we have it, three more worlds that it would both be awesome to live in whilst simultaneously sucking. I suppose a more intellectual fellow might comment on how such an exercise really puts our current world into some sort of perspective, but it's 3:00 AM in the morning over here and I don't feel like being all 'introspective'. (Or would that be 'Extrospective'? Is that even a word?) Either way, I hope you enjoyed my injecting of a little bit of reality into some of my favourite game worlds and maybe that got you to think somewhat more critically about the worlds you explore.  And who knows, I may even think up three more next week. (But no promises.)

Ownership of software

You think you own this? No you don't.

As far as 'hot button' issues go, I'd like to think that this one takes some sort of precedent in the world of gaming at least. (There may be a slightly more pertinent 'hot button' on the world stage, but I wouldn't know. I don't go outside.) Although this is the sort of issue that, once raised, is quite likely to have people give you that look, you know the one; the look that quietly says, "You're being a paranoid weirdo again!" (Hmm? Only I get that look regularly? Oh...) But my patriotic British pessimism does taint my every thought so I cannot help but take a critical look at the direction the industry is heading when it comes to the ownership of software, specifically the ownership of games. (Although there's also a bit more to it than just that.)

If you've never looked into this before, you'll likely think that buying a game is similar to buying a movie. You access the shop, buy a copy of the movie and thus are free to indulge in perpetuity. And in truth that is exactly how it is, although I fear you may be slightly ignorant of the specifics of such a transaction. You see, when you purchase a movie you are actually acquiring a licence to watch that movie and signing a contract to do so. This contract comes equipped with a bevy of specific instructions that are meaningless to the everyday consumer but protect the distributor should someone decide to go burning and reselling their copy of this film; as that action would essentially be a breach of contract. With the world of gaming things are very much the same with a slight extra stipulation that video games are becoming increasingly online, to the point where some companies reserve the right to withdraw service of their title to you whenever them damn well feel like it. Of course, this is an idle clause which has never been significantly enacted, but it's existence is enough to set folk like me worrying.

Now in an ideal world someone would buy a game and have access to it until death, and that does seem like the model that a lot of companies wish to follow, but there are a few who like to test that relationship just a little. Most notably is, surprise surprise, EA who have at least once in their history used their position of superiority to withdraw their entire library of games from an individual. Now of course there was some special factors involved in this situation; namely the fact that EA own their own storefront and launcher through which their games are distributed, but this could theoretically be invoked by any company out there. Now I can't recall exactly what this specific user did to receive such a harsh punishment from EA but that doesn't even really matter, the point is that goods and services that have been paid for can be in risk of getting revoked at the sole discretion of the distributor at any time. And this is something that we should all be aware of, heck for some games we have to sign a contract which stipulates as such for the privilege to access that game in the first place.

Another situation in which software ownership laws are often invoked by games companies is in any situation involving mods. Now mods, as you likely know, are modifications to the base of any game that can do anything from adding new content, blocking old content, fixing bugs, or remodelling existing assets. Sometimes, such as with Bethesda games, this practice is almost entirely encouraged by the developer as they enjoy the creativity that goes into it and realise that it helps to bolster the community. Other times, however, the developers can be less than receptive such as was the case with Rockstar and their GTA games. You might not remember this, but in the early days of GTA V on the PC, Rockstar became notorious for hunting down mods for their game even on single player specific modes. They exploited their user agreement to bully and threaten mod developers and even today it's difficult to figure out why. It's not as though Rockstar had any plans for single player GTA, so the whole scenario is as confusing in hindsight as it was in the moment. But it was these iffy software ownership laws that paved the way for them to do that.

All of this has come to mind for me again in the wake of the rise of game streaming. Google Stadia specifically. That tech comes with the premise of running all of the game files in the background and streaming the results directly to one's device allowing for them to play games far beyond such systems' capabilities. Unfortunately this means that people who take part have none of the game files on their systems which means if something were to happen to the people who run the service like, for example, them shutting down a year into business because nobody's playing it, then players will be left potless. As far as the conversation goes regarding 'software ownership' I think that Stadia is one of the extremes that we should all be paying attention to. When we entrust a third party for literally all of the relevant files then we have given up the majority of control over what we play to an unknown party and that's just a perfect recipe for disaster.

To a much lesser, but still pertinent degree, I feel like this conversation touches on the way we should look at modding in the future too. That GTA example highlights a certain over-cautionary tone that a lot of developers take towards this concept, but what about those who straight up attempt to corral their audiences for financial gain? Such was the situation with Blizzard's 'Warcraft 3: Reforged' wherein their updated user agreement meant that any content developed through their custom tools was solely owned by Blizzard and not the creator. Those who made custom games were not due recompense for having their work appropriated, should Blizzard see fit, or even a mention of their work to inspire any of Blizzard's ideas. (As is indicated by the 'waiving of moral rights') Now, this is a rather transparent way to prevent a similar situation as to what happened with the original 'Warcraft 3' wherein that game's custom tools were used to create a popular custom game mode known as 'Defence of the Ancients' which then evolved into a standalone game called 'Defence of the Ancients 2'. (Otherwise known as the smash hit genre-creator; DOTA 2.) Say what you will about "protecting intellectual property" but that makes for a sobering example when it comes to how little the consumer actually owns their games and the things they do in said games.

And if you think that you may be safe from this just because you play on a console, or buy all your games from Steam, think again. Every single disc game nowadays has a customary install period that requires at least some the content to be installed online, meaning that somewhere along the way you need the permission of the publisher in order to install a game. Steam games will, whenever possible, run games directly through their client, meaning that you'll require their permission at some point in order to play your games. (Unless you plan to play everything offline forever.) Now, I know all of this reads like the delusions of an incredibly paranoid gentleman, (To which I thank you. No one ever calls me a 'gentleman.') but I feel disquiet in the knowledge that all it takes is for one link in that chain to be broken for us to be denied access to the software that we paid for, and I worry that in the future this divide between what we think we own and what we actually do is only going to expand.

When you look at the modern film watching audience you'll note that the vast majority of it is taken up by folk who exclusively watch Netflix or some other streaming service. What they can watch is, as such, decided by the whim of whatever movies or shows that these services can get ahold of. Should gaming move into a similar situation, as services like Stadia seem adamant that we do, why wouldn't the exact same content accessibility scenario play out? Now I don't know about you, but I don't want to live in a gaming ecosystem where what I can play is limited by whatever the populace seems most interested in, encouraging their service provider to secure the appropriate rights, cause I like a whole bunch of weird crap that no one else is probably playing. Right now I'm playing a long game of 'Stellaris', whilst cutting that up with bouts of 'Divinity Dragon Commander', and 'Star Wars Empire at War', with odd sessions of the 2015 remaster of the 2002 'Resident Evil remake', and back-and-forths between 'Oddworld: New 'N' Tasty' and 'Oddworld: Abe's Odyssey'. My taste is weird and eclectic and I love it for being so, and thus I lament for the day where my taste becomes forcibly limited due to software ownership conundrums. 

The illusion of video games cities

Trapped in a concrete jungle

We talk about about 'environments' here in this blog, and it is for good reason. The world that the player inhabits is one of the most important aspects of creating an immersive and believable gameplay experience and a well realized world can be absolutely unforgettable. Great gameplay and storytelling are only two thirds of the equation, afterall; without a world to care about it can be hard to dedicate yourself to the narrative, requiring your gameplay to be undeniably top notch to ultimately save your product. (Darn it, 'Destiny', you've got me there!) However, there is one particular aspect of world-building (That would be the physical act of world-building rather than the story telling aspect) that proves difficult even for the most skilled developers, and that is the creation of cities.

It's no wonder why, either. The commonly recognized hierarchy of settlements labels the requirements of a large city as; housing between '300,000 and 1,000,000 citizens', and there isn't a game engine on earth that can render that many NPC's complete with AI packages. (Although that same hierarchy technically means that NYC is a 'Metropolis', so don't take it as gospel.) Even using the common tricks of game development it can be incredibly difficult to create a world space that appropriately simulates the magnitude of a city in a believable way. That being said, urban settings are just too tempting for storytellers to completely write them off, so these teams find clever ways to bring their worlds to life. Consequently, I look upon the act of digital city building as an artform worthy a quick look through in this collation list.

One of, if not the, best example of video game cities in the modern age is 'Los Santos' from 'Grand Theft Auto V' and 'San Andreas'. Based on the instantly recognizable LA skyline, 'Los Santos' is a loving recreation of 'The City of Angels' complete from 'Venice beach' all the way up 'Hollywood Boulevard'. Due to the sheer level of skill and love that Rockstar put into erecting this digital masterpiece, Someone could familiarize themselves with these streets enough to give a rough tour of the actual city. Emphasis on 'rough' however, as even in 'GTA V' the city of Los Santos is only about 1/3 of the size of the actual city. (They got all the landmarks in, but cut down on the number of postcodes.) Either way, this is still an incredibly impressive achievement from Rockstar and one can only imagine how they managed to pull off such a colossal city all the way back in 2011. In fact, the only place that seems set to beat it in terms of scale is Cyberpunk 2077's own version of LA, Night City. (More on that later.) On seventh generation consoles, GTA V features a 'cone of vision' based rendering system that generates cars and pedestrians in whatever way you're focused in order to create the illusion of there being more NPCs than there actually are. Of course, there is a safety buffer to this feature to ensure that you don't accidentally ram into a freshly spawned truck, but this was a clever way of fleshing out the far away world objects without slowing down the frame rate. On Eighth Generation consoles, however, Rockstar manage to coax out enough power to stick with a standard rendering distance set-up; assembling that mammoth-of-a-city one neighbourhood at a time.

In Bethesda's RPGs there are quite a few large settlements for player's to explore, however it's only in 'The Elder Scrolls' where we see them attempt to create a fully functional and manned city. Therefore, by putting 'Skyrim' in our sights, we can get a look at the unique way that they handle 'cities'. Using this criteria, I settled on Whiterun as my ideal case-study for Skyrim cities due to it's central location and familiarity with practically every player. (Even though it is actually the third largest city in the game.) Looking at Whiterun, we see something quite peculiar, namely how the 'city' itself only consists of about 30 residents despite being the 'travelling hub' of Skyrim. This comes from the way that Bethesda's game engine renders each and every NPC with such complex stats and AI packages that it simply isn't feasible to create a city consisting of thousands. (Giving the medieval setting, a settlement of thousands would constitute a 'city'.) Despite this glaring misstep, however, we still consider Whiterun a prosperous settlement due to the way that Bethesda bought that place to life. Firstly, the city itself is scaled so that the small number of residents is enough to make the place feel crowded (something that Bethesda dropped the ball with when they made Oblivion); Secondly, their daily routines often have the people meeting up in the same spot, (The central market, the Bannered Mare. etc.) creating more illusionary crowding; and Thirdly, every citizen is realized with their own personality and story. This goes a step beyond the lifeless 'NPC's of other games because it offers so much more narrative value out of every individual. In this way, a city of 30 can balloon in your mind into a functioning city because you believe in every single inhabitant there.

Looking back towards the late 90's, we have another incredibly iconic metropolitan locale in Final Fantasy 7's Midgar. At the time of release, January 1997, this was an incredible vision for everyone to behold especially given that it was the first time that Square had used the processing power of a disk-based system on their much-beloved RPG franchise. As such, we saw 3D models on a 3D world bought to life in the image of an industrial cyberpunk revolution of blinking lights and heavy, chocking exhaust fumes. Midgar was the dystopian, mechanical monolith slapped right in the centre of a narrative which I have described as: the best possible video game adaptation of 'Fern Gully'. With this one location proving to be so important to the overall themes (or rather, the themes of the first third of the game) it was imperative that the team nailed their attempts at realizing it. However, 3D polygonal tech was still new to the Square team (Final Fantasy 6 was still entirely 'sprite-based') and so they had to figure out a way of creating a city despite lacking the technical power to do so. This they pulled off with a collection of clever techniques that would make any aspiring film maker proud. The backgrounds, for one, would be largely rendered stills that were mostly either top-down shots to establish the packed-in nature of the city streets, or brief sweeping vista shots over the majesty of it all, nailing the presentation of the big and the small. The story, too, directed players through a variety of new locations that differed enough visually to establish a sense of different districts and having travelled a great distance between them. And finally that iconic retro-mechanical music that flowed out of every district did wonders to subconsciously bring players to the right mindspace to believe in a city called Midgar.

Seeing as how we've already mentioned CDPR, we should take a look at their first attempt at bringing a huge city to life in 'The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt's: Novigrad. This was a city that was built to be the centrepiece of the second act of this game as it would be the ideal strategic point between the two warring factions and thus a veritable hotbed of interesting activities. The player would find themselves mostly visiting tiny villages in their time throughout the game, and so Novigrad is designed to be quite the system shock once you finally get there and find that the city absolutely spans the eastern waterfront as far as the eye can see. With all the power that CDPR managed to drum up to bring this particular city to life, it's no wonder that it should prove to be one of the biggest spectacles of the age. Unfortunately, Novigrad seemed to work better from afar than it did from the inside. For some reason, Novigrad never did feel particularly 'alive' in the same sense that GTA cities do, possible because of CDPR's over-reliance on uninteractible NPC's to feel up the empty space between objectives. Sure that works well enough in Los Santos, but that is because players are forever constantly aware that they can just knock out anyone on the street that they don't like and interact with the in-built crime system. In The Witcher, should you go nuts and start offing civilians, not only are you acting in a non lore-friendly way, but the game doesn't quite know how to handle it and just sends endless guards after you until you die or get bored. Novigrad serves as an example of how video game cities can be visually impressive whilst feeling ultimately empty, teaching an important lesson on balance between content and spectacle.

Heading back to Bethesda and their other popular RPG franchise, Fallout, we have a modest selection of post-apocalyptic home steads to choose from. Unfortunately, most of Bethesda's Fallout games seem to focus on 'settlements' rather than post-apocalyptic 'societies', but there are a couple of exceptions I picked out. Fallout 4's Fenway Park (or 'Diamond City') is one such locale, but I dislike Fallout 4 so I instead want to look at 3's Rivet City. This is a settlement fashioned out of a pre-war washed up air carrier that has been irradiated to hell and cut in half, so the perfect place to call home, right? Spend any amount of time in the Capital Wasteland and you'll hear about 'Rivet City' as this well defended city of traders, which is likely enough to grab any explorer's interest. Of course, this being a Bethesda game built on a much earlier framework than Skyrim, the reality isn't quite as grand as the story, but that Bethesda formula goes into making it all work. Once again, Rivet City is a 'city' of about 30-40 residents with the majority of that number going towards the security staff, but Bethesda manage to brag that off with style. This time, the centerpiece of the town is a busy market, selling the illusion of this being a major drop-off point for travellers on the road and giving you a chance to believe in the fact that most people don't stick around. Rivet City really shines with it's layout, however, which is intentionally winding and confusing to create the atmosphere of a large living space with countless decks, rooms and shops. Once again, Bethesda have a habit of making a mountain out of a molehill. (In a good way.)

Lionhead's Fable is a series that long sought to bring a distinctive English flair to the fantasy RPG genre, to arguable success. Hence the name of the region, Albion, which is an old poetic name for the British isles that is not so commonly used today. Inevitably, this meant that the team would try their hand at parodying the industrial revolution at some point, and they did exactly that in Fable 3, as the small town of Bowerstone blew up into a light steam-punky cityscape kingdom. This is the player's home for the majority of the game and the location to which they will return repeatedly throughout the course of events surrounding the campaign, so it was in best interest of the Dev team to have the Bowerstone region feel large and real for players play around in. Once again, the key to bringing Bowerstone to life was interaction. As the game engine wasn't powerful enough to render an entire city, (instead they allowed players to visit specific chunks of the city through separate play areas) Lionhead ensured that the player could mess around with ever individual citizen using the franchises patented 'touch system'. (It's not as creepy as that sounds, but is sure is as awkward) Unfortunately, the citizens themselves as mostly just wooden cutout stereotypes, but every little bit helps when it comes to believing in a world. As another added touch, the performance of the player in the main narrative has a knock-on effect to how many folk survive the final conflict, meaning that the world actually reflects upon your consequences, which always helps the immersive-ness a bit.

Let's go back to the 90's for this next entry, as Capcom decided to up the stakes from their last Resident Evil game and elevate their zombie outbreak from a sprawling mansion to the entirety of Raccoon City. This is one of those locations that is practically video game royalty, and for very good reason as it housed one of the greatest horror/action games of all time and managed to make people feel like they were living through a city-wide zombie outbreak despite the game only having the power to render 7 zombies on screen at once. (You need those precious 450 polygons for Leon and Claire, afterall.) This time Capcom made great use of perspective in order to highlight the claustrophobia of a city that they lacked the processing power to render. That meant a lot of high angled shots of alleyways and separated screens. (allowing one area to be loaded at a time.) Of course, once the 2019 remake came along there was no need for any of that subterfuge and we finally got a chance to see Raccoon City rendered in all of it's glory.

Okay, I already did a Bethesda Fallout game, but what about an Obsidian one? Objectively the best Fallout game to date, 'Fallout: New Vegas' featured a memorable post-apocalyptic society in their depiction of the titular 'New Vegas'. This was a city that stood as the crown jewel across the wasteland as it was one of the only major cities to be mostly unharmed by the missiles that ravaged the surrounding landscape. (Or at least, The Strip survived intact. Everything else was still a little banged up.) What resulted was a revival of the hedonistic materialism that everyone loved about the old Las Vegas, only ramped up to eleven with armed robot guards patrolling the whole place. Obsidian managed to make this city feel large through a mixture of Bethesda's techniques and Rockstar's. They stuck a bevy of named NPC's around the area but spruced up the space inbetween with filler folk; helping to make 'the Strip' feel like a heavily frequented location. They also made sure to take advantage of that Vegas glitz and glamour to plaster gaudy lights and advertisements all over the city, imbuing that overwhelming sense of metropolitan capitalism. All this makes New Vegas easily my favourite place in a Fallout game to visit and one of the best examples of creating a believable town.

Finally, as I promised, we come to CDPR's second attempt to create a huge cityscape, Cyberpunk 2077's Nightcity. This is a Cyber-futuristic-dystopian recreation of Los Angeles from the aftermath of just about every terrible event that a single society can undergo. We're talking wars, recessions and at least one nuclear detonation, but through it all the City survived and thrived. (depending on your definition of 'thriving'.) Of course, Cyberpunk 2077 isn't technically out yet so it's impossible for me to determine what specific techniques the team have used to realize this city, but judging from the demo alone we've seen a vast array of thematic distinctions, impressive graphical flairs and independent variety in civilian walk cycles. It seems that the name-of-the-game for CD Projekt word is diversity and, if the demo footage is any indication, they've pulled that particular task off with flying colours.

City building is one of most complex, and rewarding, task that one could ask of developers, and it is one that is particularly revealing as to the specific talents of your team. I love analyzing all the little tips and tricks that developers utilize, seeing what works and what doesn't, just as much as I enjoy believing in these digital spaces. As we steadily trudge into the next generation I can hardly imagine what sort of ingenuity this new breed of hardware will inspire out of developers and how well it'll all translate.