Last Wednesday I had a terrific conversation with Rob Kay (lead designer of Guitar Hero and the forthcoming Rock Band) in his office at Harmonix. I feel very lucky to have been able to talk with a game designer on-the-record, which is something I never managed to pull off during my Grand Theft Auto project. Rob gave me permission to post excerpts of the interview transcript here; I'll start with this one, which begins with my asking a question about "star power." (When you are playing a song successfully, you gradually build up "star power," which can then be deployed by lifting up the neck of your guitar; the crowd goes wild and you earn extra points for a while. The folks over at ScoreHero have made star power strategy into something of an artform, as Rob and I discuss later.)
KM:The other thing about star power that I think is really interesting is the way that it visually shakes you up when you’re playing. And I wonder what went into that decision.
RK: Do you mean, how the visuals react on-screen?
KM: Yep.
RK: So, I think one of the big things that you try to do in game design is give people instant gratification, feedback for anything that they do in the game. And feedback is always audio and visual. And if you can, if you’ve got these big moments, emotional moments in your game you want to make sure you’re using both the audio and the visual to really give you a positive feeling for doing something good in the game. So, star power is the big bonus moment, and you want to feel like you’re being rewarded for doing it. And then—you know, that’s like on a purely mechanical level? And I know we spent a lot of time trying to figure out, what should the visuals be, what should the sound be, and I was really keen that we had a theme, that we found something to link it all together. And so, we thought, well star power, should we put little gold stars or something like that, I was like no, that’s a little bit cheesy. And so then we thought it would be fun to go with the whole, hey look, it’s the electric guitar, you’re playing an electric guitar, so let’s make the theme electricity, and overloading, and all that kind of vibe. So we went with this kind of electric blue color scheme, and little kind of fizzes and spark sound effects when you deploy as well. So it was trying to bring a little bit of the raw, amp, overload kind of feel to the feedback. And that’s what drove the visuals. So as well as serving that functional purpose, which is to let you A. know when you’ve earned star power because you see the blue little sparks go off, you know that as your meter fills it’s blue, and it’s got sparks, so you’re identifying it conceptually, okay, blue glowy stuff is star power, it’s serving that functional job, but it’s also serving an aesthetic, an experiential kind of thing as well, making you feel like, oh yeah, it’s all electricity, and I’m kind of overloading the crowd with energy by releasing it. That was kind of an important direction.
KM: It’s interesting how that sort of replicates a really iconic, mythical moment in rock, which is the moment of Dylan going electric.
RK: [laughs]
KM: I don’t know if that ever occurred to any of you at all, but it just struck me just now when you were talking about it because it is this huge [snaps fingers] sort of transferral at this moment, although of course the crowd reaction was different—
RK: Yeah. Not explicitly. That’s right. Yeah, well that wasn’t an explicit goal at the time. But yeah. I mean, it’s very much a part of what, I mean Guitar Hero from the beginning was always, well, not right from the beginning, I think when we first started we didn’t know whether it was even going to be about rock or whether it was going to be about guitar. Because first of all it was about guitar, and then we only kind of realized a couple of weeks into the project that it made sense to make it all about rock.
KM: Really, so did you consider initially having a bunch of different genres so that you could be the country guitar hero, or the whatever guitar hero, the classical guitar hero?
RK: Yeah. Up until that point the normal thing to do in music games was to have a mixture of music from different genres. And I think the real, I mean, you could ask, why would you do that, it seems so obvious to put it into one genre and have a real identity, but I think people are probably just thinking about, oh how do we appeal to lots of people, oh, put lots of different music in there. And certainly in our karaoke games they were pretty pop-centric but they had a pretty wide range of songs. And Guitar Freaks, which I’m sure you must’ve heard about and looked into, had a strange mixture of songs, it had blues in there as well as rock, and you know we kind of had to make a decision early on, were we going to have blues as well, and were we going to have other stuff that people think of as typical guitar music, and it just seemed right to us to make it about, you know, balls-out rock guitar, that it’s the iconic thing that bringing a guitar game to America should be all about. Seems like the obvious think to do, to take it in that direction.
KM: So there is that American aspect to it. [NB: Rob Kay is from Manchester; one of the many limitations of this transcription is the fact that you can't hear his accent and speech cadences.]
RK: Yeah. I was always joking with Ryan who’s our art director, that it’s gotta be like a balls-out American thing, people identify with that I think. And it’s just the cliched thing, and often in videogames it’s those cliches that are easy to hold onto and get into, you just, you step out of yourself for a little while. And I enjoyed it, even though I wouldn’t necessarily identify, for me, you know, that American guitar rock as being my favorite thing. I know what it is, and I know how to get into it.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Sunday, September 23, 2007
research questions
It feels like my research has stopped in its tracks since classes started -- but of course that's what everyone said being a new faculty member would be like. Meanwhile, I'm trying to at least generate some questions about Guitar Hero in hopes that my brain will keep them on the back burner somehow. Here are some general areas I want to investigate (some of them already under investigation via my Guitar Hero survey):
What does Guitar Hero teach its players about rock -- about rock aesthetics, rock canons, and what counts as classic rock? And do different kinds of players receive this rock pedagogy differently? (For instance, players who already know most songs in the games vs. players who are learning them for the first time?)
On a more basic level, what kind of music pedagogy does Guitar Hero provide? How does it get across ideas about reading notation vs. learning/playing by ear? How does its tutorial compare to typical beginning guitar lessons?
Do players feel they are being "musical" or creative when they play? (I already know the answer is that some do and others definitely do not; I'm interested in finding out what concepts of musicality/creativity are in play. Also, do players with experience playing real instruments tend to have different views about this than non-musicians?)
Guitar Hero has gotten a lot of media coverage, much of it focused on the games' relationship to actual guitar-playing. (Three main categories of story: "Real rock stars who play Guitar Hero"; "Will Guitar Hero deter kids from playing real instruments?"; "Guitar Hero gets kids excited about guitar [and/or about rock]".) Why is this such a compelling topic for reception of the games? Having looked at a lot of moral-panic (or reaction-to-moral-panic) media connected with the Grand Theft Auto games, I'm interested in how critics make moral or ethical arguments about a game that's non-violent and not overtly political. In this case the ethical issue seems to be about whether this is authentic/genuine performance and whether it endangers or promotes actual music-making (somewhat in line with the old argument over whether video games isolate players or create player communities).
And continuing in this "performance" area: what about the growing number of Guitar Hero nights at bars, a la karaoke nights, and the public (and/or YouTube-disseminated) Guitar Hero competitions? How do players' and viewers' concepts of technical virtuosity and performance style/rockstar charisma play into their judgments about Guitar Hero? I've already seen some interesting debates about this in YouTube comment threads about people like Freddie Wong (a friend of a student of mine -- I need to arrange an interview with him as soon as I have the time).
Then there's the whole industry/marketing-synergy side, for which I really need to talk with the game designers (next month, I hope, thanks to a friend-of-a-friend at Harmonix). How did they choose the repertoire? How did they work out licensing issues? (All this applied to Grand Theft Auto, too, but I was never able to get the questions answered for that project.) Have sales of certain artists/songs seen a bump since the release of the games? If so, how much of this is nostalgia-related (as with GTA: Vice City's soundtrack) and how much has to do with actually creating a new fan base for this music? And what about the placement of novelty tracks with subcultural capital (like those from Homestar Runner), or tracks from little-known bands? Does this significantly increase Guitar Hero's street cred with certain kinds of players? Other things to ask the designers about: how did they come up with the various avatars? What sort of diversity were they hoping to achieve? Were they thinking at all about gender issues? (Or about how to pre-empt criticism re gender stereotypes? How does this all fit in with the legacy of Riot Grrrl?)
Another level of the "industry" topic relates to how the games depict the music industry, particularly with respect to an individual band's path to stardom. The order of cities, the assorted venue types, and the increasingly complex concert staging all say interesting things about how rock can rely on or create a sense of locality, as well as how hierarchies of venues get built up. The interstitial rock tips (during loading screens) place the game in the role of a kind of rock mentor, and the financial statements showing how little the band nets from each performance offer some wry commentary on romantic ideas of rock success. (My little brothers play in a band, and I would bet that some aspects of Guitar Hero ring true with their first multi-city tour experience. I wonder how many GH players have actually played in bands in public?)
While writing this post I've been trading songs with James -- I've 5-starred a bunch of stuff, but only on Medium. (And let me state for the record that "Beast and the Harlot" is a hilarious song.)
What does Guitar Hero teach its players about rock -- about rock aesthetics, rock canons, and what counts as classic rock? And do different kinds of players receive this rock pedagogy differently? (For instance, players who already know most songs in the games vs. players who are learning them for the first time?)
On a more basic level, what kind of music pedagogy does Guitar Hero provide? How does it get across ideas about reading notation vs. learning/playing by ear? How does its tutorial compare to typical beginning guitar lessons?
Do players feel they are being "musical" or creative when they play? (I already know the answer is that some do and others definitely do not; I'm interested in finding out what concepts of musicality/creativity are in play. Also, do players with experience playing real instruments tend to have different views about this than non-musicians?)
Guitar Hero has gotten a lot of media coverage, much of it focused on the games' relationship to actual guitar-playing. (Three main categories of story: "Real rock stars who play Guitar Hero"; "Will Guitar Hero deter kids from playing real instruments?"; "Guitar Hero gets kids excited about guitar [and/or about rock]".) Why is this such a compelling topic for reception of the games? Having looked at a lot of moral-panic (or reaction-to-moral-panic) media connected with the Grand Theft Auto games, I'm interested in how critics make moral or ethical arguments about a game that's non-violent and not overtly political. In this case the ethical issue seems to be about whether this is authentic/genuine performance and whether it endangers or promotes actual music-making (somewhat in line with the old argument over whether video games isolate players or create player communities).
And continuing in this "performance" area: what about the growing number of Guitar Hero nights at bars, a la karaoke nights, and the public (and/or YouTube-disseminated) Guitar Hero competitions? How do players' and viewers' concepts of technical virtuosity and performance style/rockstar charisma play into their judgments about Guitar Hero? I've already seen some interesting debates about this in YouTube comment threads about people like Freddie Wong (a friend of a student of mine -- I need to arrange an interview with him as soon as I have the time).
Then there's the whole industry/marketing-synergy side, for which I really need to talk with the game designers (next month, I hope, thanks to a friend-of-a-friend at Harmonix). How did they choose the repertoire? How did they work out licensing issues? (All this applied to Grand Theft Auto, too, but I was never able to get the questions answered for that project.) Have sales of certain artists/songs seen a bump since the release of the games? If so, how much of this is nostalgia-related (as with GTA: Vice City's soundtrack) and how much has to do with actually creating a new fan base for this music? And what about the placement of novelty tracks with subcultural capital (like those from Homestar Runner), or tracks from little-known bands? Does this significantly increase Guitar Hero's street cred with certain kinds of players? Other things to ask the designers about: how did they come up with the various avatars? What sort of diversity were they hoping to achieve? Were they thinking at all about gender issues? (Or about how to pre-empt criticism re gender stereotypes? How does this all fit in with the legacy of Riot Grrrl?)
Another level of the "industry" topic relates to how the games depict the music industry, particularly with respect to an individual band's path to stardom. The order of cities, the assorted venue types, and the increasingly complex concert staging all say interesting things about how rock can rely on or create a sense of locality, as well as how hierarchies of venues get built up. The interstitial rock tips (during loading screens) place the game in the role of a kind of rock mentor, and the financial statements showing how little the band nets from each performance offer some wry commentary on romantic ideas of rock success. (My little brothers play in a band, and I would bet that some aspects of Guitar Hero ring true with their first multi-city tour experience. I wonder how many GH players have actually played in bands in public?)
While writing this post I've been trading songs with James -- I've 5-starred a bunch of stuff, but only on Medium. (And let me state for the record that "Beast and the Harlot" is a hilarious song.)
Thursday, September 20, 2007
for MYC students: how to embed YouTube
"Embedding" multimedia content on your blog is easy and makes for much more interesting content than just linking to other webpages. What you're doing, metaphorically speaking, is opening a little window to content hosted somewhere else on the web, and allowing your audience to look through that window rather than actually going to another site.
Embedding a YouTube clip in your blog is one of the simplest ways to do this. YouTube actually provides you with the HTML code that you need, in that little field that says "embed". (When you look around the web you'll notice that a lot of other sites do this, too.) When writing your blog entry, use the "Edit Html" view, and just copy and paste the YouTube code where you want the video. For instance, here's the Clash video we watched in class. (If you use the "View" menu on your browser and go to "View Page Source," you can see the code that created this result -- search for "youtube".)
Embedding a YouTube clip in your blog is one of the simplest ways to do this. YouTube actually provides you with the HTML code that you need, in that little field that says "embed". (When you look around the web you'll notice that a lot of other sites do this, too.) When writing your blog entry, use the "Edit Html" view, and just copy and paste the YouTube code where you want the video. For instance, here's the Clash video we watched in class. (If you use the "View" menu on your browser and go to "View Page Source," you can see the code that created this result -- search for "youtube".)
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
for MYC students: how to post audio
Just a scan of the San Andreas radio dial --
How did I do this? I uploaded an MP3 as an attachment to the "clip collection" page on our course wiki (well, first I recorded the track during gameplay, but that's another story). Then I embedded a link to it in this posting.
In your posting, use the "Edit HTML" tab. Here's what the code looks like:
<embed src="URL_of_Audio_File" autostart="false" loop="false" controls="console" height="62" width="144"></embed>
You'll want to replace "URL_of_Audio_File" with the actual URL of your own uploaded file. In this case it was https://wiki.brown.edu/confluence/download/attachments/1443339
/GTAradiodial.mp3
For your own clip, it will be this same URL stem https://wiki.brown.edu/confluence/download/attachments/1443339/
with your own filename tacked onto the end. (Of course, you could also use some other URL if your audio clip is hosted somewhere else on the web.)
UPDATE for current classes: Please note that the URL stem will be different for each course. See the course FAQ on the wiki.
How did I do this? I uploaded an MP3 as an attachment to the "clip collection" page on our course wiki (well, first I recorded the track during gameplay, but that's another story). Then I embedded a link to it in this posting.
In your posting, use the "Edit HTML" tab. Here's what the code looks like:
<embed src="URL_of_Audio_File" autostart="false" loop="false" controls="console" height="62" width="144"></embed>
You'll want to replace "URL_of_Audio_File" with the actual URL of your own uploaded file. In this case it was https://wiki.brown.edu/confluence/download/attachments/1443339
/GTAradiodial.mp3
For your own clip, it will be this same URL stem https://wiki.brown.edu/confluence/download/attachments/1443339/
with your own filename tacked onto the end. (Of course, you could also use some other URL if your audio clip is hosted somewhere else on the web.)
UPDATE for current classes: Please note that the URL stem will be different for each course. See the course FAQ on the wiki.
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
new project
I'm starting this blog to keep track of my Guitar Hero research efforts. I'm hoping to carry out an ethnographic study of this game, including perspectives from both players and designers. This blog will also serve as a model for the students in my courses at Brown this fall (Musical Youth Cultures and Introduction to Ethnomusicology), since I will be asking them to create their own research blogs for course projects.
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