On the whole, I’m feeling positive about 2012. Some exciting announcements will be coming in the next few days that will finally allow me to pull back the curtain on what I’ve been up to for the past couple of months. I can’t wait to share with everyone what I’ll be working on next and – more importantly – I can’t wait to start getting my hands dirty with the project. Stay tuned for news on that this coming week.

Meanwhile, my foray into freelance writing has gone better than I’d hoped. The editors of Joystiq, Kotaku, Gamespot, IGN and more have all been gracious enough to publish my work and the responses shave been mostly positive. After three years or so of working behind-the-scenes managing The Escapist, it’s been reinvigorating to strap the writing boots back on and exercise those muscles. It’s also been a joy to work with some of the best editors in the business as colleagues instead of competitors. This is something I’m expecting to do a lot more of in the coming months … but I digress.

Finally (but not in any way less importantly) this website and the AAK Podcast have also given me a tremendous amount of pleasure during my soon-to-be-over full-time employment hiatus. After working for years on something as massive and complex as The Escapist, it’s been a welcome respite to wield the increasingly powerful internet tools to create something smaller and more focused. If for no other reason than that it has reconfirmed that creating content is my first, best destiny and that – for now at least – the online space is still the best medium for the kind of work I want to do.

The AAK Podcast in particular has been a joy to create. Working with Sean Andrich again has been like coming home, and the conversations I’ve been able to share with my fantastic guest hosts have been amazing. I’ve really enjoyed sharing a glimpse into these talented visionaries’s minds, and getting to know better some of the people who have inspired me to always do better myself.

Personally, as well, I’ve never felt more alive. I’m now (as of last Saturday) just a few years shy of 40, but I feel more stronger and healthier, physically and mentally, than I ever have. And I am immensely grateful that circumstances and opportunity conspired to allow me to spend the past several weeks visiting family and taking care of the people (and pets) that matter most.

I started 2011 dealing with injuries and ailments, both physical and mental, and wasn’t at all sure that I had made the correct life choices. By contrast, 2012 is already a win for me. I’ve never felt more confident of what I have accomplished and the person i have grown to be. 2011 was a difficult year, a year of compromise and frustration, in spite of a handful of inspirational moments. I’m looking forward to making 2012 the year that makes the difficulties seem like small clouds passing in front of the sun on a warm, summer day.

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One way to assess the health of any trend in popular culture is to keep tabs on what kids are interested in. Take, for example, the continued popularity of slutty, cartoonesque dolls. This tells us that A) little girls still play with dolls, B) toymakers can still get away all kinds of crazy shit if they design their toys to look like cartoons and C) the age at which young women feel it is appropriate to satisfy their craving for attention through overt hyper-sexualization is creeping ever downward.

Yet I digress.

Browsing through the lists of this year’s popular holiday must-buys (and trolling the toy section at Wal-Mart) reveals that videogames and videogame-inspired activities are all the rage. Board games, RC vehicles and, yes, dolls, are still popular, but activities inspired by or stripped directly from videogames are being packaged and sold to children of all ages this holiday season, in spite of (or as a tangential result of) the fact that there are no dedicated videogame machines on any of the popular news media gift round-ups. This may be a nod to the down economy, seeing as even the least expensive videogame consoles cost close to $200. Or it could be tacit recognition that all of the major consoles are over 5 years old and everyone has one. (Which is where we get the tangential causality of all these game-inspired toys. Keep up.)

The Big Hot this holiday season is live-action toys that draw the videogame experience into the realm of the real. Like the Fisher Price Smart Cycle. For about $100, you can buy your kid (or yourself) this life-sized bicycle (sans wheels) that plugs into a TV. Once seated, the kid can then pretend to pedal his little heart out, ultimately going nowhere. I shit you not this exists. It also creates games and “learning experiences” that are designed to assuage whatever guilt may exist in the minds of parents who are raising children to live in constant fear of going outside. I’ve pinged Fisher Price for a review model but they’ve so far failed to respond.

Also on the “fake-is-better-than-real” train is Hasbro with their Power Tour Electric Guitar, $199. This guitar comes with an instructional CD and the promise that a child will be able to learn “classic rock anthems” without “any musical background.” Or strings, for that matter. The device is essentially an air guitar with an amp (sold separately). While I appreciate the proposition that a toy guitar may be able to teach children to appreciate music by ostensibly making it, I think that this particular toy will probably fail to teach children anything more than how to look cool while inadequately playing an instrument. Which, to be fair, is probably enough to land them a gig in any rock band.

The Beyblade Metal Fusion Super Vortex Battle Set ($65) is one must-have toy that puts the “meta” in Metal Fusion. It’s essentially a videogame-like a fighting ring for spinning metal tops, based on the anime series created to promote the art of waging war with traditional Japanese Beigoma, or “spinning tops.” Two (or more) players can pit their tops against each other, or buy customizable tops or top pieces and go all mini-gear head about it, tuning their tops and techniques to out spin their opponents. One imagines neighborhood Beyblade battles that eventually lead to fisticuffs and roving band of top-spinning street hoodlums robbing little, old ladies to feed their addiction. Kids who tire of face-to-face rumbling can also go online to compete with virtual kids from around the globe. There’s also a videogame based on the actual game. No, I am not making this up.

Progressing down the line from simulated violence to almost-actual-violence, we come to the ever-popular Nerf line of projectile shooters. This season, they’re also jumping on the “vortex” train, releasing their >Nerf Vortex line. Children who are too young to enjoy the sensory overload of this season’s military shooters (or man children who are bored at work) can instead shoot each other with actual (fake) guns. Instead of the familiar foam darts, the Vortex blasters shoot spinning discs that go farther and achieve higher terminal velocities without actually breaking skin (one hopes (or doesn’t)).

While I don’t necessarily think the idea of kids shooting each other for play came from videogames, per se, it is interesting form a techno-sociological perspective to witness the evolution of play war technology. If anything, the popularity of online shooters is a response to how much kids (and adults) enjoy pretending to inflict ballistic death on their peers. In just my own lifetime, we’ve progressed from finger guns with which one has to shout “BANG! BANG!” imagine the progress of the projectile and then wait for the pantomimed “OW” on the other end, to cap guns that do the “BANGing” but little else, to videogames in which both BANG and OW are calculated by inscrutable digital logic, and then back into the world of the real with toy guns that don’t quite BANG but offer plenty of OW and a satisfying flurry of simulated lead. What’s next in the world of pretend death dealing, only the toy manufacturers can say for sure, but I’d wager some manner of holographic mayhem is on order. Imagine laser tag with simulated arterial spray.

Possibly for use with the Vortex (although sold separately, of course) are the Spy Net Stealth Video Glasses by Jakks Pacific. For $40, lucky children aged 8 and up can surreptitiously shoot “up to 20 minutes” of video of unsuspecting passersby with a camera hidden in a pair of (admittedly chunky) sunglasses and then upload that video to their PCs. I have no doubt that many, many kids would have plenty of fun with this device and much of it would be clean and wholesome, but I guaran-damn-tee you that the “8 and up” demographic is not going to be market to embrace this device. Expect a glut of upskirt videos on Red Tube come early next year.

Finally, for children who are fans of the most popular videogame on the planet, there’s a version they can play without getting jelly smears all over Mommy or Daddy’s iPad: the Angry Birds Knock on Wood play set from Mattel. A steal at just three times the price of the actual videogame, this hands-on playset allows children to construct their own pig fortresses out of fake wood, glass and stone, then hurl bird-shaped objects at them until they clatter apart in a shower of destructive glee. Afterward, they can sleep it off snuggled up with an Official Angry Birds plush from commonwealthtoy.com. You can thank me later.

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First of all, there will be no regular AAK podcast this week (and maybe not next week either). I’m driving to Texas for Thanksgiving and doing some camping on the way. And on the way back. “Taking the scenic route” is, I believe, what they call this. So I’ll be away from my podcasty stuff for a week at least, but I’ll be back with a new regular AAK episode as soon as I can get one up. Promise.

In the mean time I hope you’ll settle for a short interview I conducted with Peter Tangen, Hollywood photographer and producer of The Real Life Superheroes Project. I interviewed him for a recent article that might, someday, get published somewhere cool, and he was kind enough to not only provide some great insight into what the Real Life Superheroes do, but to also allow me to post the full interview here. That will go live on Wednesday. So stay tuned. It kind of touched me, I have to say.

The other big announcement sort of also has to do with the AAK Podcast, and the site as a whole. And my life, really. And everything. I have a new job, being the gist. It will be some time before I’m able to say exact what the job is or who I’ll be working for, but it is a pretty amazing job and I’m looking forward to getting to work. I’m actually not even sure I’m supposed to be saying I have a job at all, but THIS BEAST WILL NOT BE CHAINED (on that topic anyway). What are they gonna do? Fire me for being excited? (Please don’t.)

Anyway, so that’s kind of A THING and it’s pretty awesome and I can’t wait to be able to talk about it. But for now: SILENCE. Alas.

Big thanks to everyone who’s been keeping me in ramen and supporting my offbeat take on games journalism in the interim. Looking forward to what the future brings. Also turkey. Really looking forward to turkey. Thanksgiving can’t come soon enough.

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We had our first healthy eating disaster last night. Bella Bean delivered some turnips and I had no idea what to do with them, so I looked up a recipe and found one. It was supposed to be “Turnip and Apple Salad,” but what came out was “Let’s Eat Leftover Tacos Instead.”

The fault is mine. I failed to notice that A) the recipe called for overnight refrigeration, B) required canned pineapple (which I didn’t have) and C) asked for the turnips and apples (and carrots) to be drenched in an avalanche of sugar before being tossed with oil. It turned out to be less of a recipe than a formula for diabetes-by-vegetable. I need to start looking more closely at those recipes before I try them.

I cut the sugar requirement in half and used Xylitol, AKA “Alien Sugar” instead. And omitted the pineapples of course. And skipped the refrigeration. So what we ate was boiled turnips with raw carrots and a few slices of granny smith apple, sprinkled with alien sugar and coated with a little oil. It was surprisingly edible, but not something I’ll try again. It was also, sadly, not a meal. More of a side dish really. It went well with tacos.

Right now I’m sitting at my exact target weight of 172, roughly 18 pounds lighter than when I started trying to take better care of myself a couple of months ago. Just in time to spend Thanksgiving in Texas, land of red meat and tasty, fried things.

Dear Treadmill: Promise not to judge me when I get back.

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I don’t like to comment on internet feminism issues because, honestly, I think most of them are bullshit. You think Catwoman doesn’t deserve to be called a bitch? Fuck you. Who the hell cares? It’s fucking Catwoman. The lady dresses up as a cat and commits crimes. I think she gave up her right for protectionary sympathy-feminism as soon as she sewed on the cat ears. Also, she’s a cartoon character aimed at teenaged boys. Seriously. Save your activism for the deserving.

Such as this lady:

You come to expect it, as a woman writer, particularly if you’re political. You come to expect the vitriol, the insults, the death threats. After a while, the emails and tweets and comments containing graphic fantasies of how and where and with what kitchen implements certain pseudonymous people would like to rape you cease to be shocking, and become merely a daily or weekly annoyance, something to phone your girlfriends about, seeking safety in hollow laughter.

That’s The Independent’s columnist Laurie Penny writing about the contents of her inbox. She gets hate mail because she is a female writer with controversial opinions. Yet unlike male writers with controversial opinions who also get hate mail, the mail she gets goes into explicit detail about the sexual assaults her male audience members fantasize about committing against her. Not a few emails here or there, but dozens or more. Daily.

This is a level of abuse that causes many women to seek treatment. This is a kind of abuse that, in many states, is considered illegal if committed in person. Yet online, where no one can know who you are without a court order (or well-connected friends) it is allowed to pass and women are encouraged (often by other women) to just get over it.

“An opinion,” says Penny, “is the short skirt of the internet. Having one and flaunting it is somehow asking an amorphous mass of almost-entirely male keyboard-bashers to tell you how they’d like to rape, kill and urinate on you.”

People, there is a line. You may call this “just something that happens,” or “welcome to the internet,” or the price you pay as a strong, opinionated woman. But whatever you may call it, it is wrong. It is wrong.

For me, this isn’t just some hipster crusade. I am not portraying myself as a pseudo-feminist in order to get laid, or harping on about the injustices of the world in order to appear worldly. This issue of casual sexual oppression is something I take very seriously. For me it is personal.

For five years I worked as an editor at one of the leading voices in videogames journalism. And my magazine became one of the leading voices in videogame journalism because we were one of the very few outlets that was actively seeking female voices to contribute. Not because we wanted to show off their tits and not out of some misguided affirmative action-esque activism. But because women writers have a unique and interesting take on videogames and internet culture and their pens work just as well as men’s. Better in some cases. At one point, my magazine had the highest percentage of female editors and employees among any other outlet I knew of, and I was regularly hiring more women to write for me than anyone else. That list included (at one time) the woman I worked for, who had founded the magazine in the first place. It also included the writer I hired who eventually became my wife.

I believe that the women I have worked with have done a great deal to roll back the perception that women online are somehow asking for abuse just by walking in the door. That they don’t belong. That this is a place for men and their kind is not wanted. That it’s OK to punctuate that point by threatening to penetrate and murder them. They didn’t do it because they felt they needed to make a statement, but rather, because they didn’t believe that not being men should preclude them from following their dreams and doing the work they wanted to do and were capable of doing.

These are women who, as children, grew up in a time when their mothers could not hold certain jobs just because the men in charge did not want them to. Now they are grown women in a world where they can fight for their country, run for president and write about sports (or games). Yet in spite of how far we have all come, there is still this:

After one particular round of rape threats, including the suggestion that, for criticizing neoliberal economic policymaking, I should be made to fellate a row of bankers at knifepoint, I was informed that people were searching for my home address.

I’ve been writing on the internet since such a thing has been possible, and I’ve written more and expressed more incendiary opinions than almost any other writer who has ever worked for me, including the women. I get hate mail. I have always gotten hate mail. Yet I have never gotten even half as much hate mail as the women who have worked for me. I have never been threatened with the kind of grotesque physical violence that many men feel it is appropriate to hurl at women online. I have never been treated with the kind of rampant disrespect that any woman who writes on the internet must endure on a daily basis.

This is not “an internet thing.” This is not a human thing. This is vile and egregious and people are only getting away with it because no one knows who they are. This is the kind of activity that would be met with fists if it were happening in the open, and the fact that it is not does not make it OK.

If you are a man who assaults women online, that you can get away with it does not absolve you. Any more than wearing a hood should absolve you of hanging people. What is wrong is what is wrong and whether or not I can see your face as you do it does not make it right. You are still a bad person.

If you threaten women with violence from behind the internet’s digital veil then you are a bully and a coward and a weak human being. If you think that it’s OK to threaten a woman with physical violence, sexual degradation or murder because she had the audacity to be a woman and share her opinion on the internet, then be aware that you are wielding a sword that cuts both ways. And also that you fail as a man.

There are things that men should not do to women. At all. Period. Ever. Even online. Perhaps especially online. And good men should be willing to stand up against the bad men who do those things. Because that is our job. Not to whine and wring our hands, but to stop these things when we can, because we can, and because it is the right thing to do.

There is a line, gentlemen, and if you contribute to the flavor of abuse that terrorizes women who share their opinions on the internet, then you are crossing it. Period. And if you do it to my wife or any of the women I care about, then I will find you and I will hurt you. I won’t tell you about it on Xbox live, or send you an email describing how it’s going to happen. I’ll just do it. And you will never see it coming.

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In the wake of Nintendo’s catastrophic news last week of a near-$Billion loss for the first half of the fiscal year, critics and fans alike have been weighing in. Die-hard fans say Nintendo will make good because they can’t stand to think of a Nintendo that’s failed. Industry analysts predict a dire future, because, well, instability is fun.

Meanwhile, where’s Nintendo on all of this? Talking about bees. I shit you not.

Nintendo announced over the weekend that Mario Kart 7 will come bundled with an unlockable bee and caterpillar combo that is sure, sarcasm aside, to make the kids squeal. Hell, that cute, little bee is making me squeal, and I haven’t played Kart in a decade.

In addition to bees and caterpillars, Nintendo’s reactionary plan to save shareholder value is to unleash micro-transactions and possibly subscription-based games on the 3DS platform, via firmware update. Yet while in-game micro-transactions and cute, fuzzy bees are sure to incite plenty of slavering from devoted fans, Nintendo is going to have to step it up in order to satisfy investors and ensure their hard-won market lead doesn’t evaporate due to the twin dangers of a slimmer currency exchange rate and aggressive pressure from mobile apps.

Here are my suggestions. Nintendo, let’s talk. I’m currently available for an executive-level leadership role and willing to relocate.

1. Follow the Crowd by Following the Crowd

Part of Nintendo’s 30-year legacy of profitable joy-making includes coming up at a time when consumers didn’t have much choice in how they were entertained. In 1981 you were lucky to have 12 channels on your TV, a dozen more with cable. Today the amount of choice available to the entertainment consumer is staggering, and consumers are increasingly demanding their entertainment go where they want it to go, when they want it, how they want it. Companies that don’t listen get trampled. Just ask Netflix.

Meanwhile, Nintendo. With Wii, 3DS and soon the Wii U, the stalwart company has demanded obedience from developers and consumers alike and both are starting to buck. Third-party game developers have fled from Wii, citing difficulties creating for the system’s unique control scheme, and consumers have refused to warm to 3DS in sufficient numbers to categorize the device as a market leader. Who on Earth could have seen this coming?

Well, Nintendo’s President, Satoru Iwata for one. He predicted the developer revolt over Wii in 2005:

“If the next generation platforms are going to create even more gorgeous looking games using further enhanced functionality, and if that next-gen market can still expand the games industry, then I’m afraid that third-parties may not support Nintendo,” Iwata told MCV prior to the Wii’s launch.

Smart guy. Too bad he didn’t act on that premonition, or Nintendo might not be looking at a billion dollar hemorrhage. Six years on, it’s time to listen to those instincts and give consumers and developers what they want. Neither are likely to forgive another decade of arrogance.

2. Lose the 3DS

It was a brave move to follow the crowd on 3D and release yet another iteration of the hundred million + selling mobile gaming device that has been largely responsible for maintaining the company’s profitability, but it hasn’t sold well and it won’t sell well. 3D is a fad, glasses-less or no, and most people who game on-the-go would rather play cheap games on their phone than give themselves a headache for $40 a pop.

Instead of dragging the operation further into the pit by over-focusing on making this albatross’s game library competitive, better to cut it loose and sail on. It failed to rise. It’s OK. It happens to all the guys. (Well, most of them.)

3. Redesign the Wii U

Iwata is blaming Nintendo’s focus on launching Wii U (as well as the 3DS’s poor performance, slow software sales, the weak dollar and a strike at Santa’s Workshop) for the company’s dismal earnings, all but tacitly admitting that over-focusing on new hardware has induced massive damage in their weak spot: games.

“The period when we needed to shift from the Nintendo DS to the Nintendo 3DS overlapped with the period when we had to prepare for the Wii U,” Iwata told investors.

Great. Thanks for the newsflash, Ace. Now stop making sense and start making the hard calls.

It’s time to shuffle that tethered, low-powered, closed-system device back into R&D and launch it for Holiday 2012 or 2013 as a free-roaming, open-system gaming tablet untethered to a moth-eaten console that will set Nintendo on a competitive footing against the companies that are kicking its ass at the moment: Apple and Google.

A Wii U that can allow only one player to play only certain games a small distance from the TV is a loser. You know it. I know it. If Nintendo doesn’t know it, they’re fooling themselves. Wii U will be competitive against other Nintendo devices and not much else. They may as well call it “My First iPad” and market it to toddlers.

4. Make the Damn Games

Nobody enjoys hearing this, especially Nintendo, but hurry the F* up with those fan-favorite franchises. And make more of them.

Nintendo has sold, to date, more than 80 million Wiis and over 150 million DS devices. That’s a massive install base, most of whom are sitting at home alone waiting for Mario and Zelda to call.

Critics may pan franchises like Madden and Call of Duty for rolling out barely-improved titles every season, but fans buy both of those franchises (and more like them) by the millions. A Zelda every year might not elevate the experience to Zen-like perfection, but then again, you don’t see Activision and EA posting billion-dollar losses.

Nintendo needs to lean on the gas and get some of those “highly-anticipated” products to market a lot more quickly, or else learn the hard way the same lesson as id Software that “When it’s done” is for market leaders. Always. Be. Shipping.

5. Phone Home

This may seem radical, but it’s time for the Big N to look hard at phones, and perhaps even make one.

Let me tell you a tale of a market leader with an innovative, industry-changing idea who nevertheless fell out of favor with the marketplace and is now considered an also-ran. No, I’m not talking about Nintendo (but this could be them in a year). I’m talking about Nokia.

Eight years ago Nokia was the biggest kid on the block in the phone market. They could do no wrong. Today they’re hemorrhaging talent and money and have been forced to approach Microsoft on their knees to beg for a partnership. What went wrong? N-Gage, for starters.

N-Gage was so ahead of the curve it put the company behind the market. Yet what was so revolutionary about the concept? That people would play games on a phone? In 2003 that was, in fact, a remarkable idea that many couldn’t seem to grasp — including Nokia’s customers. Yet Nokia forged ahead, botched the rollout, failed to give consumers exactly what they wanted and dropped the ball in the end zone. A few years later, phones capable of playing games (and more) were all over the place, and millions of people started dropping $0.99 a pop on games that wouldn’t look out of place on one of Nintendo’s handhelds (or the N-Gage). But they weren’t giving any of that money to Nokia.

Nintendo has a golden opportunity now to rechart their course in a bold, brave way. With approximately $10 billion in the bank and a stable of unique, recognizable and market-crushing IPs, they could dominate any niche they chose to enter. All they have to do is swallow the bushido pride and deign to compete on someone else’s playing field.

6. Plan B

Somewhere deep in the bowels of the Big N’s Kyoto headquarters is a red file folder marked “Plan B.” Inside are the details of a slash-and-burn business reduction strategy designed to excise the company’s hardware and R&D arms, leaving behind only what’s necessary to keep alive the shining jewel that has been keeping the company afloat since the beginning: Mario. And Zelda. And Kirby and all the rest of the company’s prized IPs and the design and development minds that have been responsible for propelling those unassuming videogame characters into the hearts of millions.

Sega had a similar plan. After that company had exhausted the limits of hardware buffoonery, they fire-saled their hardware division and withdrew to Japan to focus on turning out new models of their own prized IPs. Except they didn’t have half the inspiration in their closet as Nintendo. Plus, they forget to actually focus on the games. Instead they churned out half-baked and poorly designed shadows of their former selves. Whoops.

If Nintendo can sell hundreds of millions of Mario and Zelda games to gamers who have purchased their consoles solely for the privilege of playing Mario and Zelda games, imagine what they could do on a healthy, thriving platform. Or in the cloud.

**

This is one of those unique moments in the history of an industry when, years on, we’ll be able to look back and say we knew what was coming. The clues were there. The repercussions plain to see. Whether in the end we’ll be talking about how Nintendo lost it all or saved their own asses and reminded us why they became market leaders in the first place is entirely up to Nintendo. Dear Iwata (or whoever the board replaces him with): Choose wisely.

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