knockknock.biz luggage tags. Photo courtesy of justinph.

I guess it's finally time for me to level up.

It was the summer of '99 when I convinced my then editor to send me on a tour of the U.S. videogame industry. When I finally returned three weeks later, my head was still spinning. I felt as though I'd seen the future of entertainment. It was then that I made it my mission to put NEWSWEEK's coverage of this growing medium on the map. I did that in print, with cover stories on the Japanese launch of the PlayStation 2 and the spread of online gaming. I did it online, with the debut of the blog N'Gai Croal's Level Up. I did it on television, with appearances on MSNBC and CNN. You all watched me push, prod, praise, scold, discuss and debate videogames across multiple media, both mainstream and enthusiast. That's because my editors were prescient enough to let me apply my talents and establish my reach beyond the magazine, from co-blogging with MTV News to writing a monthly column for Edge and more. For this, I say to them all, thank you.

Having achieved all of this, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that I've accomplished what I set out to do ten years ago. And now it's time for me to take that decade’s worth of accumulated knowledge and do something else with it. After Friday March 6th, my passions will take me beyond the world of journalism. I’ll be wearing many hats on this new journey: videogame design consultant, media strategist, consumer technology reporter, columnist, blogger and, as always, provocateur. You’ll be able to keep track of my various adventures at ngaicroal.com, and feel free to reach out to me via email at ncroalbiz@gmail.com. It’s been a pleasure conversing with all of you, and I look forward to continuing our dialogue in the years to come.

Cheers,

 ngmoco founder Neil Young 

On June 18th, Level Up broke the news that EA Blueprint boss Neil Young was leaving Electronic Arts to launch his own company. Last Friday, we caught up with Young by phone to procure some additional details about his venture, named ngmoco. The "affable Brit," as we described young in our previous post, was happy to spill some of the beans, while keeping others secret for later. Here's what we learned, presented in our handy Just the FAQs format.

What the heck is ngmoco?

It stands for Next-Generation Mobile Company.

I repeat: what the heck is ngmoco?

Young plans to focus on developing and publishing games for iPhone class mobile devices.

That's it?

No, there's more. "I want ngmoco to feel like 1st party for the iPhone," says Young.

To read the rest of our Just the FAQs exchange with Neil Young, click on the link below. 

When Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment senior vice president Jason Hall stepped down from his post in February of 2007, Level Up was there for an exclusive first interview. The press release announcing his exit declared that Hall would enter into "a first-look videogame and feature film development deal through his wholly owned production company, HDFilms Inc," and last May, we got a glimpse at one of his first projects in an embryonic stage. The project in question was a proposed 15-30-minute "Jackass"-meets-"Game Head" television show in which Hall would alternate between interviewing/playing games with celebrities and videogame luminaries--and stunts like pepper spraying his assistant. We weren't quite sure what to make of it at the time, and not long thereafter, we put it out of our mind entirely--until February at the DICE Summit in Las Vegas, where Hall jointly interviewed the Level Up staff and Geoff Keighley.

Last month, Hall invited us back to his offices on the Warner Bros lot--located in the same bungalow as those of "300" and "Watchmen" director Zack Snyder--to show us three episodes of the completed product. Titled "The Jace Hall Show," it's now a five-minute Webisodic series available for download through Crackle and Xbox Live Marketplace, and we've got the exclusive trailer for the show above. Below, in today's installment of Just the FAQs, we grill Hall about exactly what you can expect from his "Curb Your Enthusiasm"-meets-"Jimmy Kimmel" take on videogame culture.

What is "The Jace Hall Show"?

It's a five minute weekly video show that covers lifestyle, entertainment, celebrity and culture as it surrounds videogames.

Free or fee?

Free on Sony's Crackle service. You can also get it in HD on Xbox Live Marketplace for 80 points?

Are you really going to make me do the math?

That's $1 U.S.

Cool. Who's hosting it?

Uh, Jace Hall.

Duh. I knew that. Did his mother really name him "Jace"?

To read the rest of this installment of Just the FAQs in its entirety, click on the link below. 

 

To get some more information on tomorrow's announcement of the Rubik's World title for Wii and DS, which will be published in the fall by The Game Factory, we conducted two separate interviews. We spoke first with the game's Dutch developers: Two Tribes managing director Martijn Reuvers, and the company's creative director Collin van Ginkel, who also serves as lead designer on Rubik's World. We also spoke with with David Hedley-Jones, senior vice president for the Rubik brand at Seven Towns, which owns the Rubik's Cube IP. Here's what they had to say:

Whose idea was it to make a Rubik's Cube game?

David Hedley-Jones, senior vice president for the Rubik brand at Seven Towns, credits The Game Factory with the original vision for this licensed videogame. "Game Factory approached us," he says. "They were obviously aware that there's a whole new craze going on about Rubik, which has been building over the last four or five years, reaching a critical mass last year in 2007 and carrying on this year as well. It's a great time to get involved with a brand and an iconic image that's appealing to a whole new young generation."

I want to know more about the game, but this Rubik's Cube revival is interesting. Did Seven Towns drive that, or did it happen more organically?

"It was fairly organic, to be honest," says Hedley-Jones, citing the slew of programs at the turn of the century that looked back at significant pop culture events, many of which devoted time to the Rubik's Cube. He also points to the independent World Cube Association, which bills itself as an organization which "governs competitions for all puzzles labeled as Rubik puzzles, and all other puzzles that are played by twisting the sides, so-called 'twisty puzzles'." He adds: "It's also been featured a lot in movies and advertising in particular over the last five or six years, which obviously creates a great brand awareness."

Advertising? You mean like that Playstation 3 launch commercial?

Absolutely. "They came to us and asked us if they could use the Cube in their advert," says Hedley-Jones. And in a wonderfully recursive example of life imitating art imitating life, Game Factory publicist Damien Sarrazin told us that when his company and developer Two Tribes went to pitch the Rubik's World concept to Seven Towns, one of the pieces of video they showed was that very same PS3 ad. "The commercial with the PS3, where you see actually the Cube being deconstructed, is the ancillary idea of our game concept," Sarrazin says.

I'd like to hear from the developers now, thank you very much. Are they Rubik's Cube experts?

To read today's installment of Just the FAQs in its entirety, click on the link below.

 Electronic Arts' famed "Can A Computer Make You Cry?" print ad, which departing exec Bing Gordon helped create 

Once we got wind last week of William 'Bing' Gordon's impending departure from Electronic Arts, we quickly sought a pre-briefing, to which the PR teams at both Electronic Arts and Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers graciously assented. We spoke by phone yesterday evening with Gordon, whose laconic California drawl belies one of the industry's most colorful and outspoken characters. Last night's chat, however, found him in a more contemplative mood, as he looked back at his tenure at EA--where he's credited with everything from creating the EA Sports brand to founding EA's studio system--and forward at the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead as he enters the dizzying world of venture capital. To give you a sample of our conversation as quickly as possible, we've given Gordon the Just the FAQs treatment, but we plan to publish a more complete Q&A from our wide-ranging conversation in the days to come.

Why did Gordon decide to leave Electronic Arts for Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers?

Three reasons. First, he's comfortable with the partners at Kleiner Perkins. "I've known the leading partners at Kleiner since John Doerr and Brook Byers made a founding investment in Electronic Arts in '82," Gordon told us. "Then Brook went on the board, and Brook was kind of the cool guy on the board; deeply believes in entertainment and entrepreneurial possibilities. So he shaped my thinking about what a board member can be."

Over the last decade, Gordon has stopped by Kleiner Perkins from time to time to see what they've been up to. This, he says, resulted in him being invited to join the boards of such Kleiner Perkins investments as Amazon and Audible. "I kind of have 25 years with them. Like 'em; get my best reading list from them. So that's kind of the first thing: long experience and love for the Kleiner way of doing things."

What's the second reason?

With an empty nest looming as his daughters go off to college, he's been wondering about the second act in his American life. "I've got 15 more years to do something—might be cool to do something else" says Gordon of his thought process. "The first thing that popped into my head was Kleiner. Just unbidden, popped into my mind."

And the third?

To read the rest of today's installment of Just the FAQs, click on the link below.

 The Hospital Fees mini-game from Bright Light and EA's Monopoly

After we spent a good 20 minutes playing Electronic Arts' Hasbro, we were intrigued enough by it to set up an interview with the developers at EA's Bright Light studio in the U.K. On Friday, we spoke by phone with creative director Matt Birch and producer Darren Potter. We'll try to bring you the entire interview at a later date, but for now, here's a sample of what we discussed in another installment of Just the FAQs.

Monopoly has been around forever. What's different about this?

The highlight of EA's Monopoly is a mode that they're calling The Richest. "The idea with The Richest was to take advantage of the speed of computing to make a game that a modern family could sit down and play in 20 or 30 minutes," says Matt Birch, the game's creative director. Think of it as the speed chess version of the game you know and love.

Interesting, but vague. How does it work?

For The Richest, your goal is still to amass the most wealth, but here, you keep score with assets. The more properties you own, the richer you are. When you land on a property that no-one owns, it's yours. But when you land on a property that someone else owns, you have to give them one of your properties as rent--and vice-versa.

I get that. But what's with the speed chess analogy?

To read the rest of this installment of Just the FAQs, click on the link below.

 The cover for the Pixies' 1989 album "Doolittle"

During our phone briefing yesterday with Harmonix CEO and co-founder Alex Rigopulos and Paul DeGooyer, senior vice president of Electronic Games & Music, we uncovered a slew of tidbits about their philosophy regarding future releases of albums, tracks and the overall Rock Band "platform," as term Rigopulos used on more than one occasion during our chat. We'll serve up the full text of this interview at a later date, but in the meantime, here are some of the highlights, in the form of an FAQ:

When is the next album coming out?

Next month.

What is it?

"The Cars," by, um, The Cars.

Anything after that?

In June, they plan to release "Doolittle," by the Pixies. "This is the beginning of what will be a regular flow of full albums," says Harmonix's Rigopulos.

"Who Are You"? More like "Where Are You"? Why wasn't The Who's "Who's Next" the first album release, as previously expected?

Because Harmonix does not yet have everything it needs to create all of the tracks. "We do require specialized audio mixes in the form of stems," says MTV's DeGooyer. "And to be perfectly candid, [Judas Priest's "Screaming For Vengeance'] is the first one that was ready."

Can I play "Screaming For Vengeance" as Rob Halford or Glenn Tipton?

To read the rest of our FAQ on Rock Band's full-length albums, click on the link below.