The SDCC harassment failure

comiccon-150x150Once again, we find ourselves wading into the issue of harassment in geek culture. This time it hits the big arena that is San Diego Comic Con (SDCC).

The growing awareness of the issue of harassment at conventions has led to many conventions addressing this issue in increasingly clear language. I have written about this several times. We have seen good examples (such as the policies put forth by Emerald City Comicon and The Calgery Expo), bad examples (such as with Fan Expo Canada), and even tragic examples (as was the case with Aki Con).

But unlike these shows, SDCC is well known to mainstream culture. It is THE big show, sells out in 90 minutes, and getting to go is akin to getting the golden ticket.

In light of all these factors, a group called GeeksForCONsent created an online petition to urge SDCC to create a specific anti-harassment policy. Right now, what they have is a broad code of conduct that mentions harassment, but does not define what it means.

Specifically, the SDCC code of conduct is as follows:  Attendees must respect common sense rules for public behavior, personal interaction, common courtesy, and respect for private property. Harassing or offensive behavior will not be tolerated. Comic-Con reserves the right to revoke, without refund, the membership and badge of any attendee not in compliance with this policy. Persons finding themselves in a situation where they feel their safety is at risk or who become aware of an attendee not in compliance with this policy should immediately locate a member of security, or a staff member, so that the matter can be handled in an expeditious manner.

What GeeksForCONsent is looking for is a more clearly defined process that includes a visible reporting mechanism, signs around the convention outlining the policy, and staff training on how to handle these issues. If this sounds familiar, it is because I wrote about it here detailing Emerald City Comicons anti-harassment effort. These are also the steps that The Calgary Expo and many others adopted this year.

Unfortunately, any hope of this petition having any effect right now is stalled. We know this because the director of marketing for SDCC (Daniel Glanzer) has commented on the petition in an interview stating that he did not favor creating a more explicit and visible policy, because it may send the message that there is a harassment problem at SDCC.

I understand if you need to take a minute after reading that last sentence.

Glanzer’s stance is that he thinks that SDCC has taken sufficient steps to deal with harassment and anything else would just cause bad press. I want to go on record as disagreeing with Glanzer. While I do not think a policy needs to be point by point, I do feel it needs to be specific enough that it points out what harassment is defined as, and what mechanisms are in place for someone to report it and get help. In reading Glanzer’s, response I feel his message was that SDCC marketing and publicity was more important than making the convention a safe space. Not only do I find their position unsettling, I worry that they are sending a message to other convention organizers that they need not worry about their own harassment policies.

We are at a point in geek culture when the issue of inclusion vs harassment is now a major issue. Not every convention has a good policy, but as more incidents are having light shed on them, more organizers are taking steps to address the issue. The effects of these steps are visible. Conventions that make sure they are a safe space are reaping the benefits of good will and strong attendance.  Conventions that ignore the issue are getting bad reputations and are starting to see more people staying away.

My biggest concern is that SDCC does not have as much incentive to change, since it is the big dog of conventions. Even staying with their lack luster policy they are going to sell out. The only thing that might be able to change their position externally is a lot of very bad press, or boycotts from major figures in fandom.

My hope is that someone with clout, either inside or outside the organization, can convince them that updating their policy is in everyone’s best interest.

Until then, it is up to those of us in the trenches to keep pushing this message and demanding better.

 

Captain America: The Winter Solider : A comic fan’s perspective

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Now that Captain America: The Winter Solider  has been out for a while, it is time again to look at how the movie represents the characters and storylines as they relate to their comic book counterparts.

As with the other times I have done this, there will be spoilers for both Captain America: The Winter Solider and the current storylines in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., so consider yourself warned.

As the title suggests, the film is a loose adaptation of Ed Burbaker’s Winter Soldier storyline from his run on Captain America. I say loose because while elements of Brubaker’s story are used, the movie is more centered on a new plot that ties into the history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).  One of the major strengths of the MCU movies is that, even though they are all superhero movies, each one stakes out its own genre to keep them from feeling repetitive.

Captain America: The Winter Solider is, at its heart, a political thriller/spy film. The story is a throwback to the S.H.I.E.L.D. stories that Jim Steranko created back in the 60s and 70s. In other words, this is a S.H.I.E.L.D. story that happens to feature Captain America, Black Widow, and the Falcon.

It also works as the best example yet that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is a cohesive whole and that what happens in one part has implications in another.  Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (the TV arm of the MCU) has been directly affected by the events of the film, just like related comic titles would be affected by a major change in another title’s storyline. This was an unprecedented event and marked a major uptick in the investment viewers had inAoS.  I’ll get into this more when I do the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. season review, after the season finale.

Back to Captain America: The Winter Solider. There were so many continuity nods that it was almost too much to keep track of. The shout out that got fans the most excited was the mention of Stephen Strange, making fans giddy with anticipation of the Dr. Strange film.

As for the characters, we have Captain America himself, of course. Chris Evans has truly embodied this character, staying true to his comic book incarnation. A patriotic idealist who has a firm moral compass, and will strive to do what is right at all times, for no other reason than that it is right. In a time when even film portrayals of Superman have moral ambiguity, Captain America is still the beacon of light without becoming a victim of farce.

Black Widow brings a different take; prior to the MCU, Black Widow was really a second string Avenger. She was the former villain turned hero and the spy girl. Her appearances across the MCU, and how Scarlett Johansson has played her, have led to her becoming a much more major character in the comics, but she was never as close to Captain America as the movies have portrayed her.  Her presence makes sense in this story, both as a continuation of the MCU storyline in the Avengers and that Black Widow did have a history with the Winter Soldier in the comics, but it was actually more direct there, than in the film.

The Falcon is a case of Marvel Studios again finding the perfect balance between how the character was portrayed in the comics and how he needs to fit into the MCU narrative. In the comics, Sam Wilson was Captain America’s partner through the majority of the 70s (so much so that the comics were titled Captain America and the Falcon). His personality in the film is very aligned with how he is in the main Marvel Universe, while adding in the military background from the Ultimate Universe. Anthony Mackie gives a great performance, and I feel I could happily watch a movie devoted to the Falcon. In particular, I want to point out that the first time Falcon is revealed with his flight harness the word that sprang to my mind was “majestic.”

The Winter Soldier himself was a good take. Through most of the movie he was less character, and more plot device; he would show up and things would go to hell for the heroes. This is consistent with how the Winter Soldier was played early in the story. That even with those limitations Sebastian Stan is able to garner sympathy for this character is a testament to his skill as an actor.

Arnim Zola is a real stand out in this film. In the comics, Zola constructs a special cloned body for himself that has no head, with his face being a holographic projection on his chest. This would have looked ridiculous on-screen, so the movie wisely went the less taxing route of having his mind uploaded to a computer and his face appearing on the monitor.

Alexander Pierce is the one major departure in the film from his comic book counterpart. In the comics, he is an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. serving directly under Nick Fury. His reveal as the main villain of the film is a major departure for this character; however, the way he is played in the film is consistent with how the Red Skull acted while he was manipulating different events in the comics. This led fans to speculate that Pierce was the Skull in disguise. The big take away I had with him from this film is that Robert Redford is being criminally underused in current cinema.

I give Captain America: The Winter Solider a grade of A. It is a superior effort that is enjoyable by both fans and non-fans alike.

 

Fanboy News Network Episode 12

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Fanboy News Network Episode 12

“Emerald City Comicon 2014”

Jeff talks about Emerald City Comicon 2014.

Subjects include:

This year’s sell out.

Crowd Control

The Anti-harassment policy

The guests

Flipon.tv

The Welcome to Night Vale / Thrilling Adventure Hour crossover

The fan meet-ups

The Vendors

Fanboy News Network Episode 11

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Hidden Gems of Horror Part 2

Jeff is joined by Jennifer Lovely (http://jengaloves.com) and Michael Montoure (http://www.bloodletters.com) as they continue their discussion about little known of rarely viewed horror films that they think horror fans should be paying attention to.

 

Cosplay is not consent: The latest in the fight against harassment at conventions

ECCC Harassment poster

Convention season is upon us now and with it the questions about acceptable behavior have reared their heads again.

Specifically you had Fan Expo Canada, which was March 7th thru March 9th. In an effort to drum up last minute sales, they sent out an email which included the line “escape the deep freeze this weekend – cuddle a cosplayer.”

This obviously caught the attention of several people and eventually was brought to the attention of Jill Pantozzi of the geek news site The Mary Sue. There was concern that the statement could be seen as encouraging the harassment of cosplayers. Pantozzi reached out to Fan Expo Canada to attempt to get a response on their intent with the ad. The response she got was that they had thought about pointing out that consent was implied but felt bringing focus to the rules all the time would hurt the fun of the convention. They did resend the ad but added “with consent” in brackets to the end of the statement. So far, the only official response to this has been to accuse the Mary Sue of being inflammatory and making false statements. As the convention just happened, I expect more news to be coming out about this story, in the coming weeks.

While this was going on, another issue occurred with the Capital City Comic Con in Austin Texas. The convention, which is going to be held this upcoming July, put out several fliers; one of these was a close up of Power Girl’s Breasts with the tag line “Everything is BIGGER in Austin.” When a commenter complained about this on the convention’s Facebook page, the convention replied that the flier was all in fun and questioned if the commenter had ever been to a convention. A couple of days, later the convention responded to the issue as it started going viral. They stated that both the staffer who made the comment and the designer of the flier were no longer with the con staff, and apologized to the fans for what had happened.

Standing in contrast to this is Emerald City Comicon. The same week the two issues above were occurring, ECCC posted an image of the anti-harassment posters that will be going up around their own convention. The title of the posters is “Cosplay is not consent, and it goes on to detail the convention’s anti-harassment policy, including who to go to if you are harassed and the penalties you face if you violate the policy.

The contrast in the above examples illustrates where we stand in geek culture, in regards to dealing with the issues of harassment and making events safe and inclusive.

On one hand, you have people who have not matured in how they deal with these issues but find themselves running conventions. They want to grab people’s attention and fall back on the old adage “sex sells.” Unfortunately, they do not consider the broader message of what they are putting out, nor how it can ultimately promote a hostile environment. It is not from a place of malice, but ignorance. The best way to handle it is to do what was done above and call them out. Make it clear that even if they don’t see the harm in it, harm is still there. The ones that are receptive to the message will thrive, and the ones that aren’t will find their reputation falter and their event suffer. The ones that take steps to make sure their events are promoted as a safe and inclusive space will find more people wanting to go, and can use it as a means to actually promote their event. With all the concerns about hostility in the convention scene,  the ones that make sure you know they will do everything in their power to make sure you are safe will be the ones that ultimately thrive.

In the shadow of events like Aki Con, (where we saw the worst case scenario play out),and other ongoing tales of harassment, this is going to continue to be a hot button issue. I think this year is going to be very interesting in this regard, and I for one am interested to see how conventions actually play out.

I’ll keep an eye on things, and let you know what comes from this.

Fanboy News Network Episode 10

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Hidden Gems of Horror Part 1

Jeff is joined by Jennifer Lovely (http://jengaloves.com) and Michael Montoure (http://www.bloodletters.com) to discuss little known of rarely viewed horror films that they think horror fans should be paying attention to.

Midnight Ballad for Ghost Theater Review

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Midnight Ballad for Ghost Theater is a 2006 Korean film that is very hard to categorize. Let’s call it a musical comedy that utilizes horror themes.

It is hard to find, as it has never had an official American release; however, it is possible to order  a copy from Korea.

The plot revolves around Seong Sodan (played by Kkobbi Kim), a teen age girl who lives with her Grandmother. One night her grandmother leaves the house, saying she is going to the theater to watch a movie she starred in when she was Sodan’s age. Sodan tracks down the theater to find her grandmother, but no one has seen her. Interrupting a suicide attempt by the theater manager (played by Chun Ho-jin), she is given a job as ticket seller, where she hopes that eventually her grandmother will show up.

It turns out that the theater is haunted by the ghosts of the rest of the theater troop who made the film with Sodan’s grandmother. They are doomed to haunt the theater until they can see that film, (“Minosoo: The Bull-headed Man”) once again.

At first frightened of the ghosts, Sodan befriends them and they help her come out of her shell. She, in turn, tries to find out what happened to the film, both to help her new friends and hopefully to find her grandmother. All the while, the theater manager tries to dissuade her (between his botched suicide attempts), saying that finding the film will lead to tragedy.

If I had to sum up this movie in one word, it would be charming.

The overall feel of the film has a clear Tim Burton-esque feel to it, mainly of his earlier films like BeetleJuice. There is a sense of “what the hell am I watching”, while still enjoying the ghost’s antics.

The characters of the ghosts themselves are immediately engaging. First we have Elisa (played by Joon-myeon Park), who claims to be a Joseon Dynasty Princess. She is loud, bossy, and often threatens to execute the others.

Next is Hiroshi (played by Jo Hie-Bong), a Japanese solider who was stationed in Korea where he fell in love. All of his dialogue is in Japanese, but he can understand Korean, and still be understood by the other ghosts.

Wanda (played by Ae-Ri Han) is a former Kisaeng (similar to a Geisha), who fell out of favor after giving birth to a client’s child. She is bulimic and obsessively counts her hair.

Finally you have Mosquito (played by Yeong-su Park), who is made-up like a demented Harlequin (or let’s be honest, the Crow). Of all the ghosts, he is the only one who is given no back story.

The theater manager is clearly involved with the ghosts’ story, and as Sodan unravels the mystery of the missing film, she learns more of what that is.

All the back story of the ghosts, the manager, and the film itself are done though song. And those songs can be very catchy, even for someone who does not speak Korean.

If you are looking for deep character analysis, Midnight Ballad for Ghost Theater is not the movie you want. It is a light hearted romp, with no real concern for character development.

I give Midnight Ballad for Ghost Theater a B-. It is appealing, and fans of films like BeetleJuice or The Rocky Horror Picture Show will enjoy it and possibly want to own it. Non-fans will likely be left lukewarm by its surreal nature and lack of character depth.

American Horror Story: Coven and the subversion of typecasting

American-Horror-Story-Coven-The-ReplacementsHaving watched the season finale of American Horror Story: Coven, I wanted to take this opportunity to write about something that I think it did very well:  the unexpected way it treated a couple of its characters.

Specifically I was struck by the characters of Nan, played by Jamie Brewer, and Queenie, played by Gabourey Sidibe.

For background Jamie Brewer is an actress who has Down Syndrome. She is very active in theater and is a member of the Groundlings. She is also a disabled rights activist. In the first season of American Horror Story: Murder House, she played the daughter of Jessica Lange’s character. It was a fairly clichéd portrayal of someone with Down Syndrome. She was childlike, mistreated, and had trouble understanding the world fully. It wasn’t a gross portrayal, it just didn’t stand out as anything ground breaking.

Brewer did not appear in season two Asylum; her return in Coven however was fantastic. Her character, Nan, is a clairvoyant and thus often knows more about what is going on than most of the other characters. She is also clearly very intelligent and in a rivalry to attract the attention of a handsome neighbor, and wins over the pretty starlet in the coven by treating him as a person rather than a prize.

Nan is a complete subversion of what we would expect from a character who has all the physical signs of Down Syndrome. In fact I can’t think of a single point in the season where there is any dialog making any reference to her having the condition, although I could not check back with the earliest ones thanks to how On Demand works. I think it shows Brewer’s strength as an actress, combined with the strength of the writing, that by the third episode we aren’t thinking of her as anything other than a member of the coven, and a strong one at that.

New to the show this season was Gabourey Sidibe as Queenie. Sidibe is best known for the movie Precious, for which she received an Oscar nomination. Obviously her weight is going to be something that people notice. As an actress she has had to face a lot of fat shaming in her career, and has always dealt with it like a champ.

As Queenie, there are hints of that in the first episode, again from the pretty starlet who joins the coven. She quickly deals with that and, honestly, it is never brought up again. Instead, the issue of her race is more central, which is logical as race relations are a central theme of the season and her character’s arc includes her being torn between the largely white coven, and the lure of joining the exclusively black voodoo group. She also is the primary character to deal with a racist slave owner, brought to modern times, whom she attempts to teach the error of her ways.

Queenie, like Nan, is given agency, and the writers avoid going for any of the easy routes they could have, given her appearance.

American Horror Story: Coven had an overabundance of excellent actresses and it would have been easy to overlook the gems they had in Brewer and Sidibe, or gone the easy route of playing on the stereotypes of their appearances. That it didn’t, and gave both actresses plenty of opportunity to shine, is a testament to the entire production and makes me eager to see what season 4 has in store for us.

DC Comics’ War on Marriage

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Back in 1980, I was struck by what (at the time) was an outrageous idea.

Why can’t Superman marry Lois Lane?

The heart of the idea was that I was getting old enough to realize that the status quo in comics was stifling, and that not letting the characters advance in any way kept the stories from being anything more than kids’ stuff. Sure you were beginning to see books with better story telling come out, like the Chris Claremont run on X-Men, and the Wolfman/Perez relaunch of the Teen Titans.  But, overall, the really big name comic characters seemed stuck in a story stasis that seemed to be permanent.

Of course this wasn’t an absolute. DC had characters like The Flash, the Atom, and the Elongated Man who all eventually got married. This also did not count characters like Hawkman and Hawkgirl, who started out married.

Also if you look at Marvel you had Reed Richards and Sue Storm who got married early in the run of the Fantastic Four, as well as Ant Man and the Wasp.  But, like DC, it seemed that some characters( like Spider-Man) were destined for bachelorhood.

Then 1985 happened. With the release of The Dark Knight returns and Watchmen, comics suddenly became a venue for serious writing.  You also had Crisis on Infinite Earths, which tore down the old DC continuity and relaunched the entire line. It took characters (like Superman) and, even though it restarted them, allowed for stories that advanced and felt like they really could grow dynamically.

From the time of the relaunch, you saw Clark Kent and Lois Lane go through all the stages of their relationship – from dating, to his revealing his identity to her, engagement, and eventually they did get married. Over all, it felt organic and was some very good story telling. It also opened up some fantastic storytelling, with the marriage being treated like one you see in real life if one of the partners is a fireman, or solider. But not all was peaches and cream; from the beginning of the relationship, there were detractors. Some were fans who did not like the break from the status quo. They wanted the Superman who appeared in the cartoons, or the Donner movies, and could not accept a more humanized version of the characters. Others were writers who chafed at having to write about a Superman who was in a healthy relationship, as they felt it constrained them.

In spite of this, for over a decade, you had Clark Kent and Lois Lane as a happily married couple, and they were not the only ones. Wally West (Barry Allen’s successor as the Flash) married his girlfriend Linda Park. Over at Marvel you even had Spider-Man get married.

This was also paired with the growing idea of the legacy character. You had Wally West pick up the mantle of the Flash after the death of Barry Allen. You even had Dick Grayson become Batman after the apparent death of Bruce Wayne. So you had comic characters growing and their stories progressing. It was a great time to be a comic book reader.

We should have known it wouldn’t last.

The first signs of this problem were over at Marvel, when it was decided to retcon away Spider-Man’s marriage. I’ve written about the specifics of that in the past, so I won’t rehash here. The basics however were that Editor-In-Chief, Joe Quesada, wanted Spider-Man reset to how he was written during his own youth.

Sure it annoyed fans, but it was nothing compared to what was going to happen over at DC.

The first sign of trouble was Emerald Dawn, which saw the return of Hal Jordan as Green Lantern. This was written by Geoff Johns, one of DC’s best writers. The problem wasn’t apparent at first, as Johns did not discard Kyle Rayner, Hal’s successor, but instead made all of the Green Lanterns a team.

The real signs of trouble came with Flash: Rebirth, which was the story that brought Barry Allen back to life, again written by Johns. While not stripping Wally West of his status as the Flash, he was quietly moved to the background.

DC was rolling back the status of its Universe to the Silver Age status quo.

There was another troubling factor going on at the time; there were writers complaining that writing for a married Superman, or even Flash was too hard.

This brings us to Flashpoint and the launch of the New 52.

I’ve written a lot about what a mess this entire relaunch was, but one of the biggest factors contributing to this was the loss of all the character progress that had occurred. I may not have minded so much if it had been a clean and total reboot, but the half assed way it was handled (with not really rebooting Batman and Green Lantern) made it more glaring that characters like Superman and the Flash lost all their development from all of those previous stories.

And, of course, a large part of this was that not only were Superman and The Flash not married any more, but that their wives (Lois and Iris) were not even their love interests. In fact, the writers went out of their way to make it clear that they were in no way romantically linked.

The part that really annoyed me was when DC Co-Publisher Jim Lee said that, once they got rid of Superman’s marriage, the stories just flowed. This implies that the marriage was the problem, and not his lack of skill as a writer.

But at least the DC Universe had some married couples, like Animal Man and Aquaman. Or so we thought.

This all came to a boil during what is now known here as the DC PR Meltdown; the week when DC could not keep their foot out of their mouth.

This is when everyone learned that DC editorial had pulled the carpet out from under the long planned wedding of Batwoman, and her girlfriend Maggie. When accused of shying away from a same-sex marriage, DC Co-Publisher Dan Didio said it was not the same-sex part that they were against, but the marriage part. He said that they did not want any of their characters married, because the level of sacrifice needed to be a hero did not allow for that kind of happy ending. He fundamentally said that no DC hero should be married. So, basically, a ban on marriage. He seems to believe all heroes need to be miserable. I am left to wonder how these clearly hack writers ended up in charge of the DC Universe. Of course, I am sure the answer is politics, but I digress.

Another DC editor was challenged, after these comments were made, to reconcile these comments with a character like Aquaman, who is successfully married to Mera. The editor said Aquaman and Mera were not married. It was pointed out that Aquaman, king of Atlantis, regularly refers to Mera as his queen. The editor countered that just because she is his queen, it does not mean they are married. This came as a surprise to series writer Geoff Johns, who had never been told they were not married.

The only hero allowed to be married was Animal Man, and that is because his marriage (and its slow collapse) was central to the story. Not that it was a happy marriage, which is why I guess it was ok.

So why has DC come out against marriage?

I reject Didio’s argument that heroes don’t get that kind of happy ending. First off, marriage is not an ending, it is a commitment to the most important person in your life. Also, it is not easy and comes with many challenges that can lead to dramatic moments. Superman and Flash writers were able to find those for all the years each characters was married.

I also reject the argument that marriage limits storylines. A good writer would not have that problem. The issue is that a lot of the current writers (and more importantly right now editors) are caught up in their childhood power fantasies, and their heroes being married doesn’t fit into them.

As for the overall all ban, I have a suspicion that it was an attempt to cover a bad decision. I think someone in the editorial chain did not want there to be a same-sex marriage. When the story broke big, I think Didio’s statement against marriage was an attempt to hold off the accusations of being homophobic, chiefly due to how ridiculous the claim that Aquaman and Mera are not married is.

In the end, I think the whole war on marriage that DC has declared is just another sign of how badly there needs to be a change in the editorial structure. Time will tell, I suppose.

 

The sad tale of This is Vegas

_-This-is-Vegas-Xbox-360-_While mostly a table top gamer, I also play video games. It’s an even split between PC and console. One thing I rarely do is jump right on the latest release. I will usually wait for it to be out for a bit and see what the reviews are. However, I will still follow the development of games that sound interesting.

In 2009, I was following the development of a game that I thought looked interesting and was looking forward to see what it would be like. The game was This is Vegas. It was originally being produced by Midway Games, and was going to be a platformer in the style of Grand Theft Auto.

Notice my liberal use of the past tense?

Although not well known to the gaming public at large, This is Vegas is known in the industry as one of the biggest money wasters ever to not result in a title being released.

So let’s take a look at what could have been, why it wasn’t, and what it says about the state of the game industry.

The premise of the game is that you are a street-smart hustler born and raised in Las Vegas. You learn that a large multimedia company is planning to buy up all the casinos (and other property on the strip), with the goal of turning the town into a watered down family friendly version of itself. You set off on a series of missions with the goal of opposing this change, and making sure that Vegas can still live up to its nickname of Sin City.

The game would have broken its missions down into four categories: gambling, fighting, driving, and partying. All we will ever really know about how the game mechanics would have worked is from this video that goes into the partying mechanic. At the time it looked interesting as it was clear the idea was to give the players the feel of being the cool guys, who knows how to party in Vegas.

This was, of course, no guarantee of the game being a hit, but it looked like it would at least have had a shot.

So why did the game get canned?

Development on the game started in 2006. It was meant to be competition for games like the Grand Theft Auto series. This was an era when a successful game could be made for $3 million. It was also a time when game budgets started to rise. At the time, there were warnings about game development costs raising as high as $15 million. It turns out that this was a low estimate.

Midway Games went through bankruptcy in 2009, and that June sold all of their assets (including This is Vegas) to Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment. At the time of the sale, Midway had already put $43 million into production of the game. In August of 2010, Warner announced that the game was being canceled. While there are no precise figures available, it is estimated that about $50 million had been spent on development, and with at least nine additional months needed, it was not cost effective to continue. In the end, it was felt that this title would not be a big enough seller to justify the continuing cost.

What does this say about the industry?

Even though video games bring in several billion dollars a year, you will always hear that, after a game has been shipped, a company will lay off the developers. The truth behind this is that while games may be very successful, the high production costs cut into the bottom line.

Just as an example, it is estimated that the development cost for Grand Theft Auto V was $137 million USD, and $265 million USD once you included marketing. Of course this is a game that broke $1 billion USD in sales within three days of release, so you can argue that the cost was justified. But what if it had been a flop?

Really, it is the same story as any other form of media. The big companies are going to want guaranteed hits before making an investment, leaving innovation to the smaller companies who are going to take risks and probably need a crowd source campaign to fund the project.

And what about This is Vegas. Well since Duke Nukem Forever finally released, This is Vegas now holds the dubious distinction of being the game industry’s most expensive piece of vaporware.  Somehow, I don’t foresee anyone making any effort to rescue it from this fate.