New Website: Please Go Directly to www.traceyjohn.com

I’ve moved my website to my own hosting, so this WordPress blog will no longer be updated. Please head over to www.traceyjohn.com directly if you’d like to see what I’m up to.

If you need to reach me for whatever reason, you can also e-mail tracey[at]traceyjohn[dot]com.

Thanks!

I Got Hit On By A 10-Year-Old

The barrage of Xbox LIVE friend requests inexplicably continues.

I’ve gotten more than 50 additional messages since my last post on the topic, despite my friend Blain no longer being on Xbox.com’s Gamer Spotlight and the fact that his settings allegedly only allow friends to view his Friends List.

While most people would simply block non-friend communications, I’ve left it on for reasons of morbid curiosity. What follows are messages that simultaneously amuse, sadden and disturb me:

E3 Madness with Team Massively, Joystiq

It’s official: I will be contributing to Massively and Joystiq beginning at next week’s E3, which is an excellent, stress-free time for me to start!

All kidding aside, I’m thrilled to be writing alongside such talented people.

Extra special thanks to Chris Grant, Elizabeth Harper, Shawn Schuster and Kyle Horner for getting me on board. I look forward to meeting and working with everyone at E3.

“For A Good Time, Friend (My Gamertag)”

[UPDATE: I've moved my website and this story to here. Thanks!]

A mystery was afoot.

Late Sunday night, while I was playing “50 Cent: Blood on the Sand” (don’t judge me!)  in an Xbox LIVE co-op game, I received a friend request from a stranger. I didn’t think anything of it, as I do get one random friend request probably once every few months, usually from friends of friends. So I continued searching for Fiddy’s jewel-encrusted skull.

But then, several minutes later, I received another request. And another. And another. And another. Some of these folks had “Xx” in their tags, others were written L1k3 tH15. I thought for sure I was getting spammed by evil Xbox LIVE robots trying to sell me pornography and/or genitalia-enhancing medications. Then some of them even started trying to Party Chat with me. This is when I officially got creeped out. It’s as if someone had scribbled my gamertag on a bathroom wall at a truck stop.

I’ve since changed my privacy settings, but as far as I know, my gamertag isn’t listed anywhere, yet I had gotten 53 messages since then. I decided to see what was up, so I messaged a few people who sent me a friend request. Apparently you can only send 22 messages — if I counted correctly — in one day to people not on your Friends List, per Xbox.com’s policy. I wrote, “Hi there! Do I know you? May I ask how you got my gamertag? Thanks!”

These are the replies I’ve gotten so far:

So Long, And Thanks For All The Fish

I think many of you are aware of this, but in case you aren’t… I’ve left my position at MTV Networks as a full-time reporter for the MTV Multiplayer blog. You can read my goodbye here.

I’m currently writing for several outlets, and if you’re a games industry person trying to reach me, you can do so at tracey[at]traceyjohn.com. I plan on continuing the Game Developer Twitter Report at this website.

You can keep checking back here to see what I’m up to. Thanks to everyone for their support. I’ll see you at E3!

xoxo
Tracey

My Baby Picture Was Found in a Possible Pedophile and/or Serial Killer’s Bedroom

It started with a magazine cover.

The cover of Gourmet magazine, circa 1984, to be exact:

Yes, that’s me and my identical twin sister, Courtney. (No idea which one is me. Let’s just say the one on the right.) We’re standing outside Di Palo’s cheese shop on Mott Street in Chinatown, New York, apparently intrigued by a box of candies. My parents said a photographer came by and asked to snap our picture. The next thing you know, we’re on the cover of a food magazine. (Story: Chinese toddlers — the new delicacy?)

Anyway, no big deal. I never became a model (hard to believe, I know) and no one tried to eat me (that I’m aware of).

But a few weeks ago, my cousin sent me a cryptic Facebook message. Something like, “Hey, you’re in Weird New Jersey!” Um, no Cousin. I’m in weird Brooklyn apartment eating weird, leftover Chinese food. What are you talking about? I shrugged it off.

When I saw her a few weeks after that, she showed me this book she bought called “Weird New Jersey, Volume 2” (yes, she’s from New Jersey). It’s the series of books that compile strange, secret places and local legends in various states. She flipped to page 268. There was a story called “Collage House Creeped Me Out!” The writer had stumbled upon an abandoned Texas Chain Saw Massacre-looking house off of Route 23 South in Sussex.

So what does he do? He goes inside.

He said there were two bedrooms. One had pictures of cars and airplanes meticulously cut out and pasted all over the walls. Okay, kind of odd but who hasn’t put up pictures of whatever hobby they’re obsessing over during their youth? But in the next room…

Tons and tons of pictures glued onto many pieces of posterboard. And not pictures of cars or trains or planes…

But pictures of children and teen girls from catalogs and magazines, just playing with toys, wearing Huggies or modeling underwear and swimwear. The book included some photos of these collages.

I think you can see where this is going…

What I’ve Been Up To Recently…

Besides overhauling this website and writing daily for MTV Multiplayer…

I recently attended the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, where I interviewed Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk of BioWare, got an update on MMOs “LEGO Universe” and “CrimeCraft,” checked out the “World of Warcraft” design session and tried to figure out whether or not there should be equal-opportunity “nut shots.”

My favorite session of the conference by far was a design panel featuring Suda51 (“No More Heroes,” “killer7″), Fumito Ueda (“Ico,” “Shadow of the Colossus”) and Emil Pagliarulo (“Fallout 3″). Suda 51 talked about sitting on the toilet for design inspiration and harassed Ueda into talking about his new game. Pagliarulo also had some interesting things to say about “Fallout 3″ (one of my favorite games of last year), including how the ending was meant to be bigger and better and why the game even ended at all.

The April issue of ToyFare magazine has a feature where I interviewed game journalists and developers about upcoming video game toys (see it here and here).

Last week, brand-new AOL urban lifestyle blog StreetLevel published a feature I wrote about designer toys.

That’s all for now!

TraceyJohn.com Version 3.0

The new version of my website is fully operational… I think…

‘Crunk-Screamo’ Band Challenges Me to an Interview: Dare I Accept?

At MTV.com, I sit next to a bunch of music writers, including the inimitable, lovably sarcastic, secret teeny-bopper Tamar Anitai, who edits the pop culture blog Buzzworthy.

One day she pulls me to her cube and is like you have to hear this band. But not in a “these guys are awesome” kind of way.

When I walked over to her computer, I had several reasons to be skeptical about the artistic merit of this group.

1. They look like this: