David Hayter hates America and slept with Bin Laden!

Well...........not really of course.

The real reason I made that freaky sentence the title of this post has to do with a recent incident Mr. David Hayter had with video game site, 1up.com. Now for those who may not know, David Hayter is the voice behind Metal Gear Solid main character, Solid Snake. Hayter is also a screenwriter and helped do the screenplays for X-men 1 and 2 as well as The Scorpion King and the upcoming Watchmen film. The main focus here though is his work with Kojima Productions and the fact that he has been the voice of Solid Snake for all these years.

This past weekend the annual anime convention, Anime Expo, was held here in Los Angeles and Mr. Hayter appeared as a special guest speaker since has also done many anime voice overs as well as well as video game voice overs. During Mr. Hayter's panel, which had thousands of people show up to, a fan asked Mr. Hayter "Has there ever been anything you disagreed with (creatively), during the course of the Metal Gear games?". Mr. Hayter answered the question by sighting two different times he felt that he disagreed with how the series was written including the ending in MGS4. Mr. Hayter just voiced what he thought about how Snake acted out of character and that he would have had Snake act a little differently had he been the one to write the story.

Now thats all Mr. Hayter said. But thanks to the power of human stupidity and the internet, many people started reporting that Mr. Hayter had slammed Kojima and didn't like the Metal Gear series. Now of course people taking stuff out of content is nothing knew, but here is the real kicker folks. Popular video game info site 1up.com reported what happened, but instead of just publishing the truth, they spinned it to make it sound like Mr. Hayter had a bone to pick with Kojima and crew. You can check out the article from 1up here.


Now after a few days of letting that boil and many fans now over reacting to the 1up article, Mr. Hayter actually sent a letter to 1up.com telling them how he felt about their article and wanted to correct them on a few things. Check out that letter here.

Luckily, I got to meet Mr. Hayter before at the MGS4 signing a few weeks back and he really is a cool guy and did a few Snake lines in his voice for me and my friends. I see what Mr. Hayter was getting at with his Anime Expo comments and its really sad that 1up.com took the story and made it sound like Mr. Hayter had some grudge against Kojima. Hopefully Kojima didn't see that article and Mr. Hayter didn't have to explain it all since that would be a bit awkward of course. None the less, I am glad to see Mr. Hayter defending what he said and writing a letter to 1up so they could try to straighten things out. 1up did respond to Mr. Hayter's letter of course which you can check out here.

Despite trying to sound apologetic, it still seems like 1up is still stabbing Mr. Hayter in the back and making it sound like the guy was being a ass for writing them a letter and calling them on their own shit. Go check it out for yourself and see what I mean. The person who wrote the response to Mr. Hayter's letter, who is the editor-in-chief of 1up, sure knows how to phrase things just right so that it seems like Hayter over reacted and that it wasn't their fault all this stuff is happening. Some very passive aggressive writing I must say.

Now the reason I bring all this up is that this isn't the first time gaming journalists have caused ripples in the video game community and its usually at the expensive of someone who actually works on making video games like Mr. Hayter. This past few years, more and more video game magazines and sites seem to be turning into the real news and taking comments out of context and creating mountains out of mole hills as the saying goes. I had honestly never thought the game industry would be faced with journalism such as this.

Some may say this is only a single case of bad journalism, but this has happened before actually. I wish I could dig through all the game sites out there for some more proof, but I will just give you folks to examples I have dealt with being in the game industry myself.

The first example I am going to show you folks actually deals with God of War creator, David Jaffe. Besides being a game designer and director, Mr. Jaffe is also a bit of a blogger as some may know. His blog usually has all sorts of interesting posts to read including what Mr. Jaffe things about current video games and the gaming community. If you head over to his site, you will see even recently he was posting his thoughts on video games that feature Marvel comic book character such as Spider-man. Now his post is very dead on about how the video game companies need to actually made a good comic book character game and stop with all the boring, repetitive games they have been spewing out as of late. Of course because he said this, the folks over at G4 thought this was news worthy for some reason and posted their thoughts on Mr. Jaffe's blog which you can read here.


Due to what G4 did, Mr. Jaffe got a ton of flaq for saying what he did and many people thought Mr. Jaffe hated Marvel for some reason. Of course Mr. Jaffe made a post about it all on his site and this caused G4 to tweak their original post as well so that it didn't make Mr. Jaffe look as bad as it did before. But the damage was still done by G4's original post that basically said Mr. Jaffe hated Marvel and Spider-man. So as you can see, gaming journalism is becoming just as sorted and trashy as real journalism. More and more game journalists seem to want to make things up to get readers or take things out of context so more people will buy their magazines or hit up their websites.

Another great example I was around for was back when the Playstation 2 game, Killzone, first come out several years back. With Halo and Halo 2 becoming the "it" games for the X-box, many had wondered how Sony would deal with these two power house FPS games. Was Killzone the answer? Nope, but game journalists sure made it out to be. Back before the game had come out, the American producers of the games were doing the usual media circuit and were interviewed by a few sites and magazines. Out of the blue one morning, several sites started posting that the producers were saying that Killzone was the "Halo killer" and that it was gonna rip a new one into the X-box. This of course caused the Killzone producers to freak out and started a rabid assault on a game that wasn't even out yet by Halo fanboys on several websites. Did the producers ever say anything like what the game sites reported? Nope, not in the least. Did the websites ever apologize for what they said or say who actually said those comments? Of course not.


Journalism to me is suppose to be reporting the facts and letting the masses know what is truthfully going on. Even video game journalism should be held to those standards, especially since there really isn't a whole lot to report to be honest. But of course, it seems game journalists seem to be following in footsteps of real journalists and now are publishing stories that will whip people into a frenzy, start some huge debate or even cause a rift between companies all so they can get a few more viewers on their sites.

Something many gamers may not know thought is that the video game industry is a very small and personal industry. Despite being spread out across the world, many people know each other, many people have to deal with each other and a lot of people will have to work with one another. So by slanding or doing bad reporting like some of these journalist have, it can cause lots of friction and or bad blood between people. So when stories like the Mr. Hayter incident pop up, Mr. Hayter has to worry about how it would effect his relationship with tons of people in the game industry including Kojima Productions and has to worry about how others in the industry will view him now.

Thats another reason why its bad that game journalists do this sort of thing. Bad reporting and blowing things up can really ruin people's loyalties, friendships and business partnerships. The power of the press is quaint amazing and hopefully these journalists don't go further down this rabbit hole because it could ruin many people's reputations and relationships in the industry. I think the normal press does that well enough to everyone else. I say we leave video game folks alone honestly.

It really has became sad that gaming journalism is coming down to this sort of thing though. There isn't a whole lot to the gaming industry and I never thought journalists would have to start pulling tricks like this to get readers. Many gamers trust video game sites and magazines and it just seems like they are using that trust for their own ends. I already wrote a post all about how corrupted game reviewers are getting and this just seems to be another reason to not trust video game journalists any more. Hopefully one day this will change, but probably not as long as people are greedy and journalists want attention.

O well, at least I have my little blog here. No one may read it, but at least I am not going gentle into that good night. I see what is happening to the game industry and it really is becoming a sad state of affairs. This may change in the future, but only time and lots of bad journalism will tell.

-P. Knight

Marketing for dummies

Hey folks,

I really gotta hand it to certain game companies that are beginning to realize that their marketing folks tend to not know what they are doing and are taking their game's marketing into their own hands. I am not saying that all video game company's marketing departments are bad, but who can honestly recall a really good video game ad in the last few years?

Thankfully the game companies noticed this in the last few years and are really getting into different forms of marketing that doesn't deal just with ads on TV. As some may of noticed, we are seeing more and more developer blogs, tons more viral marketing on the net as well as a lot more cool extras the companies are doing for the game like podcasts, fake commercials and even parodies of their own game. This sorts of new marketing concepts are what are really helping sell games now a days I believe.

I honestly believe this is the wave of the future for video game marketing or at least till many marketing departments pull their heads out of their asses and start realizing what they are doing. So far the biggest offender does seem to be the Sony marketing department who honestly market games they have never played or have no idea who they are marketing to. Both Microsoft and Nintendo have been doing pretty decent lately marketing wise with Nintendo doing the more family, wacky commercials and Microsoft going for the more epic feeling commercials that make their games seem like huge masterpieces. Both companies seem to know who they are marketing their games for and are actually making some commercials that make people want to check out their new games.

Sony on the other hand just seems to have hit a rut with their marketing I must say. Ever since the Ratchet and Clank live action commercials from some years ago, I have yet to really hear anyone say "Wow, that Playstation commercial was great!". I mean even the PS3 commercials had people scratching their heads. Melting plastic babies? Exploding rubik cubes? I mean seriously, did they just go down to Soho in New York and pick up some interpretive artists to design their commercials? Even their online ads tend to be very plain and drab and never really catch anyone's eye. Sony really needs to start taking a look at how other companies are doing their marketing and take some notes because they really have a lot to learn. The internet is going to be around for awhile and its where a major amount of gamers go for info so Sony better start to wise up on this fact.


Like I said though, game companies on all sides are realizing they need to take their marketing into their own hands and are hitting the net with all kinds of good content to get gamers talking and spreading the word of mouth. Even lately, there has been a lot of good marketing on the net thanks to game companies doing it their own way including recent huge hits like the Bad Company studio making parody commercials that spoof all the big action military games to Kojima Productions working with the Assassins Creed crew to make a crossover parody commercial that had everyone on the net talking.

I really wish marketing departments would pick up on these trends, especially the Sony folks, and start airing these great ads on TV. And speaking of which, marketing folks really need to learn who their game's fanbase is going to be and put it on TV during appropriate TV shows. If the game you are marketing is aimed for the teen and 20 something crowd, start airing the commercials more often on Adult Swim, late night shows like Conan O'Brian, Comedy Central and geek shows like Battlestar Galactica, Heroes and Chuck to name a few channels and shows that their targets audiences watch. Seeing a God of War add on CNN makes little sense to me. Know your audience, know what they like and then know how to advertise to them. I know I am making it sound simpler then it is, but its just sad seeing so many good games get a crappy marketing treatment.

Thankfully though, more and more studios are indeed taking their marketing to the net and we are getting to see a new age in internet marketing that is actually fun to watch. Hopefully more and more companies will catch on as well as game designers and directors. With that in mind, game designers and directors are also beginning to be thrown into this new age of marketing and are realizing that they can't just let other people market their game for them and must get involved as well. Thanks to developer blogs, podcasts as well as directors/designers getting their faces on the net with interviews and such, more and more gamers are becoming aware of games that are coming out thanks to the designers and directors themselves.

I honestly can not wait to see how all this new marketing turns out and what new content we expect to see from the studios themselves doing marketing this way. Like I said before, this really is the wave of the future for video game marketing and hopefully the major marketing folks who work for the game companies start to catch onto this great new concept. Anyway, sorry for the rant dear reader, it just saddens me as someone who works for the game industry to see so many great games go unplayed due to something so stupid as getting a good marketing treatment.

-P. Knight

See no evil, play no evil, review no evil

Hey folks,

In the world of media and entertainment, there is always suppose to be a nice line between the creators of new content and the critics of said content. This is how it is suppose to be and in a perfect world its what it should be. Back when video games first started coming out and critics started to review them, this is how things were. However over the last few years, I have been noticing that this policy has been going out the door in the game industry in favor of the new policy game companies buying good reviews.

Currently the video game industry is a multi-billion dollar industry with Sony, Microsoft and even Nintendo bringing in near or over 1 billion dollars each year. What some people may not know is that its the games themselves that bring in a huge chunk of this money, not the systems and or accessories. Every game company, be it first or third party, rely totally on game sales of course and making games lately has become a somewhat costly venture due to the newer systems requiring a lot more tech be put into new games. With this is mind, game studios are scared to invest millions of dollars into a game that could totally flop and thus put them in the red. Because of this, major game companies have been trying their best now to make sure their multi-million dollar games sell well and one way to due this is to buy critics off.

Buying a good review from critics is nothing new of course in the entertainment world, but its something many never thought would occur in the video game industry. In the last few years however, many people both in and outside the industry have been noticing the warning signs of video game critics being bribed into giving good game reviews.

One major example of this was the recent IGN.com review of Grand Theft Auto 4. IGN had gotten a exclusive early review of the game a few days before the game's release date and their review of the game happened to be a perfect 10 of all things. Now if you read the review of the game, the IGN reviewer had said the game had several faults and even listed them. Yet with all these faults, he still gave the game a perfect 10. Do you think the fact that Rockstar let the IGN people play the game earlier and do a exclusive review only on their site causing mass amounts of people to flood their happens to factor into the 10? How about the fact that Rockstar had paid IGN a nice little sum to have tons of GTA4 advertisements on their site?

There are many other stories along the lines of the IGN one that have happened in the last few years. Ones ranging from the critic over at Gamespot.com who got fired for giving a game a horrible review while the game maker's company had payed Gamespot.com a large sum of money to promote the game on their site to reviewers admitting that game studios brought them to the studios and wined and dinned them while they got to play that studio's game.

Even recently in Electronic Gaming Monthly I was reading a review of Metal Gear Solid 4 that gave me a sneaking suspicion as to the merit of the review. EGM had three different people review MGS4 and all three gave the game a "A" while a better part of their reviews were spent it picking the game and saying the second half of the game was pretty bad. Now does that sound like a A game review to you? They barely spent anytime really saying how good the game was, yet went on and on about how bad it was yet they still all gave it it a A. During the review though, they did happen to mention that Konami invited them to their studio to let them play the game for as long as they wanted. Seem a little weird doesn't it? I mean don't you think that inviting a bunch of fanboy critics over to a game developer's studio to get to play a game early as well as probably get some free swag won't taint their opinion on the game? Where is that tfine line that separated critics and creators because it really has begun to blur as of late in the game industry due to things like this happening.

Like I said, there are plenty of other examples of things such as this like Bungie all but buying hookers for reviewers who went to their studio to play Halo 3 and review it or how about the fact that Game Informer is owned by Gamestop and gives every game good reviews so they will sell. This trend is definitely happening with the bigger games and studios right now, but who knows when every other game studio might do the same?


Mind you, I am not saying to stop reading all reviews nor think every critic is on the take. What I am saying is that you need to be careful now a days with what you read and who you trust. My advice is to check out what other games the critic has played and see if those reviews matched with your own experiences. Even then, it could still be a trap of course. Thats why my other piece of advice is to go outside the normal gaming review sites and magazines like EGM, IGN, Gamespot and 1up and start finding your own sites. Check out geek blogs, go to new sites like Evil Avatar or Zero-punctuation's page on Joystiq.com or even start reading gamer forums as well. There is a lot more you could do of course, but I wanted to get the ball rolling. Don't sit around and let the main sites spoon feed you their payed for by "insert name here" reviews. Go out and seek better reviews, read up on games and see if you would actually like it or even go out on a limb and take a risk by renting a game and trying it out.

This post isn't a call to arms by any means, but more of a indication of what sort of bad juju is going on in the game industry right now. With video games becoming such a major part of our society and culture, its really sad to see game companies take advantage of their fan base. One day this may change and hopefully we never reach a point where no gamer can trust a critic anymore.

Well thats it for now. I could dive deeper into the fact that many game critics have basically lost their way and are becoming frustrated wannabe game designers, but I will save that for another time of course. For now I just wanted to get the point out that don't always trust what you read.

-P. Knight

The sad truth

Recently I came across a very interesting article over at 1up.com about how to make a perfect action video game that will sell well in todays market. You can check out the article below:

http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3168258

Now that article is partially joking while also being a bit serious as well. The truth is, I do agree with the article for the most part. To sum up the article, they are saying that to make a successful video game you need the war torn bad ass main hero, some hot chick who serves no real point, sick weapons that blow things up and a story line thats sole purpose is to just get the main character to different areas.

Like I said, this isn't to far from the truth. If you look at the top 10 selling video games from the last 10 years, you will notice that all three Halo games as well as all three Grand Theft Auto games are on there. In a way, that is a sad state of affairs. I am not saying those games aren't great by any means, but they are very formulaic. Despite having lots of flashy graphics, big guns and decent stories, they are all still the same when broken down.

I could really rip into those games, but there really wouldn't be much of a point in doing so since even I think they are really well made games. But what really scares me about all this is that with these sorts of games, good story telling is getting thrown out the door.

Who here can tell me what all three Halo's were about besides blasting aliens? How about the background story for Kratos in God of War? What about the reasons behind what the main characters in the GTA series do? What the bloody heck is Gears of War about? Hell, can anyone tell me who Dante's father was in the Devil May Cry series?

Thats the point I am making here. Instead of players being apart of the game's story, the story for each game takes a back seat to the action. Most people I know who play these games tend to skip the cut scenes or cinematics just to get back to the action. Now I love action games as much as the last man, but I still think pure action can't be the only thing that drives games anymore.

I honestly do wonder if the directors behind these games actually care that people don't care about their game's story and that most people just want to kill stuff instead. Honestly, some of those great action games also have solid stories as well, but no one ever pays attention to them it seems. I think the problem is that the stories aren't included that much in the game play. The way these games are done are usually in a way so its get the main character from Point A to Point B and kill everything in between. Since that is how the game plays out, why would someone pay attention to the story?

Stories need to be more incorporated into the games I would say. Give a reason for players to actually want to know the story and care about what quest the character is on. After playing Metal Gear Solid 4 for a bit, I think Kojima is one of the few people who can actually do that. He does it very heavy handedly, but he still was able to get people to pay attention to the story and to the characters. Granted the story is all over the place and there are a butt ton of characters, I think my point still stands. If Kojima ever did another game with this sort of game play and story immersion and scaled back how insane and twisted he made the story, he would make a amazing game that had a near perfect balance of action and story.

I know I sound a bit bitter about action games, but I actually do love to play them as well. I just want something a bit more to them is all. I want to be apart of the story and not just see it sitting on the back burner like some bad stew. I miss the days of when action/adventure games actually made the players feel like they were apart of the game's story and not just waiting around for more action to happen. I partially blame this new mentality on many of the game designers out there as well as many of the video game marketing departments. Instead of actually trying to do their jobs and market smart or good games, they just want to market the big action ones out there that require zero marketing skills to do and know will sell well thus earning them a bonus.

So that is the sad truth really. I really wish designers would start to regain some of their former glory and create great stories and include them in their games, but it honestly doesn't seem like that is gonna happen. All these new action games are turning into Michael Bay movies and I swear I can feel the IQ's of my fellow gamers dropping every new release.

-P. Knight