The Vlogger Interviews: TheGoodKyle

About this interview:
The gaming community on YouTube is probably one of the largest and most active online communities, driven by a massive and growing gaming industry.   Kyle (TheGoodKyle) is both a YouTuber and a gamer, and has been creating online content on a regular basis since last October.  While some of his content is gameplay related, he also shares his opinions and perspectives on gaming.  He recently created a written response to periodic claims that video gaming, in and of itself, leads to violence in real life.  Like many on YouTube, he's found  enormous online community to share his specific passion.

Creaky Old Gaming Companies: The Death of Milo

I’m a big fan of Peter Molyneux’s “Milo” concept, introduced at E3 in 2009 as a proposed new game for the then yet-to-be-introduced Kinect add-on for the Microsoft Xbox gaming system.  Kinect essentially does away with hand controllers, and allows the user to interact through using body movement, voice interaction and facial recognition technologies.


"Emotion Capture" - Directing Milo from John Dower on Vimeo.

The Milo concept, as suggested, allowed the player to actually speak to the main character, a ten year old boy - essentially carrying on almost-human conversations (and employing, as Molyneux himself admitted, a bit of smoke-and-mirrors trickery).  Later details would reveal the game's actual story to be somewhat dark in nature, suggesting the possibility of a uniquely immersive, terrifying experience.

Despite the derision of a good part of the gaming community, the concept actually held great promise.  The demos, while largely staged, were intriguing.  Though I wasn’t a gamer, I would have shelled out a few hundred dollars just to experience what would likely have evolved into form of entertainment all it’s own.  I think it would have brought legions of other non-gamers into the gaming world.

Unfortunately “Milo” never came to be.  It was nowhere to be seen at Kinect’s debut.  Molyneaux would later admit that the project was dead and buried.

Why?  In Patrick Garratt’s interview with Molyneaux, just published on the VG247.com gaming website, Molyneaux reveals that “Milo” was abandoned precisely because he and his Lionhead (a Microsoft-aligned gaming company) associates decided that it simply didn’t fit into the current gaming environment.  In other words, it was simply too far removed from the industry norm: it wasn’t what current gamers would buy.

Like any industry, there’s always the bottom line.  Reaction from the gaming industry, from this non-gamer’s perspective (full disclosure: I eventually bought a PS3), was tepid at best.  Part of that was due to Molyneaux’s reputation as one who tends to exaggerate his upcoming projects.  Apart from that skepticism, there seemed to be an unwillingness to buy into the vision of gaming that could be immersive to this extent.

Part of the problem, I believe, is that gaming is a huge, mature multi-billion dollar industry.  Many games, at their core, are similar in nature  - but it’s what their core audience wants.  Gaming companies are not in the business of being pioneers; they’re in the business of making money.

The danger, however, is that their intransigence will one day leave the current gaming industry far behind.

Case in point:  Before Amazon.com became the go-to place for nearly everything, there was the Sears catalog.  For near one hundred years, Americans could be anything and everything from the catalog, and have the items delivered to their doorstep (even prefab homes, at one time).   Sears, however went out of the catalog business in 1993, just before online retail began it’s rise.   In 1994, Jeff Bezos created Amazon.com.  In 1995, Amazon began operations - eventually becoming, in effect, the Sears catalog of the Internet age.

It took Sears over 100 years to become a creaky old company that didn’t have the vision that might have changed it’s fate. 

Things move more quickly today.  It only took 35 years or so for the gaming industry to become creaky...

Previous posts about "Milo"

Milo Resurfaces
Technology, Gaming and the Age of Milo

Siri and Milo, Sitting in a Tree

Ever since Siri, the voice recognition/voice synthesis AI device on the iPhone 4s came out, I've been thinking about Milo.

Here's Apple's own demo of Siri - word is that it lives up to expectations.

Milo [see my most recent post, here], you may recall, was a game concept that Peter Molyneux and Lionhead Studios introduced for the Xbox 360's Kinect project.  It would have allowed the user to interact with the main character in the game, and so impact his actions as the plot unfolded.  The demo seemed extraordinary - but unfortunately, the gamed seemed so much vaporware.

But, what a concept!

Siri, which so far is only available on the new iPhone, is a voice recognition and response system that gain knowledge and sophistication now only from the user - but the entire universe of users.  It has, so far, proven to correctly respond to voice inquiries and respond in a natural nearly-human cadence.

When the Milo project was revealed, just two years ago, it's capabilities as described were similar in concept - and would have created a spectacular flagship game for Xbox Kinect add-on, which aims to allow gaming to interact more naturally with the user - through body movement and, it was said, voice synthesis.

It never happened.

Details of the game concept for Milo were sketchy.  It involved an English boy transplanted with him parents to America, where, it seems, he has trouble fitting in.  He also has a faithful dog, Kate, that accompanies him on the (dark?) adventures.

Poor Milo was derided, of course.  The fact that the main character was a little boy led to endless insinuations by doubtful gamers that he would be a plaything for all sorts of bizarre individuals. 

Now that Siri has proved the concept, imagine if that little boy was Damien Thorn, the little boy from "The Omen," or Freddy Krueger from the "Nightmare on Elm Street" movies - or the terrifying Hannibal Lector from "Silence of the Lambs."  What if you were to interact directly with these characters as you worked your way through the game.  Such interaction, I think, could bring a new level of terror separate and apart from any motion picture or gaming experience.  Interacting with Hannibal Lector is one thing - talking directly to him as Jodie Foster's character is another.

With the sophistication and crowd-developed knowledge base of Siri,  it's now conceivable to create fully immersive virtual reality environments.  What just recently was pure science fiction is clearly within reach.  "Virtual Reality," in fact, has been stuck in a sort of stasis for a while as interactive technology has caught up public expectations.

I used to darken the lights with a friend's son and play the early computer game, "Alone in the Dark," which involved wondering through a vast mansion and avoiding all sorts of perils. It was frightening - but imagine actually responding to that ghostly voice, or having to verbally answer a question correctly at the peril of "death." 

Imagine being in the middle of a zombie apocalypse - or a civil war battlefield - or immersing yourself with the fictional culture of the alien world of Avatar. Even better - imagine meeting and interacting directly with your favorite hero (we'll leave the ethical challenges of re-creating and interpreting a historical person or event for another discussion). 

It's astounding that Microsoft and Lionhead killed the Milo project, particularly when critical pieces of the necessary tech are now real and tangible.

I haven't yet seen any indication that the tech behind "Siri" is being developed for game systems - but Apple being what it is, one wonders if there's a visionary somewhere within the company working to redefine gaming as we know it.  They've done it with so much other tech, so who knows...