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Mark Kern's Ask Anything on 8chan

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Feb 24th, 2015
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  1. These are a few excerpts from Mark Kern's Ask Anything on 8chan, brought to you by /v/ and /weiss/ (a board created specifically to host this happening). Some replies were abridged and others merged for brevity and categorization purposes. For the full Ask Anything, please refer to these threads:
  2. https://archive.today/SZovM
  3. https://archive.today/IBCfk
  4.  
  5. About Blizzard's Management
  6. Matured. Made mistakes, fixed em. At Blizzard I always felt we ran fast would run over a problem before we knew to put a stop sign up. Blizzard attacks problems very aggressively, so I think the recent cancellation of Titan and focus on smaller games is part of that.
  7.  
  8. About the Censorship of Creators
  9. Well, nothing has really changed has it? Its always going to be here. The censorship is more like selective editing. And by editing, I mean in the classic, journalistic sense… where the editor chooses what stories to run and what stories to pursue.
  10. So, it sucks, but it's always been that way. I think we are just a high tide of sorts.
  11.  
  12. About the Petition
  13. I expect it will be ignored. But that was kind of the point. It serves to show the selective coverage of game journalism. Either that or they acknowledge it. Either way a win win as far as I'm concerned. It teaches me more about them.
  14. Petition is, as we say in software "working as intended." It's highlighting an issue and getting some commentary going in a different direction. I've heard from a handful of devs and at least one CEO. So far they expressed thanks for my petition.
  15.  
  16. About Firefall
  17. Firefall had some big ideas. I also ended up filing like 10 patents at the time. But I am bored with traditional MMOs, very much so. I'm not allowed to discuss what happened at Red 5. But I think the game is very different at launch than I would have done.
  18.  
  19. About Patents in Gaming
  20. I think software patents are bogus, but there are a ton in games. I wanted them to use defensively in case we were every sued. If you have patents, you can trade permissions to get out of lawsuits like that.
  21.  
  22. About the State of the Industry, "Gamers Are Dead" and Women in Gaming
  23. Industry is having trouble with AAA game sizes and budgets. Buggy software is a sign of that on console releases.
  24. Not sure if pubs are restrictive, since I haven't work for a big pub in a long time.
  25. Playtesters are all children, yes, chained to desks in China.
  26. Gamers are not dead. lol…but we're a bigger group now. It was the seemingly co-ordinated nature of the articles that first interested me in GG. Women are def worried about joining the industry now if they haven't been before. Looks rough and people are getting bashed left and right.
  27.  
  28. About the Rise of YouTube and Streamers
  29. So, a couple of years ago I saw the rise of youtube and twitch and wanted to go direct to gamers and streamers. We did that with Stage 5 youtube and Firefall Fest.
  30. At the time, twitch said we were one of their biggest and best events (top 5) and on Stage 5 we were pulling in a half million to a million views a FF trailer compared to 10-50k views now.
  31. In my opinion, it was working. But many people who bashed it didn't understand where the wind was blowing. But now, I think everybody knows that's where the marketing power really is.
  32.  
  33. About Sports (/sp/ Found a Way)
  34. So I grew up overseas…and when I came here for college I didn't know anything about sports.
  35. I tried going to a Hockey game and got whacked by a stray puck in the kidney…making me have to leave the game…so that was a no go. Then I tried football. I was in Rochester NY so I was all about the Bills… but after losing so many superbowls, I gave up.
  36. So, no sports for me. Plus I'm so uncoordinated that most of my teenage coaches gave up on me.
  37.  
  38. About the Black Paladin in Diablo 2
  39. No clue. We didn't think that way. It was just like "Black Paladin?" "Cool!" Armor was whatever looked cool. No thought beyond that.
  40.  
  41. About His Favorite Kind of Game
  42. Adventure games. Thats what I wanted to do. Working on Warcraft Adventures when we brought in Steve Meretzky of Infocom fame was a fond memory. We sealed ourselves in a room for a week with Bill Roper and Chris Millar and redesigned the whole game.
  43. But by then it was hopelessly outdated compared to Grim Fandango with its 3D graphics so we canned it.
  44.  
  45. About Early Access and Pay-Only Betas
  46. Well, its a way to fund a game when you don't have a publisher. As such, it brings many creative games out that otherwise couldn't be made. But if your access is too early, and either the game isn't ready or the beta is going to be a long time (cough, cough)…then that can be a disaster.
  47.  
  48. About Narrative Structuring and Storytelling in Gaming
  49. So I have this thing for AI being the next big thing in games….like AI designers on servers, creating story and content on the fly and responding to players actions.
  50. For MMOs we have massive amounts of server computing power now, more than any desktop…this is where the next frontier is…how to use those cores..not for graphics, but for AI.
  51. But, storytelling is hard for AI…we can fake it, but its easy to see through with many edge cases. Getting better for sure. I'm very interested in what Ken Levine comes up with as I understand he's doing something with that now.
  52.  
  53. About High-Profile Game Developers Supporting GamerGate
  54. No, I haven't heard from any high-profile devs in terms of supporting GG. But supporting the press toning it down and not shitting the bed? A couple of very high profile ones…but even they won't speak publicly.
  55. Which is what I don't get. Usually yellow journalism is to sell more papers…but this is like the virus killing the host. Doesn't seem very smart.
  56.  
  57. About the Gaming Websites He Visits
  58. I used to surf all the major sites. Now I'm mostly on Reddit and twitter. My kids stream youtube constantly so I'll check out what they are watching. I hang out on Twitch to check out the new games.
  59. I don't lurk here, but I lurk on a lot of forums for games that I'm researching or interested in.
  60.  
  61. About Developers' Perception of Chan Culture
  62. I think devs fear chan boards. It has such a stigma. You guys probably enjoy it that way.
  63.  
  64. About Control of the Gaming Industry by Outsiders
  65. I think that's an overstatement. We still enjoy a lot of freedom. But you always have to defend that freedom.
  66.  
  67. "Do you have a waifu?"
  68. No, but I should. Playing Hunie Pop now.
  69.  
  70. About Creativity in Gaming Today
  71. Creativity in AAA is a joke. Too expensive to take risks. At the same time you have all these great tools now to make games, so you're seeing a lot of small studios do really cool stuff and actually make enough money to survive or even thrive.
  72. So its win some, lose some..but net gain…if you are on PC. :)
  73.  
  74. About His Influences from Japanese Game Design
  75. Sappy storylines from jRPGs told in broken English.
  76. But seriously, they were leading so many categories for awhile. We learned a lot from them. RTS games kind of sprung out of Herzog Zwei and such. Also platformers and combat mechanics (so many wacky experiments)…to using the rage bar from fighting games as an inspiration for some classes in WoW.
  77. Hmmm… feels like Japan has lost its way a little bit. I don't often find myself going "I've never seen that before" like I used to from Japan. But then again, I have no idea what danmaku is. So maybe I'm just out of touch.
  78.  
  79. About MMOs
  80. Ya, I helped to pretty much ruin them, didn't I?
  81. There were many more experiments with MMO types back before WoW. We picked ONE type and took it as far as we could…but that's played out and it kinda overshadowed a lot of other interesting work as people just jumped on the bandwagon.
  82. I look forward to revisiting those old ideas that others were exploring.
  83. I think people are worn out on the MMO formula. We need to get some fresh ideas in and make it so that its cheap and easy to experiment.
  84. I don't know why pubs keep trying to do MMOs the traditional way. Its a horrible waste of money given how expensive they are.
  85. I would like to see a niche MMO that was hardcore. I think there is room for that and a hardcore fantasy MMO that was really hard to play could attract 500k users consistently.
  86.  
  87. About Ben Kuchera
  88. I don't think he's helping his own website very well in the long run.
  89.  
  90. About the State of Gaming Journalism
  91. Shitty. Wasn't it obvious? :)
  92. Pretty much that its about rehashing press releases and everything else is just click-bait. I'm interested in new models.
  93.  
  94. About Journalists Becoming the Gatekeepers
  95. [...] I think they are looking to stay profitable and make money…and have chosen a strategy that works in the short term but has long term repercussions that will make it a horrible long term play for traditional game journalism.
  96.  
  97. About Vivian James
  98. She seems fine to me. I heard something about the colors being code for something awful but that seems like a stretch.
  99.  
  100. "Whas there ever a cancelled Blizz project you regret not finishing?"
  101. Raiko. I can talk about it now since they mentioned it at some Blizcon ages ago. It was going to be a Japanese samurai and ninja themed RPG. I was initially hired to do that project,but I had to can the original dev team (external). I found a new one that rocked a demo that we did together, but Blizzard had its hands full trying to do multiple projects internally so Raiko got shut down.
  102.  
  103. About Breaking Into QA in Gaming
  104. We still have QA even with early access…or at least you should. Most big pubs have QA depts. Being a skilled gamer and being able to prove it tends to get you noticed in resumes to QA. They like people who kind play games fast, or find exploits while able to write up a good description.
  105.  
  106. About Dark Souls
  107. I have to play Dark Souls…sounds like I would have a good time.
  108. I miss non-consensual PvP in games. It added such an element of danger and created great stories.
  109.  
  110. "Mark, do you think written journalism will still have an important role to play?"
  111. Ya I do…because its quick and cheap to produce that anyone can do it. So why not have everyone do it?
  112. I once thought about doing an alternative to CNN, where you created a mobile app that turned anyone into remote field reporter with cam and mic to do interviews or film. You would suck up this feed and then users would vote and comment and then the front page would be editors selecting stories and trends and commenting on them.
  113. When something happens like a hotspot breaks out in the world, you'd airdrop or ship in a ton of cheap mobile phones with this app on it, so you could get on the ground coverage. Everyone could see everything.
  114.  
  115. About Zombies
  116. No, I fucking hate zombies. Can't watch it on TV either.
  117.  
  118. About DRM
  119. Don't like it. Get rid of it.
  120.  
  121. About the Size of the Gaming Industry
  122. Smaller teams pls. Less risk, more innovation.
  123. Also yes on individual creators. You get such purity of idea there (for better or worse).
  124.  
  125. About the Future Economics of the Gaming Industry
  126. Un-sus-tainable. Game budgets have increased exponentially faster than market growth size or profit per gamer. Something's gonna give.
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