John Walker's Electronic House

So, 30 then.

It’s hard not to look at your life with more introspection than is normal when reaching a round number. What have I achieved? What haven’t I?

I think a part of being freelance is the curse of never feeling like you’re doing a proper job, no matter how much work you do. For about three weeks from September to October, I didn’t have a single day when I wasn’t working, and hence making money. But because work involves sitting at the same computer I use when relaxing, in the same room in which I sleep, in the same house in which I have fun, it some how never feels Proper. Oh, and that’s hardly helped when work is centered about playing. In those particular three weeks I was making some fairly decent money, but it still lacks a feeling of authenticity. I stress, I do think it’s authentic work. Perhaps it’s because I enjoy it. I’m sure you’re not meant to enjoy things that make you money.

So what’s been achieved. Well, in my three decades I’ve done the following (note: you might consider this to contain name-dropping, etc – but for me, I’m listing the fun stuff I’ve done):

(continue reading…)

This is fun:

Today I’ve been receiving phonecalls from a fax machine. Which is weird. The phone rings, and I hear a beeping tone, which won’t then hang up. This then ties up the line for the next couple of minutes. All day long.

So I called BT’s fault line, who called me back promptly, and told me that what I need to do is call Customer Services and ask them to block the number. Oh, that seems simple enough.

I call 150, dance through menus, and speak to a call centre in India. The nice lady takes all my details, and then once she’s sure I’m me she tells me, “Could you call back in ten or fifteen minutes as my system is broken.”

So I call back later on, get through to India once more, and the new nice lady tells me that I can block the number once I pay a fee of £10.05 per quarter. This seemed strange to me. I’m getting nuisance calls from a fax machine, and I have to pay money to stop them. Um, no. She tells me it’s impossible for them to block a number, but only I can. Wow – I’m more powerful than BT when it comes to controlling telephones. I pointed out that this was nonsense, but the poor woman was on a script. I protest that I’m not going to pay money to fix a nuisance call. She puts me on hold, and comes back with quite the offer. For one whole month, they’ll allow me free access to this Refuse The Call (or whatever) system, and then immediately start charging money when that month is up. Gee whizz.

That’s the BT way. If you receive nuisance calls that prevent your phone from working, you have to pay money to prevent them! Obviously they’re offering the rest of the service completely for free, so… oh no wait, they charge massive monopoly-based fees. Thanks BT – thanks for all your kind help.

So does anyone know a good trick to stop this? Or better, a way of learning whose fax machine it is so I can phone them and ask them to bloody well stop calling me. Ooh, or even better, does anyone with a fax machine want to contact me and offer to send them an politely abusive fax for me?

The number that’s calling is: 020 7490 2741

We here at John Walker Publishing are very pleased and proud to announce the inaugural Best And Most Incredible Human Being In The Games Industry Of The Year Award. In light of some publishers voting for their favourite magazines that they own, and other pubishers voting for the most important people in the games industry that currently work for them, this brand new award sets out to bring recognition to the very best people writing about videogames, working near videogames, or ever having touched a videogame, given the events in the games world of that year. Sponsored by John Walker Publishing, the event will not only bring much needed validation to the greatest writers out there, but also raise money for a very important charity: The John Walker Fund For Hungry John Walkers.

The nominees this year have been chosen from an impressive field, but these are the John Walkers that we here at John Walker Publishing feel have contributed the most to the universe.

The results will be announced at the John Walker Dinner For John Walker, taking place at the John Walker Museum on the 23rd of JohnWalker. We look forward to seeing you there!

Mike C pointed this out to me. Extraordinary.

I love the internet. And I love how everything on the internet lives on forever, despite the actions of greedy lawyers employed by rich morons.

A wonderful article on The Quackometer discussed the continuing claims by homeopathic witchdoctors that their bottles of water can cure malaria. The Society of Homeopaths (which sounds like a false front for some sort of alien cult planning to take over the world) heaved their lawyers upon it, and it’s been taken down until the issues can be resolved.

But because the internet is magic, nothing ever really gets taken down, and you can, and should, read it now.

Silly Society of Alien Invading Forces – now the piece is going to be read by everyone ever, and more people will learn that homeopathy is utter bullshit with no demonstrable effects beyond placebo, and that these pus-sacks should not be given a single penny for their empty pills or bottles of snake oil.

Thanks Mrs Trellis for the link.

So those Game Media Awards really went out of their way to prove me wrong.

In awards sponsored by Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, the following won:

Best PlayStation Magazine

Winner: Official PlayStation Magazine (Future)

Best Xbox Magazine

Winner: Official Xbox 360 Magazine (Future)

Best Nintendo Magazine

Winner: Official Nintendo Magazine (Future)

Gadzooks. The magazines from which the sponsors make a profit turned out to be the best! You might argue that the other mags are weaker without the licenses, and hence lose out critically, but that falls apart with the merest comparison of NGamer and Official Nintendo.

Elsewhere, I’m really pleased that Tom and Kieron got recognition for being great writers. Because they are both exceptionally good. (I’d love to have seen Log getting the recognition he deserves too, but I wouldn’t like to have chosen between him and Kieron – both inspire my writing). Both Kieron and Tom stand up as bastions of morality in the industry, and fight for games and people’s enjoyment of games, over the wishes of PRs and publishers. They are the opposite of what these awards seemed to represent. I do wish they would have both turned down their awards. (Hey, perhaps now I’ve publically criticised them, I’ll get a nomination for next year : ) But I genuinely congratulate them.

It does rather spoil things when you realise that one of the nominations in Kieron’s category wasn’t even working on the magazine he was nominated for over the last year, let alone writing in it. And that Steve Boxer won anything.

MCV – next year – how about an awards ceremony voted for by people who play games and read magazines?

Tomorrow night the first Games Media Awards are to be presented, in a rather busy London affair dragging half the games journalism industry into its vortex. (The awards remarkably don’t have a website to link to).

Now, I’ve not been nominated in any category, which isn’t too much of a surprise. For all I do, it tends to be the smaller stuff that doesn’t get the fanfares, and apparently there isn’t a category for budget sections. This does, however, afford me the luxury of being able to make moral judgments without having to live up to them myself.

At the time the awards were announced, Kieron described them as prisoners voting for their favourite guard. I’d take this a bit further, and say it was rather more like criminals voting for their favourite judge. These are awards voted for by the publishers and PRs of videogames, and thus people not really in the most sensible position to be voting for who is best at writing about games.

Of course, everyone involved could very well be utterly pure in all their decisions, voting not for those journalists who haven’t pissed them off/refused their game a cover/given their game a bad score, but for those whose writing has impressed them, in their amateur opinion, the most. I fear that even were this the absolute case, it’s going to be very hard for everyone to believe it.

As such – and again I say this with the luxury of not being in the position myself – I urge people who win to refuse their award. It’s lovely to win stuff (I’d imagine), and any recognition – in an industry where a compliment is as rare as a unicorn – is enormously welcome. But this award carries a weight.

Most of all, I just don’t get why publishers and PRs have decided to vote for awards based on writing skill. Shall they next be voting for the best greengrocers at the Greengrocer Awards, because they eat fruit and vegetables?

My motivation for writing this isn’t because I’m bitter not to be nominated. I’m relieved, because I’d be frightened to put myself to the test, never having won anything, and liking the idea of people giving me trophies because I worked hard. But these aren’t the right people to be giving out these awards, and I worry about the damage to perceived credibility for those who do win.

PS. I want to add that I think a number of those nominated are very deserving of awards. I think writers like Tom Bramwell, Kieron Gillen and Jon Blyth deserve vast amounts of recognition, and all three are inspirations for me. I just want them to win other awards.

Happy Orange Box Day everyone.

I was Mr Luckypants and invited over to Valve to play Half-Life 2 Episode Two and Portal a couple of weeks ago, for Rock, Paper, Shotgun. You can read my verdict on both games on the site today.

Half-Life 2 Episode Two

It’s imperative that you play another first-person shooter immediately after finishing Episode Two. Any – it doesn’t matter. Because you need to remind yourself, after the six or so hours, that games aren’t anywhere near this good. Games aren’t so precise, so damn perfectly laid out. Games don’t hide tutorial and training such that you never notice them. Games aren’t built with such ludicrous care that they never leave you lost or frustrated. But Episode 2 is these things with such an air of nonchalance, such a relaxed ease, that it’s vital to remind yourself it isn’t normal. You’ll need perspective.

Portal

The fairytale story of how Portal came into being has all but entered into legend. A plucky group of Digipen paupers created a final year project, Narbacular Drop, that was shown at the annual Digipen event for visiting developers. The handsome princes at Valve saw it, and liked it. Valve invited the team to visit their castle and demo their concept. Before they were halfway through their presentation, they’d all been offered jobs by the king. And then a couple of years later, a beautiful baby Portal was born. And we all lived happily ever after.