Nick Cummings | nickcummings.com

So, funny story — I haven’t posted here in a month. And this is after I promised frequent updates, right?

Well, I have been blogging daily, believe it or not. Just not here.

For the last couple months, I’ve been pouring heart and soul (and carpal tunnel-ridden hands) into editing and writing for a gaming blog called Silicon Sasquatch. It’s a project I started with Aaron Thayer, a friend and fellow graduate of the University of Oregon School of Journalism, Communication and Terminal Unemployment. Our mission has been to deliver daily news, analysis and reviews on anything related to videogames and gaming culture with a definite emphasis on the Pacific Northwest.

Writing about games is something I’ve dreamed about doing for as long as I’ve been able to read, and while it’s not quite as lucrative as I’d imagined (we’re never going to make any money, ever) I’m having a blast maintaining and improving the site on a daily basis. I’ve become addicted to Twittering and Digging each story and tracking traffic to an obsessive degree.  I’ve got Photoshop macros built for resizing and downsampling images for the site, and I’m working on developing a watermark filter. I’m positively smitten by this fake little not-capable-of-profit business I’ve built for myself.

In this month alone, we’ve more than quintupled our page views: We’re now averaging more than 1,000 views per month, and the average continues to climb daily. We’ve also started receiving comments from real, actual people that we don’t know, which is exciting. But the most exciting thing was when Aaron’s review of an indie game called The Path was picked up by the game’s developer, Tale of Tales. They quoted Aaron and posted a link to our review from their site, which continues to give us exposure. It’s a minor nod, but to know that someone’s paying attention is pretty exhilarating.

I miss writing about other things, but between working full-time (for my dad, but hey, it’s work) and working on the gaming blog I just haven’t had time for anything else.

In any case, I hope you’ll check out the work we’re doing on the gaming blog, even if games aren’t your thing. Any and all feedback is totally appreciated.

Portlanders, rejoice — we’ve finally got a reason to hate our lives!

My friend and partner in crime sent me a link to BusinessWeek’s list of the most unhappy cities in the United States, and guess what? We won!

The victory was determined by factors like depression, suicide rates, divorces and crime. Personally, my favorite component is the number of cloudy days: a staggering 222 per year in Portland.

I’m not sure I’d call this list fair by any stretch of the imagination; the article’s hefty disclaimer only reinforces the lack of scientific validity backing it up. Notably missing are factors like quality of public parks and transportation as well as air quality. Bad weather gets me down like nobody’s business, but living in a place that’s smothered in trees and foliage also makes for a healthy, cozy place to live.

Oh, and the beer helps.

Excerpt from Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

If you’re at all interested in how copyright law is evolving with technology, you really ought to pay close attention to The Pirate Bay’s trial. Currently underway in Sweden, the case pits the founders of the BitTorrent search engine against music industry representatives. This might seem like a clear-cut case in favor of the plaintiffs, but there’s a significant grey area: The Pirate Bay doesn’t actually host any of the files on its site, nor does it produce its own torrent links to copyright material. Instead, the site merely lets a user upload torrent files, which another user’s BitTorrent client of choice can use to connect to the host user’s computer to download the file directly.

The real beauty of BitTorrent, as you probably know, is that it pioneered the concept of distributed file sharing — that is, everyone who downloads from the host (a “leecher”) is also a “seeder” who actively hosts bits of the file to other downloaders. In this way, everyone’s computers collaborate to ensure that the more users there are downloading a file, the faster everyone obtains it. It also relieves the majority of bandwidth pressure from a host, and theoretically enables download speeds to increase exponentially as more users seek the same files.

It’s important to know how BitTorrent works because it may explain why, just one day into the trial, the prosecution has dropped half of its charges against The Pirate Bay. The site’s founders are no longer being accused of “assisting copyright infringement,” which leaves only the less sinister charge of “assisting making available copyright material.” While the site’s founders suggest this is indicative of the prosecution’s failure to understand the technology of the site, the prosecution countered by suggesting they were just simplifying the charges.

If you’re interested in following the case closely, I suggest you head over to TorrentFreak.com. They’ve established themselves as the definitive source for torrent-related news, and they’ve been following the case intently.

I’m not sure how I feel about The Pirate Bay’s position in this case. I’d be a hypocrite if I said I’d never torrented copyrighted material, but I can’t condone my actions as ethical. I think that The Pirate Bay’s best-case scenario is they’re found guilty of negligence by fostering a Web community where people connect to exchange copyrighted files without being stopped. But all the same, I think this is going to be a landmark case in shaping how people can interact and share information over the Internet.

What do you think? Should sites like The Pirate Bay be shuttered to protect copyright holders? Should BitTorrent use be regulated? Or should filesharing continue unimpeded?

Melissa and I are both graduates of the University of Oregon journalism program. So, as you might imagine, we’ve both spent a lot of time pondering what the hell we were thinking going into a dying industry at the precipice of the greatest economic upheaval in decades.

Living in Oregon, there’s not much in the way of mass media. There’s not much in the way of anything except for trees and grass, really. And after months of unsuccessful job hunting, the prospect of going back to grad school continues to rear its head. And because Melissa and I are both strong writers with a critical and argumentative mindset, law school continues to be recommended to us by our families and friends.

I don’t really want to go back to school. Seventeen contiguous years of education culminating in recitation, late nights and largely unsatisfying work will do that to you. But the reality of this market is even more imposing.

Realistically, my dream job would involve some pretty broad ideas:

• Music
• Culture
• Writing
• Design
• Communication

And I don’t really see a career in law lending itself to those qualities. At best, I’d be an outsider to the innovators and creators, and I’m not sure I want to attain my ideals in a purely vicarious sense.

Nevertheless, we stopped in at Borders to take a look at some practice tests and other supplemental materials on considering and applying to law school. But even for a standardized test, the LSAT is in a league of its own when it comes to condensed tedium (not from concentrate).

As a child I adored logic puzzles. Of all the worksheets and exercises I did in my younger years, logic tables - discerning whether Susie sold more lemonade than Jamal, or determining the birth order of the eleven children in a fictitious family by piecing together a series of bizarre facts - were my favorite. (So much so that at the end of third grade I requested as many xeroxes of additional logic puzzles to solve over the summer as I could obtain from my teacher. In hindsight, I think that may have been the moment where I first began to realize the full extent of my nerdiness.)

As for journalism? I guess I could keep trying for an internship at a publication, but I hear that’s more of a trust-fund thing now.

I heard that Facebook turned five years old yesterday, and I cringed. Really? I thought for sure I hadn’t squandered my entire college career on one Web site, but the facts are clear:

1. I joined Facebook in the summer of 2004, just months after its initial Harvard-only launch
2. I’ve accessed the site almost every single day since then
3. I can’t find a job, but I’m still using Facebook all the damn time

In other news, I’m pretty sure I’m the last person on the planet who hasn’t filled out his requisite “25 things about me” note to share with friends on Facebook. It’s nothing personal, really; I just don’t get much out of it. I mean, what’s the fun in doting over a 25-item list when I can pay lots of money to write whenever I want on my own little slice of life?

Melissa pointed out to me that even Time Magazine’s Claire Suddath is pissed off about it, with hilarious and pointed observation to justify her rancor. I feel like a crotchety old man for harrumphing in agreement with her, but there are just some things best kept private for one reason (author is boring) or another (author is a certifiable creeper).

Dear Reader,

Hi!

I haven’t been here in a while. I’ve been living this fascinating life where a lack of job prospects has lulled me into a significant creativity slump. Basically, nothing’s happening so I’ve got nothing to say. So yeah, I’ve broken a few pledges when it comes to writing continuously, but trust me on this one: the garbage I would have produced is a far more frightening prospect than the total lack of content I opted for instead.

But that’s all ending today. I’ve streamlined (deleted) the majority of my website and this blog is now the primary feature. In the coming days I’ll restore all the old stuff — contact information, my resume, a list of things I’ve done — through the Wordpress infrastructure. At the same time, I’m vowing to update my blog at least once per day. I really haven’t planned how I’ll do it, and there’s a pretty solid chance it won’t be worth reading, but what the hell. What’s a writer without his shitty, off-the-cuff generic prose?

Always and forever,

- Nick

Hey gang. I’m overhauling my website, and that includes this here blog. You’ll be seeing some changes in the near future (honest to gosh!) and perhaps chief among them is the name of this blog.

As of today, I’m retiring the title “Will Write 4 GP.” It wasn’t ever very clever, and it mostly just confused people. I don’t think GP has been currency in a video game since like 1995. It makes me look old.

This also means I won’t be restricted to writing only about video games. It turns out there are some other things I like, too! I think. I’ll keep you posted. But by no means am I finished writing about gaming; in fact, I hope to have something to announce on that subject soon.

I’m looking forward to writing again, and I hope you enjoy reading.

I’m back in scenic Seattle, Washington! This marks the fifth time I’ve attended the Penny Arcade Expo, an event steeped in such geeky fanfare and terrifying body odor that I’m a bit embarrassed to write about it — and this is from a guy who writes a blog exclusively about videogames.

In case you’ve never been to Seattle, there’s this odd phenomenon that has been documented and experienced almost universally. Seattleites are notorious for an outwardly warm disposition that masks a general aversion (maybe even disdain?) towards other people. Basically, everyone you meet in Seattle has the disposition of someone waiting in line at the DMV.

I’ve seen this kind of attitude in Portland as well, of course, but Seattle’s got it bad. What better place to host a convention for people who wear their pride on their gamertag?

Currently, I’m mapping out my 72-hour convention schedule. I’ll be sure to post some highlights and expectations before the expo begins, but for now I’m spending time with family. If anyone wants me to look for any specific games/developers/publishers/events/creepy cosplayers, let me know!

And if you’re heading up to PAX as well, get in touch with me. It’s gonna be a lot of fun.

Contrary to Paul Dano’s situation pictured above, today is a pretty auspicious day for my brain. Remember how I’ve been plugging away at Picross DS for the last year? Well, I closed the lid on that one; all 400-something puzzles have been solved. Nintendo and Jupiter packed in what amounted to literally hundreds of hours of brain-straining pictures to puzzle out, and yet I find myself lusting for more content, just mere days after I polished off the last picture-puzzle. (It was a DS Lite, which revealed itself to me in a moment so surreal — I was holding one of the damn things, after all! — that I felt sure I was losing my grip on this reality in favor of a two-dimensional, numbers-based one.) In a decidedly non-Nintendo move, Picross DS supports downloadable puzzles from previous Picross games as well as brand-new puzzles every couple weeks; however, I managed to run through most of them within a couple hours. 10×10 grids ain’t got nothin’ on the dozens of 25×20 behemoths I’m solving in my sleep.

In any case, while my friends and family wait with bated breath for my nervous, twitchy Picross withdrawals to pass, I dove headfirst into Braid. I mean that quite seriously; I played the game to completion in one protracted (four-hour!) sitting, from innocuous introduction to mind-fucking conclusion.

Seriously, you need to play this game.

The last time I sat in one place for four hours straight was when I was staring down the long, cold barrel of my honors college thesis deadline. The few times before that were likely either related to last-minute final essays or malevolent stomach virii.

So! With those titles out of the way, I can look forward to:

1. Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune: The prettiest game I’ve ever laid my tender eyes on. It’s shaping up to be a great rental.
2. Bionic Commando Re-Armed: A love letter to one of the greatest NES games ever made. Fun fact: The original Japanese version was called Top Secret: Hitler’s Revival, and was the second best Hitler-killing game ever made. Hitler’s about as fundamental a villain in human existence as any, but a Hitler with chain-gun arms? You simply can’t top that.
3. Doing Something with My Life: Despite my efforts hire I think this me one’s still hire out of me reach for the please hire me time being.

That’s all for now. Have fun, kids.

…and I, for one, am mad as hell!

How dare the tyrants at Micro$oft charge me a 50% increase over the standard Xbox Live arcade game price? It’s ludicrous!

It’s not like I’m paying for an independent developer’s finely crafted product, painstakingly produced and hauntingly beautiful in its ambiance.

I can’t say it any better than this:

What’s that? Fifteen dollars is too much money to pay for a downloadable game? Fine. Whatever helps you sleep at night, you stingy bastard. More Braid for me.

I’ve found it difficult to come up with a consistent method for assigning a value for a game based on its cost. I’ve mentioned my year-long love affair with Picross DS on several occasions, a game that — at a mere twenty dollars — has sated my appetite for portable gaming single-handedly for hundreds of hours. At the other end of the spectrum is the spectacular Portal, now available as a standalone purchase for $20. Portal takes only a few hours to complete, but the innovative gameplay and mind-bending experiences surely contribute to the game’s lasting value.

It should probably be noted that Penny Arcade’s On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode 1 cost $20, a price point that effectively raised the bar for how much a developer can charge for an Xbox Live Arcade game. But that was also $20 well spent in my opinion; the Penny Arcade team put together a petty damn creative game with hilarious scenarios and dialog and stylish artwork, and their endorsement of Braid seems more like a rallying of arms for creative game development than an attempt to justify PAA:OtR-SPoD:E1’s hefty price tag (and bafflingly long title).

I haven’t even talked about the moments in Braid that provoked a verbal “aha!” where the last cog in an untouched corner of my brain sprang to life, turning what was once a mind-numbing riddle into a clever puzzle unlike anything I’d solved before. I didn’t mention the brilliant, dark and distinct writing, or the myriad brilliant uses of the game’s core mechanic — time manipulation — and how it comes to a brilliant and heartbreaking crescendo in the game’s final, eponymous level.

I didn’t mention how important a game like Braid is to the medium as a whole. But I probably should.

Braid is one of those rare titles whose impact will be felt throughout game design for years to come. But more importantly, it’s a very heartfelt and personal story presented through a beautifully ethereal musical score and endearing hand-painted imagery. It’s unlike anything you’ve played before.