When Robert Bowling, creative strategist on the Modern Warfare franchise, announced that he was to leave Infinity Ward earlier this year the internet immediately cried foul play. Turns out he just wanted to forge ahead with his own business venture Robotoki – a new developer that will prize narrative storytelling and the fostering of creative talent above all else.

What was it like being the ‘face’ of the Modern Warfare franchise for so long? What are you going to miss about the role?

Being the most public facing and accessible member of the Call of Duty franchise for the last 7 years taught me a lot about the value of being connected to your userbase. It was always important to me, from a development perspective, to have transparency and direct access with your userbase, and when you’re userbase is over 30 million people globally, it allowed me a unique advantage of learning a lot about how varied your userbase can become in the type of experience they’re looking for. This knowledge has shaped a lot of how we approach game design with Robotoki and how players will be able to shape their own experience in our first IP.

Robotoki’s cross-platform approach to game development seems like a break from tradition…

Our design philosophy is all about creating a platform-agnostic universe that creates experiences specific to each player’s device. This is why we approach the universe first, experiences second, and game mechanics last. That’s not an order of quality but an order of process. It’s about making sure how you experience the characters, stories, and experiences within the game universe are specific to the device you’re playing on, not an after-thought, while also allowing your contributions on each, whether you’re playing on tablet, console, or PC, to have influence on your overall character progression and the state of the universe as a whole.

Many developers would argue that game mechanics are the most important element to focus on, rather than narrative. Why do you consider creating the universe first the most important part of the process?

Designing a universe first allows you creative freedom on how your players experience your gameplay mechanics, and allows you to tailor the experience per device. It has no impact on the quality of the game mechanics, there is no denying you have to nail those, otherwise the experience is ruined. It’s about ensuring that the game mechanics fit within the universe, and more importantly, the device the player is engaging the universe from.

What makes a great shooter mechanic (smooth, fast, and tight controls) on consoles and PC is not the same as on the tablet. Therefore, if you start with purely the mechanic in mind, you’re just making a great shooter. We think games have evolved beyond that, and that an interesting universe is made up of more than just a great shooter, but a variety of player styles that engage the world, characters, and universe in a variety of ways, and through a variety of devices. This thought process requires you to design from the top down, looking at the different strengths and weaknesses each player style, genre preference, skill set, and device interfaces can impact and change the overall state of the game universe and world.

For example, when I’m at home, sitting in front of a monitor or on my couch with a console, I want a more immersive, cinematic experience when I’m engaging this universe. However, when I leave the house and I’m on a tablet; I still want to engage the world, my character, continue my progress. This mobile experience should allow that, but in a way that is unique to the console and PC experience, it doesn’t need to mimic the first person experience nor does it even need to be within the same genre. However, the contributions and actions I take, can still impact and affect my world, character, story, and experience on console and PC in a meaningful way.

It feels like you have set up Robotoki as an alternative to the norm in game development. Do you think it’s necessary to break from tradition in order to survive as a business?

Absolutely. Our philosophy at Robotoki is ‘Team First, Everything Else Second’. I feel strongly that great games can only be made by great teams and great teams are made up of happy people. This happiness comes from being emotionally and intellectually invested in the projects you’re creating and the studio you’re helping build.

This is why we take the focus off the product and on the team, because if you make a great team, that is fulfilled emotionally, you’ll create a great game.

I think it is essential as an industry that we acknowledge this on a unanimous level because we’re are falling severely behind with our partners in film and music in recognising the value of creative talent to the success of our business. Creative talent and especially creative teams are not interchangeable parts that can work the same in every machine; they’re organic and fluid and the quality of their creations is impacted by emotion, and personality, and environment. At Robotoki, we are focused on crafting that environment and nurturing that development. This is why we encourage all of our employees to ignore their job description, to allow it to be their launching off point, rather than their confines.

So how will Robotoki’s team dynamics work differently?

We’re focused on creative freedom and investment in every project from an emotional and intellectual level. When you work on a project, especially the same franchise for many years. You create two lists in your head. On one hand, you have the characters, stories, and experiences that fit within the universe you’re creating. On the other hand, you have the characters, stories, and experiences that simply don’t fit for one reason or another. Over time, one of these lists will outweigh the other and when this happens you’ll become frustrated and resentful at your current project, because it’s not allowing to follow your creative need to express these other experiences because “they don’t fit”.

As a studio, we encourage the freedom to explore that other list. It’s about baking in development time and budget that allows for that exploration outside the feature list and priority list. While there will be times that whatever you create may not fit into the main project on hand, there will be bits and pieces, little nuggets of those creations that can be fed back into the existing universe and enhance it, innovate it, take it in new directions. If not, //that’s okay//, because you can be laying the foundation for an amazing new universe and amazing new experiences that you may not have never initially designed for.

You can read the full interview with Robert Bowling in issue 86 of X360, out 13 June. You can buy it through the Imagine Shop, on iTunes, or through Zinio.

Related content on X360:

• Robert Bowling leaving after MW3 – why it’s no surprise
• MW3: Elite Premium or Content Collections?
• MW3 Callsigns – Top 10 Titles in Modern Warfare 3

Borderlands 2 is an impressive game. There are four classes, 12 skill trees, and several bajillion guns to choose between (something like that, anyway). The potential for variety is huge; so huge in fact that Gearbox tells us it’ss still discovering new combinations of powers and loot so powerful they could potentially break the game.

“The hardcore players who are really looking for it…they’re going to find really interesting combinations of gear that go so well with what their character’s skills are doing that they’re going to reach ridiculous levels of power that we still haven’t even found yet,” says Borderlands 2′s creative director, Paul Hellquist. “Every now and then we might find a bug that’s so insane from the combination of skills and gear that it just makes us laugh and we have to figure out what to do with it.

“Sometimes we’ll just think ‘Fuck it. Y’know what? That’s really awesome: you have to find two legendary items, and be at the highest level or whatever, so enjoy! [laughs]”

Hellquist also revealed a little more about Zer0, telling us that the new character will remain rather mysterious throughout the game. “Part of what we want of Zer0 is that mystery, and that’s an important part of his allure. It’s not nearly as interesting to find out that Boba Fett is the clone of some guy who’s all ‘Awww I’m sad dad died [laughs]. He’s not nearly as cool as when you didn’t know who the fuck he was.”

Borderlands 2 is due out in the UK on September 21.

Related links on X360:

• BioShock Infinite, Syndicate and the Darkness II : Our Favourite Shooters With More Than Just Guns
• Aliens Colonial Marines–The Best Aliens Game Yet?
• Aliens: Colonial Marines: 12 minute gameplay video

How important are graphics in today’s day and age? Does a big, triple-A game need to have good graphics?

For me, working as an art director, I would say that good graphics are of course extremely important for a triple-A title. I can’t come up with any reason for not having good art. Sure the gameplay can be good, the story can be intriguing, but if the art is lacking it will make the whole experience worse.

What do graphics bring to a game beyond just looking good?

Art and gameplay are not two separate things, they need to support each other otherwise the end result will be a mess. One thing that we often talked about during Syndicate was how to guide the player; it could be the smallest thing from not having a green stripe of light on a door that represents that you’re supposed to pass through it to bigger things such as actually lighting the room in a way that communicates to the player where they’re supposed to go. Art can easily ruin the intention of the gameplay and that of course also goes the other way. They need to support each other.

Starbreeze games are very good at embodying players with a physical presence. How do graphics play into this?

Getting good physical presence in a FPS is a combination of many different small elements that, put together, create a greater experience. Getting good physical presence without the support of sound and animation is extremely hard to achieve. When you climb a ladder or get shot you need to feel it both through animation and through sound. You need to feel that you´re actually grabbing something. Often we talk about getting as much hand/glow presence on screen as possible without letting it steal the show. Personally I hate when I play a FPS and I don’t see my feet when I look down. I need to see my feet otherwise I’m just a couple of free floating arms. Same thing with player shadow, I want to be able see my shadow cast on the wall when I run around and shoot people. That grounds me to the scene.

As technology gets more impressive and gamers more demanding, what new challenges are contemporary graphics presenting?

Well I guess that it´s a constant strive for bigger and better. There will always be a layer of extra graphical sheen that you can add to anything. The first in-game character I ever made had a polycount of 350, while the characters today are around 9000-16000 polys. That creates both new possibilities and new challenges.  I guess that one challenge is actually to be able to stop and say ‘this is enough; let´s move on to the next level’ or ‘this character is already good enough. We don’t need to be able to see every little pore on his face.’

Also, with increasing capabilities comes bigger team sizes and more administration. You have so many more choices today compared to 15 years ago. If you´re making a violent FPS shooter, you have to aim for having the best shooter experience otherwise you need to be making something else instead. Being the best in something doesn’t come for free. You’ve got big dreams? You want fame? Well, fame costs. And right here is where you start paying - in sweat!” .… hahaha I totally stole that from Fame.

What have been the biggest advancements in videogame graphics over the past ten years?

From a more artist oriented perspective, I would say that the normal map technology would be the biggest thing. That changed the workflow for the whole industry and also raised the overall quality bar. Good art is not just dependent on normal maps but most of the games out there have them and it’s an industry standard these day. With the introduction of normal maps people suddenly had to learn new software such as ZBrush or Mudbox. But increased graphical horsepower has obviously pushed the quality bar on all areas.

What can we expect from the next generation in terms of graphics? Will we soon match Hollywood for graphical prowess?

Obviously everything keeps getting more and more realistic. You will have more of everything; and as soon as you get increased graphical horsepower that often leads to new innovations.

In some regards we´re almost there today. Take a look at the Samatarian tech demo from Epic. Elements from that environment already look almost ‘Hollywood stylized photo real’.

However, realism is so much harder to achieve with regards to character performance. For example, most of the time you wouldn’t notice that the shape of a stone isn’t totally true to life but if a character’s nose is not quite realistic you´ll see that immediately and that will ruin the whole experience.

So it´s extremely difficult to say exactly when we´ll be able to match Hollywood. It will eventually happen, but I think we still have some time before we´ll see a title with consistent photo real quality throughout the whole game. It’s just so incredibly hard to mimic reality. If you take a look at LA Noir’s facial animations, which are truly amazing and jaw dropping, you still have other factors that make it non-photo real, from shades, lighting, AI performance, etc. All these things have to be spot on to actually be able to produce something photo real.

Do you think, as graphics get better, that art direction becomes more important and sheer graphical prowess less so?

I don’t see the connection between Art direction and graphical power. Art direction is about making choices. Some choices are more heavy on graphics while others are more minimalistic and don’t rely on graphical power in the same way. If you compare Deus Ex with the PS3 game Journey, they both have a solid art direction, totally different from each other, but both are really well made. If I had to bet my money on which of those two games had most problems with graphical power and framerate issues, I would bet on Deus Ex. Some games rely more on graphical power, bigger explosions and more particles while others rely more on having the perfect shade of brown on the sand.

Related links on X360:

• Starbreeze’s Syndicate Reboot: Why it failed
• XCOM, Syndicate and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive – exciting 360 reboots of classic PC games
• Syndicate Reboot: I could be worse…

Why do graphics matter, beyond making a game look pretty?
Nick: Graphics can deliver far beyond just making a game look pretty. They can deliver realism and immersion, giving games an emotional impact and engagement that is far beyond what we have delivered before. The point at which we feel part of the game is the point graphics have gone far enough.

Do today’s big, triple-A games need to have amazing graphics?
Nick: A game can be great without amazing Graphics, but telling a story and taking you on a journey is better when the world looks believable and familiar and you can feel more a part of that world.

As technology gets more impressive and gamers more demanding, what new challenges are contemporary graphics presenting?
Nick: The gaps to the look of reality are getting smaller all the time, and as those gaps get smaller, the anomalies and differences stand out more.  The film industry talks about crossing the “Uncanny Valley”, and in games we are now significantly closer to that stage too.

Do you think, as graphics get better, that art direction becomes more important and sheer graphical prowess less so?
Nick: Great art direction always has a great impact, and will always have a huge impact.  There is still a significant way to go before graphical prowess has reached its peak, but it will one day.

What have been the biggest advancements in videogame graphics over the past ten years?
Nick: It’s not graphics on its own. Destructible environments have also had a big impact for me.

Graphics have traditionally been the measure of how powerful or advanced a games machine is – do you think that’s changing or will change in the future?
Nick: I don’t think it is really about how many polygons can be moved around  or even the screen resolution that can be supported, but how real the visuals can feel.  It isn’t really a numbers game anymore, but an overall impression.

What can we expect from the next generation in terms of graphics, and from CryEngine 3? Are we just looking at gradual steps towards photorealism from here on?
Carl: Our future target is photorealism and beyond, so that the imagination and vision of our game artist or designer is completely unrestricted – we want to provide the ability to realize any level of detail or scale of effetc. Traditional polygon or texture budgets should cease to be an issue in future, virtual characters should portray completely convincing emotions and effects should rival the greatest movies.  We aim not for just photorealism, but to achieve something “more real than reality”.  Of course this depends on hardware capabilities; but this is what we would see as genuinely ‘next generation’ for graphics.

X360 recently flew over to LA to visit Danger Close, the EA studio working on Medal Of Honor: Warfighter, and spoke exclusively to executive producer on the project, Greg Goodrich.

The most interesting thing about the interview wasn’t so much what he said, but the way he said it. At one point he got noticeably emotional. We’re not saying the guy cried or got choked up or anything, but he was definitely talking slower and quieter and had a sort of glazed look on his face when he said the following…

“One of the Tier 1 operators just recently, I met… I’ve never met him before… he said, ‘You know I never thought I’d say this about a game but it was… it was dignified.’ And he said, ‘I played through it with my son and it became an avenue through which my son could learn a little bit more about me.’ And he said they went from level to level and it’s like, ‘Dad, did you know that guy?’ And he says, ‘Yeah, I knew that guy.’ ‘Dad, were you here?’ ‘Yeah, I was here.’ And they used it as a way to communicate on a subject matter that they may have not previously talked about – his work. And they connected. He said he appreciated it.”

And this is where I think I saw his bottom lip wobble just a little bit…

“For me nothing else mattered at that point because that’s who we made that game for. That man, his kids.”

It was certainly clear to me that Medal Of Honor is something Goodrich takes very seriously and very personally. He also loves guns. And beards.

For the full, exclusive, detailed report on Medal Of Honor: Warfighter, pick up the next issue of X360 on 21 March. Available at all good newsagents, from the Imagine Shop and from iTunes Newsstand.

Jono1170 is the star of this legendary video, which proves that actually there is some use crying over spilt milk – it can entertain hundreds of thousands of YouTube viewers…

Here at X360 we wondered what kind of reaction Jono might have had to Modern Warfare 3, and we were delighted to discover his YouTube channel was still active. We got in touch via his Facebook Fan Club and conducted this exclusive, not to mention surprisingly calm, interview.

Did you really play Modern Warfare 2 for seventeen hours straight?
I played Modern Warfare 2 for six hours. The seventeen hours was a miscalculation.

Have any other games got you as frustrated as you were in that video?
Guitar Hero kind of frustrated me because I couldn’t do Hard levels or Expert. I only can do Medium, even though I’ve been playing it for a long time. I played Guitar Hero at my holiday on the arcade and two 13-year old girls beat me.

We see you made a video along the same lines about Modern Warfare 3…
I got loads of requests off people telling me to make another Ragefare video, so I did. And people noticed that it was kind of fake.

Yeah, you don’t seem to be genuinely upset in the new one…
I’m not that kid no more that I used to be. I’ve moved on. I’ve got a life now.

What do you think of Modern Warfare 3?
It’s kind of the same as Modern Warfare 2. It’s still got the same set-up and weapons and the same people, really, that really piss me off. It’s just the people on there. It’s mostly people that live in their mother’s basement that play Call Of Duty. First day, I went on the internet – people have already Prestiged and there’s campers in the same place like they’re building a tent or something.
The maps are too small and there’s an easy chance of campers and snipers.

That’s just multiplayer. What about the other modes?
There’s no need for the campaign because most people don’t really go on the campaign, really. And the only entertainment there is, is the multiplayer or the survival… survivor, erm… thing.

What would you rather Modern Warfare 3 was like?
You get killed too easy – you don’t see it coming. You just stand there, and they shoot you. How did he get me? He hit my leg? How did I die? I didn’t bleed to death… ‘cause he hit me in my foot! How’s that even possible?
And the maps should be bigger and more easier and if people are staying in the same spot for 30 seconds they should show where they are because people won’t be able to camp then.

But the Killcam shows you where they are, and you get a dot on the radar when they fire their gun…
But what if they’re using a silencer?

Oh…
Mm-mmm!

You didn’t have similar problems in, say, Black Ops?
No, not at all. There are some campers but still, it gave me entertainment that I liked.
I just wish Call Of Duty would be like Black Ops again. I loved it, man. I loved the zombies, I loved the multiplayer. I just want it to be the same as Call Of Duty 4, World At War and Black Ops. They’re the only games I like of Call Of Duty, really.
I’m just waiting for the next Call Of Duty and hopefully that will be exactly the same as Call Of Duty 4, World At War and Black Ops. Not quite exactly. Different maps, less grenade launchers, less snipers, less campers and new weapons that are better, more technolo-gic… or summat.

Tell us a little about your work with Kinect.

I started experimenting with Kinect as soon as the open source libfreenect library was released. The Kinect Sensor hardware offered so many new possibilities that I spent a lot of evenings playing around with its data.

The first goal I set was to understand how I could use the depth information to interact with 3D objects. This resulted in an augmented reality style game where you have to slap bananas that are thrown at you.

The next thing I wanted to experiment with was face tracking and gesture recognition. I used the classic Tetris game as a starting point and integrated face tracking to move the camera in 3D space. This really enhanced the 3D experience. I was able to use gesture recognition to move the blocks and rotate them.

Some speaking engagements at conferences followed for which I had to create some demos that used Adobe Flash. In order to get Kinect working together with Flash I wrote a piece of software that acted as an intermediary between the Kinect Sensor and the Flash player.

Now that Microsoft have released an official SDK I am experimenting more with that.

What are your thoughts on the current crop of games available for Kinect? Are they using the technology innovatively, or are their more inventive uses of the technology we’re not seeing from developers?

Kinect Sports is pretty sweet, but it wears me out!  It’s better than the other gesture tracking sports games because it tracks your whole body.  I’m looking forward to some new games that were announced at E3 that will have Kinect interaction, such as Star Wars and SSX.

Do you see Kinect as a more useful and interesting tool outside of videogames? Why?

Absolutely. Just take a look at all the experiments out there. You can see that intrigued people from different backgrounds and industries have picked it up to investigate the potential. I’ve seen Kinect used for robotics, medical research, playing virtual instruments and live visuals for music shows amongst others. From an advertising point of view it offers many possibilities for interactive installations in shops and exhibitions.

What non-videogame related applications of Kinect particularly interest you?

Because I work for a digital media agency I am mostly interested in how I can use it for in-store and exhibition installations – engaging audiences in a new and powerful way. We have a lot of opportunities to use if for major events too.

What can you imagine Kinect and its technology being used for in five years time?

I’m sure that Kinect or similar technology will be integrated in laptops and television sets. This will allow users to interact with the device in a more natural way by using gestures. Think Minority Report.

Seeing that Kinect is also used for robotics experiments I could see the technology being used in toys as well.

If Microsoft hired you to make a game for Kinect, what kind of game would you be interested in making?

I haven’t got a particular concept in mind but I’d love to work on a game that uses facial, voice recognition and skeleton tracking together. It would probably be a niche game, experimental both in gameplay and the use of visuals.

Microsoft recently announced Halo 4. If you could add one Kinect feature to a Halo game, what would it be?

I would like to see military-style gesture recognition for communication in multiplayer mode. Ideally some of these would be configurable. It would be great if you could configure gestures that target specific team members.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Tell us a little about your work with Kinect.

I have had a fascination with augmenting webcam views for a few years. I have done some odd projects ranging from setting cityscapes on fire with explosions and meteorites, to putting hats on pigeons. The problem with those projects is I had to make the depth maps by hand, or worse, I had to do it by analyzing densities of pixel RGB values. So when the Kinect arrived and the fantastic open source libraries were created, I jumped at the opportunity to revisit some of these concepts in a more accurate and compelling way.

But things never go as you planned and I got quickly sidetracked by tangents that presented themselves within the first few hours of using the Kinect. I started to explore doing realtime body modification such as the Body Dysmorphia project (video above).

Do you see Kinect as a more useful and interesting tool outside of videogames?

I have to admit, I haven’t even hooked the Kinect up to my Xbox. I just haven’t seen anything compelling that would make me want to use it as a game controller. I imagine, as the depth camera technology improves, there will be plenty of fantastic uses for the Kinect in gameplay. I just don’t think Microsoft is there yet. It might just be that the Kinect will only be useful for dance or exercise based games. For first person shooters, I want a trigger. For games like Guitar Hero, an actual guitar would be nice. So I definitely see more potential outside of XBox games at the moment.

What non-videogame related applications of Kinect particularly interest you?

I think the work being done with the Kinect which allows for 3D scanning of environments is quite interesting. Could be a nice way to allow for quick prototype of level design (just strap a kinect to a robot (Roomba perhaps?) and have it just wander around saving the 3D data into a master file).

Also, applications that add sensory data to those with limited or no eyesight have been fascinating. I recall seeing a project where the Kinect information was turned into audio cues allowing the blind to navigate environments. That seems to have a lot of untapped potential. Not because it is necessarily a new idea, but mostly because now it is much more affordable.

In what ways can the Kinect technology be improved?

I would love a Kinect that would extend the functional range. Right now the data cuts out if you move closer than about 2 ft, so there is no chance of doing high resolution face scans. But more than that, I would love a Kinect that allowed for more distant scans. I am not sure what the current range limitation is but if it could be extended to 100 ft or more, that would really help with my current needs. I want to do a project based on the huge amount of traffic that goes down the street in front of my apartment but the Kinect range isn’t nearly long enough for me to be able to use it for this purpose. I would need 50 ft minimum.

What can you imagine Kinect and its technology being used for in five years time?

Honestly, with the way technology is changing, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Kinect was totally forgotten about in 5 years. Who knows, maybe it will be replaced by echolocation or some other undiscovered possibility.

If Microsoft did ever hire you to make a game for Kinect, what kind of game would you personally be interested in making?

Because the Kinect isn’t super accurate for tracking fast movements, and because many game players (at least the ones I know) aren’t that interested in having to physically jump around in order to make their game avatar jump, I think more meditative games would make sense. I would love to see a beautiful, mostly non-violent game involving flight mechanics.

Perhaps you are a raven and your arm movements control how the bird moves through a compelling 3D space. You could team up with others on Xbox Live and fly en masse. Simple tilting side to side with arms outstretched would allow you to turn in space, and you could flap to increase speed or maybe tuck your arms to your side to do a dive bomb maneuver. It would be a game about discovery and extending your range to explore further into unknown territory. If you fly too far out and you don’t manage your energy well, you might end up being trapped in a strange land overnight until you build up enough energy to fly back home. I wonder what the Kinect gestures should be for making a nest?

Back in December 2010 I was approached by Malin Ericsson, a journalist from Plaza Kvinna, a Swedish women’s magazine, who wanted to interview me for a magazine feature she was writing about female gamers. Why me? Because I wrote a notorious blog called ‘Top 10 side-boobs in games’. Some games writers began referring to the fallout that followed this article as ‘Boobgate’ (not to be confused with Sarah Palin’s ‘Boob-gate’).

Malin has also posted this additional blog, which doesn’t include quotes from me, but does mention me by name (link is auto-translated from Swedish to English).

I agreed to the interview on the condition that I could post an unedited version here on X360Magazine.com once the Plaza Kvinna article was published, so here it is…

Malin Ericsson: Do you think it is hard for female gamers to fit in to the gamers platform?
Gavin Mackenzie: If you’re referring to online gaming, then yes. But I think it’s hard for most people to fit into it. There’s a lot of elitism, rudeness and intolerance in online gaming. Online players in most games are predominantly male, so a lot of that negativity is directed at women and girls, but it’s far from exclusively at them. The majority of male gamers I know – including me and other games journalists like me who you might think would find it easy to fit in – are put off by the anti-social behaviour of online gamers and prefer to play with friends instead.

ME: Do you think that a change of attitude towards female players is in order?
GM: Anyone who’s being rude or abusive towards anyone else during online games should stop it. I think the attitude is that people can get away with certain behaviours in online games that they couldn’t get away with elsewhere, and this is true all over the internet, not just in gaming. In online gaming negativity towards women is certainly one of these behaviours because it is such a predominantly male space, but it’s part of a broader problem.

ME: What do you think about the ideals in games, with macho men and superheat girls?
GM:They’re not what I call ideal. But they reflect easy, safe options for game makers who apparently see more interesting, realistic characters as too risky or too challenging. They’re eye-catching on a base level, but ultimately boring. I rarely engage with or invest in game characters, relying on good gameplay to keep me interested. But there are exceptions, and their numbers are slowly growing. Personally, my favourite character in any game by far is Alyx Vance from Half-Life 2, and I’m sure many would agree with that choice.

ME: Why is it necessary to portrait the women this way?
GM: It’s not necessary, but it’s seen as safe and easy, and it is eye-catching. And don’t you mean ‘men and women’? Both genders are poorly, inaccurately, unrealistically and stereotypically represented in games.

ME: Isn’t it necessary to also have normal female heroes so the girls have something to identify themselves with?
GM: It’s preferable, and it’s preferable to have normal male heroes too. And I don’t think it’s just about girls identifying with female heroes. I identify with Alyx Vance because she’s actually like a real person, and I am a real person. The player character in Half-Life 2 is male, but he’s a ‘blank canvas’ who doesn’t speak and isn’t seen, so the events of the game are given meaning largely through Alyx – the player identifies with her, and it’s a game very popular with male players. Unfortunately, Half-Life is very much an exception. Its developer, Valve, works in a very different way to most studios. It’s not commercially driven in quite the same way most studios are, yet hugely successful nonetheless.

ME: Do you feel that you, as a journalist and editor, has any responsibility to improve the attitude towards female gamers?
GM: Well, as I say, I think negative attitudes towards female gamers are part of broader, more complex problems in gaming as a whole and in society as a whole. I don’t think I have a responsibility to solve these problems. However, it would be irresponsible of me to ignore or deny them, or to ignore or deny female gamers and their views. That doesn’t mean I will always agree with them. For example, we had a female gamer write into PLAY who said that making games should be left to the men because they know what they’re doing. I let her have her say, but responded with a long list of all the women involved in making Uncharted 2: Among Thieves who, I’m pretty sure, would disagree.

ME: Where did you get the idea to your lists on Play’s website? (top 10 under-boobs, top 10 side-boobs, hottest redheads, hottest blondes, top 10 bras)?
GM: From our traffic data, and from similar articles on other sites that attract a lot of attention. If something works, I’ll do more of it. I try not to make any assumptions or judgments as to why it works.

ME: How do you think the gamers feel about these lists?
GM: I know that they’re popular. Some gamers visit them because they like them, some gamers visit them because they object to them. I certainly wholly reject the notion that the majority of the visitors to these articles are horny teenage boys. Boobs are eye-catching to almost everyone for a wide variety of reasons. I know that around 3,000 people clicked that they liked ‘Top 10 side-boobs in games’ on Facebook, and I was able to browse their names and faces and see that they were a broad cross-section of gender and age. I can’t say why they liked it, and I don’t think it’s possible to generalise. I hope that many enjoyed the humour of it.
I do know that people who didn’t like it, who are always more vocal with their feedback, felt that it was a celebration of shallow representations of the female form in games. It was certainly exploitation of how eye-catching these representations are, but the tone of the writing is very over-the-top and takes what I feel are some pretty obvious swipes at the games these characters feature in and the companies that make them. So I don’t believe I was celebrating it, I was showing it up for what it is.
But it’s healthy that these pieces piss people off because they make gaming’s culture and industry look bad. I don’t think it’s healthy to direct all this anger at me though. I’ve been accused of reinforcing a negative aspect of gaming and of holding back productive discussion of gaming and gender, but all I did was highlight something that others might prefer to ignore or deny. I certainly don’t see how I’ve held any discussion back. The fact that I’m being interviewed by a mainstream Swedish women’s lifestyle magazine as a result of posting these articles would suggest the exact opposite.

ME: We had a Swedish all girl team who were portrayed in an American magazine with the title The Sexy game girls of Sweden, why is it that girls cant be good gamers?
GM: They can, but few people will care. Just as few people will care that boys are good gamers. I can name just one male gamer who is famous for his gaming skills, and I can’t even remember his real name. He is known as Fatal1ty and I think is still the most successful professional gamer ever. But to most people he’s quite boring, and not at all sexy. I couldn’t name any others because I find other people being really good at games quite dull.
I would ask you, why hasn’t your magazine run an article called The Sexy Game Boys Of America? Why can’t boys who are good at gaming be sexy?
Sexy Swedish girls are eye-catching. That might seem unfair on ordinary gaming girls who are better gamers than the sexy Swedish ones, but isn’t it unfair on the ordinary boys too?

ME: While playing online, many of the girls I’ve spoken to and myself as well, meet a lot of comments like “girls should not play” or nasty invited, what should we do to prevent this?
GM: You can’t prevent idiocy. You can avoid it by playing private games with friends. You can mute idiots so that you at least can’t hear them. You can report their behaviour if it contravenes the rules of whatever online gaming service you’re using. Oh, and you can beat them. That might shut them up. But there is no prevention. Platform holders like Sony and Microsoft could no doubt do more to police their online services, but it would be impossible to stamp out abuse altogether. Ultimately, they take a commercial decision, weighing up how much revenue they might lose from people being put off against how much it would cost to increase policing.
I’d also like to add that I get a lot of nasty comments for belonging to a minority group too. It seems that many gamers stupid enough to be homophobic are also stupid enough to mistake ‘Gav’ for ‘Gay’ (I’m absolutely serious about this), so don’t think I don’t know what it’s like.
One more option is to form or join a gaming clan. Clans tend to be thought of as quite hardcore because they originated from competitive gaming, but more and more clans form for social reasons these days. It’s just a way of finding like-minded people to game with. There are a lot of girls-only clans and I’d guess most of them have formed as a response to exactly the kind of problems you describe.

“If the producers would do a true cost analysis,” says Blum, “I think they’d realize that guys like me and Nolan [North] are a pretty good value in the grand scheme of things.”

Steve Blum is something of a cult figure among hardcore anime and gaming fans, given the huge number and range of roles he has played (he’s officially the busiest actor in games), but still gets “bottom dollar” fees for much of his work.

“It’s true, it’s silly and it’s wrong,” Blum protests, “Some of the biggest game companies claim poverty when negotiating our rates. The system is grossly unfair, particularly when some games are grossing over a billion dollars in sales. Celebs seem to be able to command (comparatively) gigantic salaries for the same, usually less, work. Most gamers couldn’t give a crap who does the role as long as the person voicing it makes their gaming experience immersive and believable.”

Not that Blum is much of a whiner really. He enjoys and takes pride in his work, genuinely loves his fans and comes across as a funny, positive kind of a guy.

Much more from our interview with Steve Blum, and interviews with some of gaming’s other most familiar voices, will be featured in issue 69 of X360, which is on sale February 23rd from all good newsagents and the official Imagine Shop.