Heard back from Nissan today.

I was sitting in the Chili’s at the Chicago-O’Hare airport when I got a call from a man named Luis. It was in response to my letter to the VP of Parts and Service. The general tone sounded somewhat promising at first, but gradually slid on a determined spiral into the inevitable rejection.

It was the part where he started going on about ‘obligation’ that really got to me though:

“Well I understand sir, and I sympathize– during the warranty period, Nissan is under obligation to correct such situations, but once the warranty has run out, Nissan is under no oblig–”

That’s when I cut him the fuck off. This is not about Obligation, nor has it ever been, as far as I’m concerned. This is about doing what’s right for your fucking customer, and I thought I’d been very clear on that point from the start. For God’s sake, a second-grader could figure out that Nissan doesn’t have to do jack shit to help me out. The warranty ran out. Case Closed.

This is about doing what’s right for your customer and about instilling a sense of trust into the person that’s about to hand over $10-20,000 to you. The fact that he used the “O-Word” twice  in one sentence told me everything I needed to know. I told him I’d obviously made a mistake and thanked him for his time. That’s that.

…anybody want to buy a ‘gently-used’ Nissan?

It was fucking ridiculous. The guy just COULD NOT wait to get around me on Aviation Blvd, so he tries to zoom past right before the lane ends. There’s definitely a bit of ice on the roads, but I guess he thought he was just goddamn invincible in his bigshot quasi-SUV with AWD.

Either way, just as I was mouthing “you… fucking… idiot”, he loses control right in front of me and slides into the oncoming lane, he goes all the way 360, and tries desperately to get back over, while the oncoming car glides slowly into his front corner. CRUNCH.

Luckily all involved parties were able to slow down enough so that it was a pretty minor incident. Either way. You’re a moron dude.

Also some guy tried to turn DIRECTLY into my lane less than a mile from my house. It is very difficult to swerve out of the way quickly when there’s ice on the roads, but I managed it.

That is all.

–

EDIT: Okay I lied, that’s not actually all; It is worth mentioning that I-40 was remarkably well-behaved. Everybody putzed along at a reasonable speed, no congestion, no accidents. Plenty of cars littering the ditch though– Maybe they served as an effective enough caution to other would-be daredevils?

Ninite is freakin awesome. I will shamelessly declare that I am only posting this here because I know I’ll forget the URL next time I do a clean install.

The fact that a company would maintain a position of “Senior VP of TOTAL CUSTOMER SATISFACTION” (caps mine because it seems like such an epic thing)– and then completely fail to make this person’s contact information available to the end customer, is… disheartening to say the least.

Many of you who follow my rants on Twitter or are unfortunate enough to interact with me on a regular basis will know that my 5-year-old Nissan Sentra has been diagnosed with a problem requiring a TOTAL ENGINE REPLACEMENT (Nissan likes things to be total, I suppose). After speaking to various levels of Nissan reps from the dealer to lower-level consumer affairs bile-fodder, I’ve decided it’s time to pull out all the stops. I’m currently in the (gruelling) process of composing my “TOTAL DOUCHEBAG GUILT-TRIP” letter to Nissan Corporate– but I had to send an email to Consumer Affairs to try to wheedle the contact information out of them:

Greetings,

I have recently been VERY unsatisfied with the result of my interactions with Consumer Affairs, and must therefore request the contact information of Nissan’s Vice President of Total Customer Satisfaction, as well as the Vice Presidents of Marketing, Sales, and any other relevant areas.

Please note that my time is very valuable and I don’t appreciate it being wasted– therefore no position lower than Vice President will be acceptable. I will require mailing addresses as well as email addresses and phone numbers. My case reference number for Consumer Affairs was 6661255 if you require it.

Thank you.

I’ll post my TOTAL ASSFACE GUILT-TRIP letter as soon as I get around to writing it. I never was very good at writing papers– especially with the kind of restraint I’m going to have to exercise here.

Well, after the 2 whole hits I got to my blog following Kat’s Endorsement, I feel I should return the favor, and also link to something equally as amazing.

BEATLES ROCK BAND!!!!!! WOOOOO FUCK YEA!

Seriously, watch that video and try to be anything other than entranced. Simply awesome. Now if only it showed more of their shoes…

Okay, if I try to go back and make anymore changes, I need you to collectively punch me in the balls. That means YOU, internet!

I’ve just exported what absolutely must be the final version of my soundtrack for the 2 Bit gallery opening at DesignBox tomorrow. For those that don’t know, it’s an art exhibit to showcase game-inspired art from industry people in and around the Triangle area of North Carolina.

It’s sponsored by my employer, Spark Plug Games, and is being organized by our most excellent artist, Adam Capps. I’ve been brought on to compose music for the event, and this was all done in about a month.

You can call me DJ Scoplecopter.

Extended Cut

Regular Cut

Extended is basically just every song looping twice, so that it took up more time. No real reason to grab it as opposed to the other.

Since the release of Fat Princess, I’ve found myself having quite a few conversations with my female friends regarding feminism and our Industry.

THIS ARTICLE makes some really good points. No matter how much you laud something like Mass Effect as “tasteful” and “artfully done”, the fact remains that you basically pushed the right buttons at the right time, and now you’re getting sex as a reward. It’s almost like a Konami Code for nookie (Konuki Code?).

Unfortunately, we have yet to discover a paradigm for designing gameplay that doesn’t revolve around the vending machine metaphor (They’re called ‘Reward Structures’ for a reason). And I don’t have any easy answers for that– I guess that’s what evolution, iteration and innovation are for. Somebody brilliant will eventually move us forward, it just probably won’t be me.

Anyway, I don’t generally complain about how games may (not) affect peoples’ behavior or development– people are more resilient than Jack Thompson or Clinton/Yee/Schwarzenegger would have you believe– but I’m tempted to call this ‘problematic’ from a social viewpoint, just because it’s a relentlessly reinforced mindset that people fall into all-too-often (Wine ‘em, Dine ‘em, 69 ‘em, as it were) and they need to be shown an alternative mode of thought.

If the goal of art is to contribute meaningfully to a public dialogue in a unique way, then perhaps it’s time we stopped talking about games as art, and actually start getting some socially conscious (and GASP progressive) viewpoints into our games. It’s sad that The Ballad of Gay Tony is considered a groundbreaking thing, for the simple fact that it actually uses the word “gay” in a (mostly) non-perjorative way. We can do better.

So back to my point: While all the video game violence in the world won’t cause somebody to become violent or homicidal, sometimes all you need is one voice to question the status quo in a meaningful way– somebody to zig when everybody else zags– to give the dialogue a much-needed shove forward.

Our power lies not in our ability to reinforce, but in our ability to challenge.

[Gamecritics via Kotaku]