Rayne, Rayne, go away?

The game character Rayne (BloodRayne series) appears to have a full schedule: on September 18 she is to appear on MTV2 where "Rayne and crew (will) give a stunning lip synced performance to Evanescence's hit 'Everybody's Fool.'" In October she will appear topless in Playboy magazine.

More details of her busy schedule can be seen here. A photo snapshot (paparazzi, no doubt) can be seen on BoingBoing. In this era of contrived human actors in contrived bands and sports, why not?  But I wonder: is there some uncanny valley for ambitious video game characters - confounding their full integration into our increasingly synthetic world? Or, as asked in an earlier Terra Nova discussion, Are We Really a Cheap Date just waiting to happen?

Comments

[ren]

1.

Let me be the first to reference Gibson’s Idoru.

Done.

Now, moving on…

A few threads ago there was reference to the auteur in games. The cult of creative personality does not seem to be taking hold: Will Wright, Peter Molyneux even our own Professor Bartle are hardly famous when you compare them to Spielberg.

But Lara Croft, Mario, Sonic (for a while) these have broken into the mainstream. We go on about the acceptance of video games, the mainstreaming of video game culture, well folks we might not like Playboy taking an interest, but that’s certainly mainstream for you.

Then again, maybe Ian Livingstone should do Playgirl.

/shudder

OK OK, back to Gibson, he really did call this one didn’t he? OK there’s probably a Philip K Dick story that covers it too, but there’s a PKD that covers just about any virtual / physical thing you care to think of.

I mean it is the next step. And given a choice between, to pluck a completely random example, Avril Lavigne and Rayne, I think I’m going Rayne ever time.

[weasel]

2.

ren>Will Wright, Peter Molyneux even our own Professor Bartle are hardly famous when you compare them to Spielberg
Yes, but our industry doesn't promote game creators the way the film industry promotes Spielberg. We [i]do[/i] promote Mario, Sonic, and Lara the way Hollywood promotes Cruise, Hanks, and Denzel.

Without promotion for the game visionaries who deliver great games, they'll never be known. Without being known, they'll never have the clout to bring in outside investment to get games made without signing on as a salaried employee for a publisher.

IMO, the industry would be healthier if the talent had more clout, if the publishers acted more like Hollywood studios, and if they invited outside investment to fund particular projects to mitigate risk. (which would lead to hyping great game developers to 'sell' the investors on the project, which would trickle down to audience awareness just as it does for actors, directors, and writers)

But, the game publishers currently have a pretty good deal going. I don't see them having any motivation to effect change.

[ren]

3.

weasel >IMO, the industry would be healthier if the talent had more clout, if the publishers acted more like Hollywood studios, and if they invited outside investment to fund particular projects to mitigate risk.

At the EIGF (which I _am_ going to go on about for the next month, at least) dinner I was next to an independent financier and during the conference had discussions with people that represented people who knew people who had money and were looking for solid games project to put funds into. OK ‘solid’ and ‘game project’ might not sit well together but it was interesting to see that independent money was looking for early stage projects.

[Nathan Combs]

4.

The good folks at GTA picked up on CNN's pickup of this story (got that?), as well as offer additional commentary, here.

[rayne g.]

5.

that game girl bloodrayne is so hot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!