MCM Expo: The Good and the Bad

I've been going to MCM London for about 6 years now. It's a biannual comic, video game and manga/anime convention in the heart of London's docklands. I've worked there as a member of staff on stalls and attended as a regular fan, amateur photographer and cosplayer. It's a couple of bright spots in my year, and one of the few times I really make the effort to get out there and be sociable.

In terms of sheer size, it's the biggest convention in the UK in the number of attendees - and it keeps growing every year! The last con in October 2015 boasted 130,560 con goers, in comparison to May 2015's 122,600. This growth in numbers is fairly typical of MCM, and as the expo expands in terms of contributors, stall holders and guests, it's draw only increases.

 

With such a large community, some of whom have been attending year after year, you are always bound to find someone with similar interests to you. Cosplay has always been an integral part of the event, from amateurs simply displaying their love of a franchise or character to professional cosplayers competing in EuroCosplay. It's common to see people travel to the event in cosplay over the weekend, sometimes leading to very amusing sights on public transport. It's not uncommon to see zombies on the Tube, trolls on the buses and Stormtroopers on the DLR!

 

Of course, the draw of MCM isn't wholly about community, although that is a large part of it. Stalls boast hard to obtain collectors items and geeky goods, signings with celebrities are always available, and panels from television's most popular shows run throughout the weekend. 

However, as MCM has grown larger, a couple of issues have come up, and chief amongst those is one of communication. I understand that running a convention of this size and scale is never easy, however important announcements of guests and attractions are left until the last minute. This is difficult for those who have to travel great distances to attend, and makes buying tickets difficult as when it is so close to the event, online tickets are limited, if they are indeed even still available.

The rising cost of attending is also becoming prohibitive. In May 2014, an early entry/priority entry weekend ticket cost £29.50. In October 2014, that rose to £35. In May 2015 it became £45, and October 2015 is the highest yet, with £50. Over one and a half years, a price increase of 69.49% seems pretty steep. On the one hand, people can obviously still afford it, if the increase in attendees is anything to go by, and the extra money does appear to be going to more floor space inside, more time within the center and more events and signings over the weekends. However, the cost of attending is making me question how frequently I'll be able to attend in the future. I'm sure I'm not the only long-term attendee facing that choice, either. In addition to the event itself, availability and cost of hotel rooms, the cost of travel and food, and a spending fund for any merchandise you might want to buy and MCM expo starts looking very expensive indeed.

There is often an issue with communication within the event itself. Many of the staff working at MCM are volunteers, and the security bought in for the event are an external company. In the past, this has lead to unscrupulous security staff 'confiscating' attendee's personal items, general misinformation over how to enter and renter the venue, where to go for specific events and what tickets you need to access them. In my experience working on a stall, stall holders are given very short set up and take down times in comparison to other similar events, and admin errors regarding staff passes issued aren't uncommon either.



Outside space - a boon for everyone in hot costumes or needing some air - has become increasingly limited over the last couple of expos. In October 2015, this was due to temporary railings to keep only those with wristbands inside and keep people who hadn't bought tickets outside. While there are people every year who do not buy tickets and enjoy the atmosphere from the outside, it seems suspect that this system was implemented the year when ticket prices became £50 for the weekend.

Despite all this, I have a soft spot for MCM Expo. They do try and fix issues, even if not always in effective ways. Every time attending over the past few years has resulted in a different method of obtaining wristbands, a different queueing system each day, a different door to renter by (often using three different doors on the same day). After the fiasco with the security firm, MCM hired a different firm. MCM has diversified and invited more guests over a wide range of fandoms. MCM is certainly improving, and on balance, I will probably wind up attending as long as I am able to afford to. At the end of the day, I've made and kept more friends through the event than any other single source in my life. So, despite all its flaws, I'll keep coming back to MCM for the community.

MCM London Comiccon's tickets and event info can be found here. 
Pictures © Amelia Springett

Nintendo NX: Speculation on a new console

All of this is pretty pure speculation, as is every other article around right now. We only know a limited amount of information, but if it is to be believed, Nintendo are going to release a new home console by the end of 2016, and it currently goes by the working title, Nintendo NX.

The first major point is that it may have the possibility to be as much handheld gaming as home console. The Wii U already features the ability to play games solely on the handheld gamepad, as long as you are within range of the console itself, allowing you to not use the television as your main screen. If the NX allowed internal processing in the 'gamepad', then it could become a handheld console for use out and about, and a home console, all in one.

If it keeps similar hardware to Wii U, and is more a cosmetic or extra functionality upgrade (eg DSi compared to DS, or new 3DS compared to old), Wii U games would be cross compatible with NX, developers working on Wii U titles wouldn't be left in the lurch and people who have a Wii U wouldn't need to upgrade immediately. As unlikely as this is, it would be a smart move by Nintendo, as long as the upgrade to functionality was enough to warrant buying the new console, but small enough that current Wii U owners were able to keep their existing hardware.

There are rumours that the Nintendo NX may return Nintendo to using 'cartridges' to sell their games physically. However, they wouldn't be the bulky cartridges of the N64 and earlier. It would be using digital media, like SD cards (similar to existing DS/3DS cartridges). This may seem strange at first, but considering that with Blu-Ray style discs, we have just about explored the limits of how much information can be stored without increasing the writeable surface area of the disc, and that SD cards are becoming increasingly cheaper, physically smaller and are capable of holding more information every day, and it suddenly makes a lot more sense. This could be alongside downloading games from their internet-based store, as it is currently.

Pricing is set to be lower than the Wii U and competitors. This has always been a good selling point for Nintendo consoles, both for within the home and handheld. It has led, along with it's first party titles, to the reputation Nintendo has for being family friendly, and was one of the driving factors behind the success of the Wii.

However, the timing is way too early - the PS4 and Xbox One have only just gotten out of their launch title slump, and the Wii U has only just received its first batch of really influential titles - Mario Maker, Splatoon, Yoshi's Wooly World. The Wii U will only have been out for 4 years by late 2016, in comparison to the 6 years that the Wii was the main console for, and the 5 the Gamecube was available for. If it winds up being a more cosmetic upgrade, this may be a moot point, but in the event that it is an entirely new console, fans would have to invest in new hardware sooner than they were expecting - even with cheaper price point, they may lose trust that this console will be useable longer than a handful of years. It's that broken trust that would be the worst thing for Nintendo; people buy their platforms for their unique IPs (such as Mario, Legend of Zelda, Metroid, etc.), but if a platform fails to deliver on those IPs because the next platform is being rushed into development, then fans will feel cheated, and wonder why they should invest in a new platform if the same will happen again.

If third party developers don't adopt it, then it will be the same situation as the Wii U currently faces - good first party support, but no games other than Nintendo's unique IPs to choose from. There are a number of reasons why third party developers may choose not to develop for the Nintendo NX, including investing in learning and testing an entirely new coding language, expenses of developing on the new platform, the risks of developing on a new unproven platform, especially after the premature ending of the Wii U's retail cycle.

If dev kits are already in hands of developers, then it may get decent 3rd party support at launch. Most of the rumours currently circulating are due to developers who already have a kit. We aren't currently aware which developers have dev kits and what titles they are currently working on, but at the very least, it is a decent hope.

At the end of the day, though, this is all wild speculation based off a handful of facts. Speculation where Nintendo are concerned is risky at best, due to the unpredictable nature of the company. Wide speculation of the Wii condemned it to failure, yet it became a ridiculously successful console. The same can be said of the idea of the DS. So at this early stage, all we can say for sure is that whatever Nintendo do wind up doing, it is sure to be a surprise, despite our best efforts to guess at it.

Linkle

It's been a big week for Nintendo news. With Cloud announced for DLC on Super Smash Bros, rumours of a new console coming out next year and...Linkle.

Linkle will be a new playable character for Hyrule Warriors Legends, but it has people speculating over just where she may fit in the Legend of Zelda universe. Could she be a player character option in the new home console Legend of Zelda? A star of a new game completely?



I'd love to see more female playable characters in games as a whole, but Linkle is...well, I have my fair share of criticisms. Not least regarding the name. 'Link', to me, sounds gender neutral enough that it could have been used for this character, too. I understand not wanting to label her as fem!Link (and thus the idea that male is intrinsically default), but if that was their reasoning, why give her a diminutive form of the name? If she is meant to be a totally different character, maybe reflect that in the roots of the name?

Her outfit design is questionable, too. Link has iconically worn a green tunic since his inception, but over time, his design has adapted to being more complicated, incorporating elements like chain mail, pouches, weapon sheaths and decorative patterns. He still wears the green tunic, but we can see how practical and useful it is, while still remaining true to those roots. Linkle, by contrast, is simply wearing what seems to be a short riding cloak over some basic clothing.



Linkle isn't actually a new idea. Concept art for her was displayed in the Hyrule Warriors art book last year. In these designs, we get a little more of an idea of a practical heroine; covered legs and arms, sword sheaths and gauntlets. Especially in the top right example below, we see the possibility for a 'Link who happens to be female' as opposed to a feminised Link.



I don't mind that the current design for Linkle is 'cute'. It's better than a fan service character in a ridiculously skimpy outfit being touted as female representation. But I want to actually believe that this version of Link can get stuff done. That she can save the day just as competently as her male counterpart. If nothing else, I'd like to know how she's going to reload those duel crossbows she's wielding with no spare hands!

In short, I love the idea of Linkle, but the execution has been pretty poorly done. It may be that over time, Nintendo will adjust designs according to feedback and their future plans for games, but if nothing else, I'm reasonably certain we are stuck with that name. Sighs all around.

Gaming Rec: Tales of Symphonia

Confession time: I love the Tales of series of games. I bought Tales of Symphonia back on the Gamecube knowing nothing about the series, but it had been reviewed really well by a magazine, and I had some Christmas money to spend...and I loved it. It took embarrassingly long for me to play anything else in the series, but when Tales of the Abyss got rereleased on the 3DS, I was all over it and it did not disappoint me.

Since then, I've played through Tales of Graces/f, which unfortunately wasn't the best offering, due to budget and time restraints; and Tales of Xillia/2, which I regard as a good couple of games, with some really good strengths, and just a couple of weaknesses that are unfortunate, but not a dealbreaker for me. I'm really looking forward to getting my hands on Tales of Xestria soon, as it looks like they've ironed out a few things I found disappointing with Xillia.

I've been picking apart why I fell so completely in love with Symphonia lately, thanks to a replay I've been doing with my fiancée on Chronicles. I love the little new additions to the game - the trophy system helps to further reward my completionist streak and point out little sidequests I'd missed/forgotten about. The extra scene in Altamira will definitely secure a few more replays in my future. I question some of the wisdom of the casino, mind, but I know I will be aiming for the extra goodies in there despite the criminal exchange rate of money to chips. The bonus costumes are a nice touch, and I love how they have tied together characters with similar story elements via the costumes. I audibly gasped when I realised Kratos' similarity to Ludger, and then had to play it off as nothing, as my fiancée has yet to play Xillia/2. In short - Chronicles helps to shine a new light on some older elements without overshadowing what made Symphonia so good in the first place.

The thing that really surprised me about our recent playthrough is that we both knew the game ridiculously well, having played it many times over many years, and yet we both had different events and knowledge to share with each other, and new scenes to show each other. It astounds me how complex the narrative of Symphonia is, and how well it rewards you for purposefully taking events out of order with extra snippets and side information. Even aside from that, the vast wealth of sidequests and extra titles, achievements and scenes that you can find definitely warrants multiple playthroughs (actually, it is impossible to see and do everything in one runthrough).

The big draw of this game for me, all those years ago, was the plot. It still is. Symphonia is a beautifully crafted story with a cast of genuinely loveable characters and a refreshingly complex plot. It feels wonderfully paced, starting with introducing the characters and world and the aims of the characters; then in true Tales style, it subverts the expectations of the player and begins revealing new and often surprising information about the world and even the characters themselves. To say anymore would spoil one of the best aspects of the game. However, I will say that a lot of additional details about character motivations and fleshing out the world are included as part of sidequests, so it's well worth exploring the world thoroughly for those little gems.

Symphonia isn't afraid to ask the big questions, either. The characters are constantly questioning elements of their world, such as racial discrimination, classism, the power structures inherent in religion (without throwing the pure intentions of religion away), the history and myths of their cultures. This a something that has been carried through the Tales series with varying levels of effectiveness, but it's a narrow fight between Abyss and Symphonia as to which tackles the complex issues best, but both do it with such empathy and skill that it barely makes a difference.

The fighting system is a refreshing change to most JRPGs, too; no turn-based battle, but an active, free-flowing system that's simple enough for beginners to hack and slash their way through, but complex enough that experts can refine a fighting style that works for them. There are truly challenging post-game elements, such as an optional dungeon and a lot of sidequests to sink your teeth into. Exploring the world fully always feels like it's encouraged and rewarded, rather than funnelling you through a strict progression of plot events.

I thoroughly recommend Tales of Symphonia for any gamers that like an engaging, complex story and want something a little different from a typical JRPG. While original Gamecube copies are rare, it is available on PS3 as part of Tales of Symphonia Chronicles (where the sequel is also included...just don't raise your hopes too high for it, okay?), a different anniversary bundle that also includes Tales of Graces/f (not the best game, either) and it will be available on Steam as a digital download for Windows in 2016.

Fanfiction and Fanart: What is 'Real' Art, Anyway?

Every fan-artist or fanfiction writer has heard a variation of this at least once: "Why don't you do real art instead?" Sometimes it's phrased more like concern: "You're really talented, and you'd be successful if you only stopped drawing/writing 'x'" or "You'll never make a career out of fanworks".

I don't like this at all. It devalues not only creative endeavours, but the people who create them. It's a a social problem, and it needs to stop. You probably think I'm overreacting, and right now, that's fine. Just read on a bit before you make up your mind completely.

Fanart is seen as 'lesser' because it draws on existing work and doesn't require the artist's own imagination or creativity.

If anything, people are more critical of fanfiction and fanart because it draws from an existing work, one that people admire enough to find and read fanworks of. Characters are judged against the standard of the original - if they are too different, works easily become out of character and unappealing to fans.

It takes a lot of close analysis to truly understand complex characters - to not only understand what they do, but why. This 'why' is essential to fanworks, to understand how a character may react in circumstances they aren't shown in in the original media.

Original art and writing has the privilege of being judged on it's own merit, outside of a pre-existing idea of setting, tone and character. It's far easier to work out the motivations of your characters - you should know them intimately, having created them - than the motivations of another's characters, where you only have what limited knowledge the creator has made public about them.

If fanart was somehow a 'lesser' art form, you would be writing off a vast proportion of art through the ages. Every biblical and mythological painting would be inferior, because it's just fanart (often commissioned fanart) of the Bible and classical myths. Not to mention the wealth of literature you'd be passing up. Tolkien was inspired by Shakespeare, Shakespeare was inspired by Chaucer and Plutarch. All classical literature were inspired by word of mouth tales, embellished over years of oral storytelling tradition, before writing and reading were commonplace.

The Arthurian tales are a good example of this: Celtic folkstories were passed down by word of mouth over hundreds of years, finally being written down in the Mabinogion. These tales were later embellished by Geoffrey of Monmouth, and framed in a way to be more appealing to French audiences. These chivalrous tales became reinterpreted time and time again - Thomas Malory, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Mark Twain, Marion Zimmer Bradley - they've all had a hand, big or small in changing the way we perceive the Arthurian legends. This is of course, without mentioning the many film and television adaptations of the myths; from Disney to Monty Python, so many people have reworked and re-imagined the tales. It is a truly successful fanwork, in it's current state. It bears little resemblance to the original Celtic myths, barring a few recognisable details, and yet it's known internationally.

Of course, delve a little deeper, and you'd see that there aren't many 'original' works of art, anyway, even in modern media. Films are predominantly sequels and adaptations of other media. Any long running television show has to employ writers to carry on the existing story, as it is too much work for one writer to do alone. Long running comics and graphics novels are in a constant cycle of renewing artists and writers to carry on the story as previous artists and writers move on to different projects. Even games are often sequels or remakes of existing games. In fact, if you wanted to eschew any unoriginal ideas, you'd have to search for obscure content creators - independent film festivals, small press books, small art shows - it'd be a huge boost for independent media, until you noticed the reoccurring tropes in all these things, even as original as they are.

The thing is, art doesn't exist in a vacuum. It's meant to ask questions, to be explored and responded to. The problem is, the people who are against fanworks aren't really against the idea of fanworks. They want their favourite series to continue, and they want to keep enjoying film adaptations even if they aren't aware of the original media it came from. If they were against the idea of fanworks, these logical arguments would have won out against them a long time ago - I'm certainly not the first to make these points. The world would also be much poorer for the amount of art that got spurned as they rejected anything that could be feasibly termed a fanwork.

No, they're really against the people who make fanworks. Fanfiction and fanart is primarily a term applied to female artists within fandoms. It's certainly not to say that male don't create fanworks - they do, and face a lot of the same criticisms, but the problem is caused by the way society sees and codes fandom as female. There is a long history of bias towards work that is coded as 'feminine' as being valued less than work coded as 'masculine'. Fandom creators become seen as amateurs, creating work for free - ignoring the fact that some creators are professionals, and dabble in fanworks as exercise, for publicity or even just because it's fun - and further devaluing the idea of fanart in capitalism (the argument being that if creators are so talented, why aren't they making money from it, which implies that money is the materialistic end goal for all creative endeavours).

When a caricaturist draws a celebrity, it's not fanart, it's just art. When a woman does the same, it's fanart. When a screenwriter writes the script for the latest book adaptation, it's not fanfiction, it's just a script. When a storyboard artist or a concept artist or a digital painter is doing the work that makes any movie possible, often referencing earlier designs or movies or media, they are creating art, not fanart. All of these positions are male-dominated, where female artists are the exception, not the norm. There are social, economic and cultural barriers in order to limit the amount of women in these jobs (and this is not limited to the art world and creative jobs, either). It's not the fault of any one person, but a system of exclusion that is upheld to maintain the status quo as much as possible. Disregarding fandom and fanworks as 'not real' art helps maintain that status quo.

While I have many issues with '50 Shades of Grey', it's undeniable that it is an example of fanwork that has become successful. It's far from an isolated incident, either; many authors have been discovered through fanfiction, many fanartists have gained work through their fanart. I only hope this becomes more usual, and that the stigma around fanworks ceases for good. It helps no one to put down fanworks - not the artist creating them, nor the established artists making a name for themselves through 'original' works.

Hating on Banksy: A New Trend

With the opening of Dismaland, there's been a trend on some social media networks to badmouth Banksy. I went into this with a reasonably open mind - while I've seen and enjoy a lot of his pieces, I wouldn't consider myself an avid fan, and I was perfectly willing to listen to the arguments against him. If he were genuinely problematic, I'd prefer to know about it and inform myself. But the more I listened to other people's genuinely angry discourse, the more I felt like they were wrong. They bought up a variety of points, some which were nonsensical, and others which, while they had a very strong point, felt somewhat unfair to use as an attack on a person, when they were addressed to a culture as a whole. So, for my own benefit, I'm going to look at the key arguments against and explain why I feel this isn't a constructive movement to criticise both Banksy himself and the wider art world.

He's marketable and successful

On the surface, this almost makes sense. After all, his art is openly and repeatedly critical of capitalism and how it hurts people, so how can an artist profit from the system they despise? Except the problem is that we live in a capitalist society. You can't dismantle a system from within without using the tools of that system. In order to change anything, you need power. And for the most part, in a capitalist society, power comes from money. Now, you can be critical of what Banksy does with his money - does he use it as a force to help others or not? But I haven't seen anyone touch on this, possibly because of Banksy's own anonymity. However, while researching, I did come across this story of how he helped a homeless man who was displaced by his art. I'd like to believe that's typical of his actions, but I have no way of knowing for sure. Just as I have no way of knowing that he doesn't do more actions like this.

By being marketable, his art is getting into the hands of the people who should, by all rights, be the biggest proponents of capitalism. Banksy's works have been sold in Sotheby’s in London (extremely upper-class auction house for art). They were selling for hundreds of thousands of pounds. Not exactly pocket change for the buyer - this is the kind of money that could outright buy a house in most areas of the country. These are people who have greatly profited from capitalism buying anti-capitalist art...there's a certain level of irony there. His success has given his anti-capitalist ideas a platform that he wouldn't otherwise have had. You can bemoan the evils of capitalism all you like, but if no one listens, what's the point? This way, at least people have thought about his art, and maybe gone on to learn more and work towards making a change. Art is a starting point for discussion, but no one can discuss it if they never see it.

So at the end of the day, this is an argument that goes roughly: I don't like that this artist gets paid for his art. I don't like that his career is successful and that he can afford to support himself on the back of his art. And that feels like nonsense to me, especially when said by the same people who openly support artists, stop art theft and think artists should be paid reasonably for their work.

He's popular/He creates art that takes no skill

Much like the argument above, it attacks him personally for something he has fairly little control over. It also comes with the implication that there are other artists more deserving. But mostly it smacks of 'hipsterism' to me. Liking things because they aren't mainstream, even if that means abandoning artists once they achieve a level of notoriety. And that's ridiculous.

However, the implication that other artists deserve more attention is actually a good one. Because I can't argue. Art is subjective; people are never going to agree on who the most 'deserving' artist is. There are almost certainly artists with better ideas than Banksy, and greater technical skill than Banksy. It's not fair that he makes a lot of money off his work while others don't. It's not fair that there are artists who are living in abject poverty while he isn't. The world isn't fair.

If you really feel that strongly that other artists deserve more attention/exposure/money, then rather than hate on one artist, and tear him down, love on the artists you like. Elevate them up. Blog about their art. Buy their work. Recommend them to friends. Make a positive difference.

He creates art that's too easily accessible

I've seen this alarmingly often. It has the smack of artistic gatekeeping to me. My inability to agree with this argument is the same reason I really dislike a lot of modern art. I really hate what I feel is pretension around art. I have a degree in film, and I can't stand this. This is a very personal one for me, and I'm fully willing to admit I'm wrong on this point.

Basically, if you have a message in your art, and it's an important message, why would you ever want to make it more difficult to understand?

Modern art is apparently full of hidden depths and means. I use the word 'apparently', as I wouldn't have guessed without reading the caption besides the piece. There's actually a lot of pieces that I wouldn't have guessed were art without reading the captions besides the pieces. That's okay. I've long known most modern art isn't for me. I'm still convinced that the modern art world is something of an 'emperor's new clothes'-style delusion, and that by interpreting new 'meanings' to a piece, we somehow aren't meant to see its lack of skill or originality or intent.

All this means that I really don't mind that an artist's work is easy to understand. At least I am sure that they had a meaning and a driving force behind creating it.

He is celebrated for making art when other artists (predominantly black) are criminalised for exactly the same thing/He's white and male

This is a genuine problem. It's racism, and it's all kinds of hypocrisy to reward one person for their behaviour, while criminalising the other, based solely on the colour of their skin. However, this is a cultural problem, not an individual one. This isn't helped by attacking the artist who benefits. Bring up an awareness of it, definitely. Point it out. But you don't need to be hostile towards the people who can't control it.

Again, take constructive actions. Get involved in politics. Write letters to politicians. Form petitions. Raise awareness. On smaller levels, look into local arts projects and see how they systematically exclude certain types of people. Raise awareness of gentrification of areas and what that means for many types of people. Notice who profits from the system being organised in this way.

Banksy made graffiti art popular and a lot of businesses are employing artists to decorate their buildings as a result. But they predominantly only want graduate artists. Why? It systematically cuts out a large proportion of artists. Write to them. Ask why they wouldn't hire an artist who hasn't been lucky enough to afford a degree. Put pressure on them to change.

He built an art exhibition on that site when he could have done something useful, like build a home for poor people

He's an artist. He has the skills and experience and contacts needed to set up an exhibition. I doubt he does have the relevant contacts to get a building planned, approved and built. Even if he did, the cost of a safe, permanent building would be many times more expensive than a temporary 5 week exhibition, much of which is outdoors.

Even setting that aside - Dismaland has drawn people from all over the world to go to Weston-Super-Mere. That's insane. For those who don't know, Weston-Super-Mare used to be a popular seaside town before budget holidays meant you could go to Spain as easily and cheaply. Now it's a rundown town with a small population and a sizeable drug problem. It's not a place you travel to, you travel through it. I've gone through Weston-Super-Mare more times than I can count, but I've never stopped there. And now people from all over the world want to go there. Not to mention that where there are people, there's money. Dismaland is estimated to result in £6 million being spent in the area from the influx of people. An extra £6 million in 5 weeks. That's phenomenal. That's actually going to make a good deal of difference to a lot of local businesses in the area.

If he'd built housing there, even assuming that he got planning permission to build a permanent structure and everything else that's so unrealistic: how many people would have benefited? Maybe 4000, in a block of flats. How long would the benefits have lasted for? Who would be responsible for maintaining the housing? How are the people who're going to live there going to eat? What jobs are available in the area? It's run-down and has very little industry. It would be a temporary fix to a very longterm and complicated problem.

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In short: are any of these reasons worth attacking an individual over? By all means, don't like his art. Discuss the issues surrounding the art. No art exists in a vacuum, and it's good to have these discussions. But can't we be civil about it? Can't we just have the courage to say we dislike something, without personally attacking the creator for it? Or can we at least direct the anger to where it actually belongs - upwards.

One last point that I didn't feel were relevant to any particular argument, but relevant as a whole:

Dismaland isn't filled with Banksy's work. He has 10 pieces in there. He's displaying work from other artists, including people of colour, and if anything, he's using his name as a way of promoting the exhibition. I can virtually guarantee you that only the most dedicated of art buffs would have trekked out to Weston-Super-Mare for an art installation if his name hadn't been attached, and it wouldn't have attracted national news, let alone international news.

Gaming and the Future: Are Physical Stores Dead?

As the E3 hype train leaves tantalising new games to preorder in it's wake, tempting gamers to think ahead about what new purchases they want to commit to, I cannot help but wonder what the future of the game industry will look like.

There are fewer and fewer places to buy physical games at, here in the UK. Game is still our major video game retailer, despite closing many stores over Easter 2012. Other places to buy physical copies of games here are relegated to second hand shops, HMV (who primarily sell music and films) and supermarkets. Other than those options, gamers can turn to online outlets to get their games. So, what's the problem?

I spent a lot of my childhood in physical game shops. I couldn't buy anything online without going through a parent's account. As a young gamer, my main source of news from the gaming industry was checking out physical games in a shop, reading the blurb and asking around for recommendations. Between this and print magazines, I found some of my favourite games of all time.

I worry that in a 'digital and online only' market, only large triple A game releases are going to get noticed by general gaming audiences. The studios that can afford to pay for advertising will be the only ones with games being bought.

But the issue isn't as simple as 'support physical stores'. Most video game retailers make their money on preowned games. The math is pretty simple - if a store buys a game back from a customer, they can pay what they like, and generally aim to get twice that back for the resale of the product. By offering more in-store credit than cash ensures that many customers will choose instore credit, so the store is making a profit on two fronts - the game they just bought back and the customer who will continue to buy from them with the credit they've just been given. Preowned games are vital for physical stores to stay in business.

But that brings forward an ethical concern - game developers make no revenue from preowned games. Especially for smaller studios, this is a big concern, as they might have a large number of people who have played the games, but see a disproportionate amount of revenue from it.

Some developers have started providing incentives for buying new over preowned, such as one time DLC codes to unlock content (and occasionally, and controversially, to unlock the entire game). Other incentives can include limited editions and merchandise to people who preorder the game.

I feel like pushing for preorders has a more sinister agenda to it, however. Preorders often get taken before a release date is even set, and people are pressured into preording based only off a trailer, with no real guarantee of the quality of the game. It guarantees a certain amount of revenue for a game without the pressure to actually make it good. It encourages people to buy games before any critique can be made public, so if a game were to pan badly, they have still made some money off the idea of the game, rather than the result.

Another issue with physical stores is that some console manufactures pay to have a certain amount of space in store represented by products for their consoles. It becomes a bidding war for space to be occupied by particular brands, regardless of the quality of the console or games. This can push out the few developers who either can't afford to or don't see the need to promote themselves like this. I hesitate to name names, but if you walk into a game store, work out the preportion of the shelves being taken up by Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo respectively, and the placement of those shelves (ones easily accessible to the store entrance over the ones towards the back, for example). It should give a clear indication of what I'm talking about.

It is a complex issue, with no simple solution and many smaller problems within it. I haven't even touched on digital gaming as a whole, from Steam or any of the main console's online stores, and how we can now physically buy online codes and credit from highstreet retailers. Or how smaller developers are getting involved with crowdfunding and how that is both a positive and problematic move for gaming as a whole.

Online media can be a good way of spreading the word about obscure releases and information, and it's far easier to access now than when I was young. Blogs, YouTube channels, social media websites can all help people spread the word about the games they're passionate about. Do we even need physical stores to buy games in? I know I'd miss them. I miss being able to have conversations with likeminded people who are knowledgeable about gaming. I miss browsing through titles. I miss making a decision and getting to go home with the case in my hands, full of excitement over my new purchase. But I can't help but feel like high street stores for books, films and video games are soon going to be a thing of the past. And if that is the case, I really hope the future will have some better tools to help gamers make better choices to support the aspects of the industry they love.

Final Fantasy XIII - How to Tell Stories (and What Not to do)

I often find myself thinking about how stories work in games over other media, particularly in JRPGs, which naturally have a bigger emphasis on story and character development over other game genres.

I'm haunted by Final Fantasy XIII in this regard, not because it does it well, but quite the opposite - the series does it horrendously.

A little history - when Final Fantasy XIII was announced, the focus was mostly on the new physics/graphics engine they had used for it - the Crystal Tools engine. Hence they announced off the bat that there would be 3 games in the series, to maximise the use of this engine. I'm not opposed to the idea of a trilogy - it works so well in novels and films. However, this means that before they even released the first game, and gauged critical/community reactions, they were committed to developing and releasing 3 games. They were also in a tricky position - generally, fans of Final Fantasy and JRPGs want to like a new release, and want it to be successful in their territory - it increases the chance of more games from the series and in general being released. However, after the general disappointment of Final Fantasy XII (a fun game to play: find people who have played it and ask them how far they actually got in it. I've yet to find someone who has actually completed it), there was always the possibility of another flop.

That being said, the first game was just about playable. The storyline is, when boiled down, relatively simple - the characters are drawn together by a powerful being to destroy their home, but they fight to rebel against these orders while discovering things about themselves and their companions. The problem is that in order to draw this out into a full-length game, the story is told in a convoluted and messy way, with a lot of jargon that makes it more difficult to follow, and the visuals, while very pretty, fail to help the story in some very significant ways. I spent a good 40 hours not realising that Cocoon - the home for many of the characters and a central element to the plot - was floating above Pulse, and the characters lived on the inner layer of the construct. That could have easily been shown with an establishing shot in the first five minutes. And that's only a minor issue. The character's internal dramas play out like episodic soap operas and are all over the place. I sense some of that issue was the desire to prove the graphics engine, so they wanted a variety of different locations. The easiest way to do that would be to split up the characters and this their stories. Combining this with dull gameplay, confusing subplots and needless jargon...the game failed to impress. On one level, there was entirely too much going on plot wise, which meant 'big' moments tended to be forgotten about as other moments take precedence; and the gameplay bored even gamers determined to see the mess through to its end.

The sequel improved on a lot of this. It focused on two characters, with the cast of the first making supporting appearances, but it was never about them. It had a refreshing plot on time travel that actually got me curious. As one character is from the very end of human existence, and they are changing time to prevent that from happening, what will happen to him? Yes, it still had elements of a plot that was a little chaotic, and could have been stripped down a little further and would have become something really impressive, but on the whole, told its story far better than its predecessor. However, the plot was difficult to follow if you hadn't played and completed the first game. It cut out a whole section of potential audience simply for that. There were text recaps that no one would really read hidden in the game's menu, but that is such a lazy way to introduce people to the story and the world. I am still very critical of the ending - it was designed to have cliffhanger written on it in glowing neon letters, and sidestepped all the interesting questions I had about time travel and how they were going to resolve the plot. They also give an illusion of choice to the ending - yet no matter what you do, the outcome is the same. This is the worst kind of betrayal to a gamer, to give the illusion of choice but no actual power to influence the plot in any meaningful way. The DLC released for the game also expanded on some of the original character's backstories and filled in the gaps of 'what were they doing while everything kept going on without them?' However, the fact that they were relegated to DLC means a significant chunk of the fanbase - already fractured by the first game to the point that they might not play the sequel, let alone buy extra content for the sequel - would be left out of these stories.

The third game, in my opinion, is the best. They strip the world down to focus on a few vital areas, but within those areas, you can explore and do the plot and sidequests in whatever order you choose. It encourages you to be as non-linear as you like...and you only have one playable character. The world itself focuses on one theme - the world is dying, and people are falling into entropy. And it portrays this so incredibly well, from the city where wealthy people endlessly party and enjoy themselves before the end, to the earthy people who hunt and live off the land as a last chance to get back in touch with nature, and the somber people clinging to religion as their last hope...and none of this needs directly explaining to you. You aren't working to save the world (which, incidentally, is only dying because of your actions in the two previous games); you're working to save the people to bring them into the new world. And honestly, that concept is strong enough to stand alone as a game. I honestly think that if they'd removed the complex backstory or allowed you to discover it in game, they could have released Lightning Returns as a stand alone game, and it would have done far better than simply as a conclusion to a trilogy.

The whole series does this, though. There is a lack of confidence in the strength of the story, so they throw budget at graphics and complicate the entire thing, essentially cheapening the emotional experience.

Because, as most writers know, the most effective part of the story is what is shown to you, not told. We don't need to be told the father is sad, we can figure that out from the fact that his son is out of his reach emotionally and physically and his face tells us everything else. Make us empathise with characters, and the rest will follow.

Agree? Disagree? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!