JOHN THE
OBSCURE ™
©
2007
From
‘MLB 2K7’ to MMORPG: The First Pitch in a Whole New Ball (Make That Video) Game
Two or three years ago, I saw a
press-conference photo of Curt Schilling, the Boston Red Sox pitching great,
wearing an “EverQuest” baseball cap.
It struck me as extremely
significant that a famous Republican jock was clad in merch
for a nerd-subculture online fantasy game. I suggested to an editor at the
paper that ran the photo that it was worth asking Schilling about. I was
literally laughed off the idea.
Since then, I’ve kept a wrinkled
Post-it Note in my story-idea file reading “Schilling—EverQuest.”
Schilling himself has been a lot
busier. He came out as a nerd and full-blown fantasy gamer in various gaming
magazines. (And actually already was known in some circles as a major supporter
of tabletop wargaming.) Last summer, he set up a
charity stunt where fans could battle his “EverQuest
II” avatar online; he donated 5 g.p.,
er, dollars to ALS research for
every time his ass was virtually kicked.
Over the past few months, he’s
established a new video game production company—Massachusetts-based 38 Studios.1
Virtually unrecognized by local
media and particularly the myopic sportswriters who surround Schilling (and who
tend to loathe his personal blog where he refers to gaming),
this is in fact a watershed moment in video game art and culture.
And I don’t mean so much 38 Studios’
unnamed forthcoming MMORPG—though the founding team certainly is promising,
featuring a former Dungeons & Dragons executive and R.A. Salvatore, the
premiere D&D adventure author.
The really big deal is someone of
Schilling’s stature, demographic and financial resources just completely nerding out.
This must be the first time that
someone who is already himself a video game character (in the “MLB 2K” baseball
series) has started a video game company.
If you want to be pessimistic, this
could be the beginning of RPGs falling into the hands of the jocks, much as
happened so fatally with punk rock. A white, conservative, born-again,
early-40s sports dude—you gotta admit, he looks like the poster boy for 1980s anti-RPG
witch-hunting.
I see exactly the opposite—a chance
for gamers to start recognizing, and contemplating, the differences and
complexities already (and increasingly) among them.
In fact, Schilling raises all sorts
of new and interesting issues in the already under-examined realm of the
psychological experience of gaming. What’s it like to be someone who already
plays a competitive game for a living, then enters a competitive virtual game? Or to be a celebrity in a public yet pseudonymous online gameworld? So many pro athletes enjoy sports video
games; what draws him to the more unusual realm of RPGs? (Schilling was
unavailable for an interview, according to a spokesperson.)
Certainly nothing’s going to be the
same again in post-Schilling video gaming, and my sense is that’s a positive,
if yet-undefined, thing.
Maybe Schilling comes in and makes a
huge splash with a terrific game, and/or uses his clout to rescue from
obscurity the outstanding work of others. Or maybe he’s just an unmistakable
bellwether of a demographic expansion where online and multiplayer games like “EverQuest” and “World of Warcraft”
are becoming standard modes of socializing among older suburbanites—even
between mothers and daughters, as I’ve learned from players I recently met.
Either way, Schilling is throwing the
first pitch in a whole new video game.
1
Its site is already worth checking out for its cursor-eating Green Monster
animation. (The company was started as Green Monster Games, a great moniker
that apparently led to some Red Sox intellectual property bickering.)
Posted April
30, 2007.