Updates

Some quick updates:

I did an interview recently for The Escapist which is a pretty cool online magazine about the gaming world. The guy in the photos where my interview's located.......is not me. It's just their layout style to not have any pics that actually represent the thing they're writing about.

I'm going to be on The Gadget Show tomorrow. I think it's going to be podcast just like The Widget Show (later the same day).

And finally, I did a long interview for the 10th anniversary of Quake that's on the celebratory site Quake Expo.

The Widget Show

I'm going to be doing a phone-in interview/hanging out with The Widget Show tomorrow. If you're interested check it out. It's at 3pm PST. It should be a fun time as it's pretty much just a hanging out session.....but online. You'll find it at The Widget Show.

I just did a phone interview with The Guardian paper in the UK (you can tell because I used the word "ain't" and that ain't something I usually type! Doh!) You can find the interview here.

Also, seeing as it's the 10th year of Quake, I'm working on something cool to release to the public in the next few weeks. The vault has opened and there's something cool inside!

Slipgate Jobs!

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Hey hey hey, i'm starting to grow this monster again and i'm looking for some grade AAA talent to fill us out a little more. I have job postings on my company's website Slipgate Ironworks and also on Gamasutra's jobs section. They all point back to my email address.

Are you interested in joining our amazingly talented and highly motivated superstar game development team? Are you supercore enough to survive our hyperdimensional environment???!!

Beginning Game Programming

Just got an email about game programming books, a very popular question I get:

Hey John, I've mailed you before but I doubt you remember; with that said, I love your games! Always have, always will. I've done a bit of game programming with some beginner's languages like GML and many versions of BASIC, but I'd really like to learn C. I have one question: I've pretty much learned all there is to make console applications, which is all I can find tutorials for. Where can I get some info on basic graphics programming? Just drawing/manipulating bitmaps or pixels, something like that.

Thanks!

-Jake

Here's what I would recommend with just a quick search on Amazon: Beginning Game Programming by Michael Morrison.

Now, I haven't had to read a game programming book in about 22 years but this one seems pretty solid with good reviews. Sure, some of the reviews might be by the guy's mom and friends but how else can you tell if it's good unless you try it yourself?

I'm sure some of the readers here can recommend other great books - that's what this section is for!

Whose Side Am I On Anyway?

Many of you responded to my previous post with the same thoughts that I had when I first heard of the Hot Coffee mod for GTA, "Why should the game rating be changed because a third-party hack changed the game content? That's crap! Don't blame the modders!"

I totally agree with you 100%. In fact, I do not agree that a game's rating should change even if the game has shipped with a massive stack of hidden porn in it that the player would never see because the game has no code to show it in any form. To view the pornstack you would have to run a third-party mod which to me is a bit like voiding your warranty.

So I'm saying that I DO NOT AGREE WITH THE ESRB's RATING CHANGE for any game where a third-party mod alters the original presentation of the game. You run a mod, you throw the rating out the window. Simple, done.

BUT. The sad reality is that the ESRB is actually changing game ratings based on what third-party mods do to the game. I think this is superdumb but what it all comes down to is developers and publishers are getting jacked because of it. I think it's wrong but it's happening. So my previous post mainly dealt with the outcome of the current scenario we're in where the ESRB has the power to go back and re-rate games based on future findings which are logically ridiculous. IF THE GAME DIDN'T SHIP WITH VIEWABLE PORN THEN THE RATING SHOULD REMAIN - no matter what modders come up with and no matter what content is hidden in the game's data files already.

Think about it: when you run a mod you don't know if it's actually inserting those nude graphics files into your game or just unlocking them. WHO CARES? The net effect is the same - you'd STILL run that mod to get the 1337-7175 to show up whether they were provided with the mod or just unlocked in your game. YOU RAN THE MOD! After that point, the rating is worthless. That doesn't mean it should change.

But the rating IS changing post-release and that's the problem. If the ESRB doesn't change its policies then the result will be developers locking their content. I don't want to see that happen and neither does anyone else. Except maybe the ESRB.