No wayy! I am at blog post number ten! This semester has been great. I really have enjoyed this course. Personally, I enjoy playing video games, but, I never knew that games could be dissected to the points that we got to during this semester. When I first signed up for this course, I hoped that we would not just be playing video games, but also look for meaning and develop a broader scope of the gaming world. This is exactly what I got out of this course. Before I get into my last blog post, which will be about Minecraft, I want to thank Dr. Cody and all of my classmates for making my experiences in this course memorable. We engaged in some really enticing discussions throughout the semester.

Getting to the point, one interesting topic that we covered during week eleven of the course dealt with Minecraft. I have to admit, I played a lot of Minecraft back in high school. However, after having more on my plate to deal with during my college days, I have shifted away from the game. Something interesting that we covered in one of the readings and during class discussion on Thursday surfaces around the notion that Minecraft is always updating. In James Newman’s piece, “Minecraft: User-Generated Content”, he states, “Given the number of ports and updates available since its initial release, we might argue that Minecraft is best approached not as a single game but as a web of interrelated titles that unfold over time” (Kindle pg 278). Most of my classmates indicated that they have played Minecraft before during our class discussion. For those of you familiar with the game, new mods and updates are always happening in the Minecraft world. What I took away from this is the fact that the creators and software workers have a good sense of just how far Minecraft could actually go. Games like Minecraft, which allow for players to basically make what they want, demonstrate a tremendous amount of autonomy. Games with autonomy will always thrive in our gaming world. The reason for this being that people do not like to play within limits, but rather, they prefer to make things that are appealing to them in their own ways. Another reason why Minecraft will continue to be successful is because of its flexibility. What I mean by flexibility is in terms of the audience for the game and the actual game play itself. For example, I mentioned that I started playing Minecraft back in high school. Today, I have a seven-year-old cousin who plays Minecraft and also has a pretty good-looking world as well! Overall, Minecraft is a great game, but what makes it stand out from others is the amount of freedom that it offers for its creators.

To sum it all up, another point that Newman gets to in his work is the idea that Minecraft is a hard game to give an exact description of. Taking what I have learned throughout this semester into consideration, this is actually a good thing for the game. To quote Newman, he states, “In some cases, updates fundamentally alter what Minecraft is—or perhaps more accurately—expand the horizons of what Minecraft can be” (Kindle pg 278). Based off of this quote, Minecraft is ever-changing, which means that giving this game an exact definition of its functions is sort of impossible. In other words, this is the ideal game for all groups of people. Why play a game that is limited to certain functions? Why play a game that has a structure that you really cannot change? Why play a game that will always be the same? By playing Minecraft, people can actually feel as if they were considered when the developers got to work. Minecraft offers something many other games lack, which is the ability to feel that what you create is certainly possible and acceptable.

-Andy Kissoon

As we indulge into a time period where technology seems to be improving by the day, mobile games have become something that many people have taken a part of. During week ten of this course, we discussed the different categories games might be classified into, including girl games, casual games, and mobile games. Although I do not enjoy playing mobile games, I am in some way pro mobile games. The one aspect that has won me over on mobile games is that gameplay can be remote. Mobile games also draw a diverse audience since a majority of the people in our world own smartphones. That being said, mobile games should become the new focus for the gaming world.

One of the assigned readings for the week was Angry Birds: Mobile Gaming by Gregory Steirer and Jeremy Barnes. This piece focused on the mobile game Angry Birds, a game that many of us might be familiar with. The authors described mobile gaming as a new act/form of play. I agree with this denotation because prior gaming platforms are completely different. Mobile games allow for people to play wherever they want, which adds to the ideas of flexibility and comfort. As opposed to connecting a controller and all of the wires that most consoles require, mobile gaming is as simple as a cell phone. According to the authors of this article, “What makes a mobile game a mobile game, we argue, is not simply the fact that the game is played on a phone or tablet; more important are the ways that play itself is constructed, not only via the code of the mobile application but also via the social interactions and industrial processes that surround it” (Kindle pg 216). As we can see, the authors are more inclined about the positive effects mobile games bring about on social networks. Mobile games allow for people to connect with each other in-person. A simple example of this is Pokémon Go. Now, think about gaming on the PS4. Pokémon Go allows for you to leave your house, and connect with some other players face-to-face, still being able to accomplish your goals for the game. On the other hand, PS4 does allow for game chats, but that face-to-face interaction during gameplay is certainly lost.

Another great point to get at with mobile games is that they are cheaper to make than regular console games. According to the article, “Angry Birds cost approximately US$100,000 to make, a mere fraction of that of most console games (by way of comparison, Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto V [2013] cost an estimated US$137.5 million)” (Kindle pg 221). My point here will focus on the idea that games will sell, but what matters most is how much the companies make in revenue. Many people play video games in our world, so selling a game is not really an issue, unless the game is flat out terrible! Companies should try to maximize their gains. That is, put in less, and still bring in more. On top of this, many people design their own games, but due to a lack of funds, their game never hits a major market. Allowing for cheaper games to trend opens up the idea of more diversity in game choices.

All in all, games can be categorized into many different classes. This week we focused on games that fit under the girl game, casual game, and mobile game umbrellas. Mobile games are easy to play and arguably easy to make. Shifting a focus to this medium will only benefit the gaming world. With the recent advances in technology, now is the time to promote the play of mobile games for the sake of our gaming world.

-Andy Kissoon

Although I do not have too many experiences with playing trans games, I do know that there are many people who have fought really hard for the representation surrounding these games. For week nine of this course, we read a piece from Queer Game Studies titled, “On Gone Home”, by Merritt Kopas. Reading this piece made me remember when we played Gone Home in class. As opposed to the game, I think that this article gives an in-depth analysis about the struggles the trans group faces when it comes to being represented appropriately in games.

First off, one aspect of the article that I enjoyed surfaces around the way that the author described the game scenes. I think that Kopas did a great job describing the scenes during game play and how it affected their emotions and overall appeal of the game. For example, they state, “And you’re kind of on edge because the lights are flickering and every once in a while, the house creaks in the storm and you don’t know what’s going to come…” (146). I think that this quote demonstrates the way that a majority of us felt in the classroom back when we played the game. Kopas is trying to prove that this game, which can be considered a trans game, is a game that is appealing for different groups of people. What they like the most about the game is the fact that it is not predictable. On a personal standpoint, I think that predictability in games matters a lot. Some games can become boring and repetitive if the players are able to predict what comes next. This could also mean that the creators did not do a good job with throwing curveballs at the audience. On a more positive note, predictability in games can satisfy some audience members, especially people who enjoy bragging that they knew something was ahead.

Another great point that the author gets to is where they draw a comparison of relating to one of the games characters. Kopas goes on to say, “Katie isn’t so much a character in Gone Home. She’s the camera” (148). What I take away from the argument of the author here is that gender can be challenging. It is not easy to find someone who is like you and who can relate to you in every way. It is also hard to find a balance when in such a situation. With Kopas stating that Katie is like a camera, it made me realize that people go through many phases in their lives, especially when it comes to beliefs. Sometimes they go through a phase where they do not really want to be active somewhere, but they do want to capture events and make life long memories. The author goes on to say that they want to be Sam now. We mentioned in our class discussion this week the role that nostalgia plays, particularly in this part of the article. I think that representation in games is something that allows people to look over their personal lives and make a comparison. Sometimes the comparison works for the better and sometimes it works for the worse. Either way, games allow for people to compare what their lives are like vs the lives they played out in a game. To sum it up, this demonstrates one of the main benefits of playing video games, the ability to judge and relate to the characters and their lives.

Overall, trans games may take a lot of backlash, but I feel that everyone should have the ability to feel like a game was made for them, much like how Kopas felt towards Gone Home. It is not easy to predict what can happen next in a game, but when we can, some people use it as a form of accomplishment, which is acceptable. Lastly, relating to games is something that everyone should try to do. Ask yourself; What was your favorite game in your childhood years? Are you like a character in that game today or are you someone completely different? Are you proud of who you are? In the eyes of Kopas, these are all questions that we should ask ourselves when we draw comparisons between our real lives and the ones that we play out in video games for characters.

-Andy Kissoon

In our first week of “distance learning”, we focused a lot on women in video games. We specifically read Ready Player Two, by Shira Chess. Throughout this piece and lecture discussions, we talked about the role of assumptions when it comes to games and certain audiences. For this blog post, I will base my points off of the chapter titled, “Playing with Identity”.

One of the main points that Chess gets to in her work is that video game creators tend to make assumptions about certain demographics while they create games. As she puts it, “I am less interested in who actually plays a game and more interested in the assumptions that were made about a specific demographic when that game was being designed and advertised” (location 791 Kindle). Here, we can establish that video game creators can be biased and even show forms of prejudice when they are creating their work. This is true because certain groups of people are targeted with certain aspects that could correlate to them. In other words, video game creators are not open about games reaching a wide range of audience types, instead, they make assumptions about what a target audience might find appealing, and then carry on with their processes. Chess is trying to prove that it is immoral for game creators to assume what a certain group of people might like. She thinks that this puts a criteria towards who someone should be. What I mean by this is the fact that categorization makes people believe that they should be interested in certain things, mainly because others see it as normal for them to do so. This is a drawback when it comes to creating games because people should not have to compare themselves to others in order to confirm that who they are is acceptable. Just because something/some act is deemed as normal for a certain group of people, does not mean that every member of that group abides by that position.

Another point that Chess brings about in this chapter relates to my first analysis. Chess believes that game creators look at their audiences and then draw inferences about the types of games they would like. To quote it, she says, “the video game industry is increasingly trying to appeal to women and that there are specific game types and styles assumed to be the ideal design for that audience” (location 803 Kindle). Not to be confused, Chess is gratified about women being targeted by the game industry. She believes that this is a sign of progress, since most games are only targeted towards men and boys. However, she does not agree with the approach that the game creators are taking in order to gain their acceptance from women. Assuming something out of a group makes people feel limited with their choices. It makes them feel that they have a certain set of guidelines that they need to follow in order to satisfy their membership in a group. That being said, allowing the players to make choices in the game world about who they want to be is the best approach.

Overall, Ready Player Two is definitely one of my favorite works that we have read in this course thus far. I think that Chess does a superb job describing the flaws that video game creators bring about when they make assumptions about their audiences. Although there might not be too much room for improvement here, a simple way to avoid future backlash is by creating games that do not have a lot at stake when it comes to decision making, and more importantly, allowing the players themselves to be the ones making choices about how they are going to portray themselves in the game.

-Andy Kissoon

Some of the topics that we discussed in week six of the course were platforms, interfaces, controllers, empathy, and even coding. I enjoyed the coding aspect of the week. I think that we have focused a lot on the unjust parts of society in this course, mainly in video games. However, it was baffling to see that there are definitely other aspects of the world that also deals with the mistreatment towards certain groups. In Julianne Tveten’s article, “Code is Political”, we learn about some other types of coding languages that tend to be undermined because they are not like the normal American English language. In some sense, this can be connected to genres in video games. Somehow, society has found a way to create barriers between things that differ in just the smallest manners.

In her article, Tveten states, “Because the advent of software engineering arose in the United States, major programming languages—even those developed outside the US and Europe (e.g., Ruby and Lua, which originated in Japan and Brazil, respectively)—are written in American English” (4). As we can see, Tveten is trying to prove that major programming is only written in the American English language across the board. With this, other forms of programming that are not in this language do not have a place in the computer science world. She goes on to give an example of an Arabic programming language. This code, which is written by Ramsey Nasser, is devalued and even causes people to question whether or not they can code without learning the English language (11). What I find interesting about this entire conversation is that languages can be translated, yet, society and the computer science world is reluctant to be open to other forms of software. It is clear that at times, problems with outsiders not being accepted in certain places, just because of a few minor differences, occurs. I mentioned earlier that the article also reminded me of genres in video games. Of course, there is a broad range of genres in games, which is a great thing! The only bad part is that certain genres are considered illegitimate and maybe not even a genre to begin with. I think this demonstrates that there is a concealed element at work. The only reason that a genre might be considered illegitimate is because it might be appealing towards a certain group of people. Drawing a connection to the coding languages, is it really fair to throw out a coding language just because it is not in the form of American English? What about the people that can relate to it, the people who can understand it easily over American English? I think these are the questions that really matter. We have a lot of work to do in society, and it starts with accepting the fact that different objects will be appealing to others. It is just a part of human life.

Overall, we can clearly see that issues that occur in the gaming world might actually be the subparts of some larger problems at work. We see this when certain game genres are designated to certain groups of people. Coding languages that are different than American English tend to be displaced and disvalued, probably because they do not fit with the “normal” American English speakers and audience. Sadly, Tveten also states that hackers may even deface a website just because it endorses something different (11). As a society, we need to be more open about diversity. There is no need to treat something or someone differently just because they do not fit our expectations or assumptions about how something should be.

-Andy Kissoon

In the fifth week of this course, we focused on genders in online gaming and the action of live streaming. For this week’s blog, I wanted to talk about the impact racism has had on online gaming. Kishonna Gray’s, “Deviant bodies, stigmatized identities, and racist acts: Examining the experiences of African-American gamers in Xbox Live” article does a great job of narrowing the scope of online gaming issues down to just voices. Based solely off of voices, it is amazing to see how far forms of racism could actually go.

In the article, Gray focuses on deviance. In class this week, we defined this term as being abnormal or not fitting towards the “mythical norm”. Gray connects this to how voices over online gaming on Xbox Live can lead to potential instances of racism. In her work, she actually takes the role of a participant observer during the study. I think this is pivotal because Gray is actually reporting her findings here. She is not making judgements and conclusions based off of the interpretations of others. Instead, it is all down to what she witnessed herself, and what she takes away from it. This is what makes this study/article so powerful.

According to the article, the following is an actual excerpt from a conversation that took place while Gray was conducting her study (269):

Silentassassin321: If I could find this EXPLICIT I would whoop his EXPLICIT. On some real EXPLICIT. But they do this behind they TV screen. Tough guys. Internet tough guys. You know how many times I’ve been called EXPLICIT to my face?

Mzmygrane: How many?             

                                                                                                       Silentassassin321: None. You know how many times I’ve been called EXPLICIT online?

Mzmygrane: How many?

Silentassassin321: Too many ta’ count… 

Based off of this excerpt, one of the gamers mentions being called the n-word online. The gamer says that they are not called this word during face-to-face interactions. I think that this speaks a lot about the toxicity that occurs in online gaming. The fact that some people carry out racist acts online rather than in-person is very hypocritical. Now, some people may say that racism does not occur as much today as it used to. As we can see, this is not true. Racism may not be shown in-person, but it does exist on online platforms. Personally, the truth is, if someone is racist over an online video game, but does not say anything racist in person, they are still a racist! The gaming world is very toxic, there is racism, there is hate, and there is despair. What makes it worse is that some people turn to online platforms in order to show their true colors. 

On my behalf, I have never been attacked with racism while playing online games. What I have witnessed is the hatred towards someone else based off of the way that they sound. This is another point of focus for Gray. Our voices are a part of us, that being said, they do serve as something that can make us stand out and be distinguished from one another. One time, when I was playing Fortnite with randoms (squads), I overheard a male criticize a female for her building skills in the game. He mentioned things such as, “Right, you’re a girl, of course you can’t build”. Knowing what I know now, I believe that the only reason this gamer said this was because he heard the female’s voice. Had he not heard her voice, he could have still criticized the gamer, but he would not have the chance to bring in gender. At the moment, I did not say anything. What I did do was back out of the game. It was something that I did not want to hear about or be around, so I felt that leaving would be best. I knew that I could take the female’s side, and she probably would have appreciated it, much like any other gamer would, but the truth is, after the game, that same individual could continue to do the same to other gamers. I did not and still do not have the power to stop individuals from being cruel. 

It is really unfortunate that cases of racism and hatred take place. Online, in-person, or whatever. In my point of view, who you are online is still a part of you. For the people in the world who think that they can be a different person online and a different person in real life, you are wrong!

-Andy Kissoon

I always found it intriguing that video game creators know how to win over their audiences, to the point where a game becomes addicting and a must play. During the fourth week of this course, we focused on representation. Something that I found interesting in one of the assigned readings for the week dealt with how the developers were able to put together a process that made putting the game aside a tough task. In Shira Chess’ “Kim Kardashian: Hollywood: Feminism”, the game is categorized as a strictly “feminine play style”. The work by Chess went into a lot of details, specifically about the autonomy that players have when it comes to creating a character and the overall game play. Despite the fact that the game has been categorized in this manner, I want to focus more on how the game’s developers were able to get the audience engaged and addicted to the game.

One aspect of the game allows for the players to have a social media account. To me, this is cool because we can see that the developers were very creative with connecting the real world to this game. In other words, the world building for this aspect of the game was carried out well on their behalf. However, this is the place where I think the developers were able to keep their audience on the edge of their seats. Chess states, “Mobility, however, is not only upward; the player can lose followers as well. Neglecting a relationship and being dumped, as well as doing poorly on a gig, can cause followers to drop. Players can also lose followers for not playing the game for a while. In other words, the more you play, the less likely you are to lose fictional fans” (96). This quote demonstrates that the game is built to function just like real life. Just like how a bad breakup or poor performance can lead to a trending topic all over the different social media platforms, this game is embedded to do the same. Also, the idea of not being active in the game makes the chance of losing followers more likely. Once again, in real life, if one were to abandon their social media accounts, chances are, people would most likely unfollow them due to their inactivity. On top of this, this creates the window where the developers were able to win over the audience. This is the aspect that makes the game a “must play”.

Even though this game has been criticized in many different approaches, I still found it interesting that the developers were able to find a way, if not multiple, to have their audience addicted. Putting aside all of the choices and intersectionality that is described throughout this game, the developers were still able to have some fans willing to spend real money towards gameplay. I think this shows the true power that video game creators have over the general audience. Now, satisfying everyone in the world is definitely not an easy task, but I do think that video game creators have made this the least of their worries. What they are more concerned about is making proceeds from a game. This is fair, but not fair to the general world. The sad thing is, despite all of the negativity towards this particular game, there will still be people who do not see the issues of representation as a major setback. Although there is not much that can be done towards this situation, what we can do is educate the public about what is really depicted in a game. When they realize that representation is a major flaw, hopefully they speak up or stop playing.

As expressed, people spend a lot of time and even real money towards games. What makes this so simple is the fact that video game creators are successful at gaining the attention from their audiences. If we educate the public more about the drawbacks of certain games, there is a chance that they might not want to contribute both of these acts any more. Representation is something that is hard to fight for in our world today, but I do not see a reason to put a halt to the fight. People should be spending time and real money towards games that ensure a wide field of representation. Ideally, everyone should be considered in all game states and never used as a form of ridicule.

-Andy Kissoon

In the third week of this course, world-building was an aspect that really shaped my understanding of the pivotal components of a video game. I was so interested in this topic that I looked up the different effects that world-building can bring about, other than in-game. It was then that I came across Nuren Iftekhar’s article, “Learning worldbuilding from video games”. In this article, the author talks about world-building and how it could compare to literature. Iftekhar states, “Literature builds up the atmosphere through worldbuilding alone whereas video games have graphical and audio stimuli to go with it” (3). When analyzing this quote, I realized that video games can be considered a form of a book or story. The only difference is the luxury of having graphics and audio to help form the image of the world. With the help of these two components, video games allow for people to put an image towards understanding what something possibly looks like. Likewise, this means that if authors want to be truly successful, they need to work really hard on describing the setting they want their readers to imagine. To bring in another point, some people may be better verbal learners than visual learners. To me, visually understanding a world is the easiest approach here. Think about describing our real world. No matter what people may write, our world is too complex to be fully communicated to another solely over words. The closest form we can get towards imagining something so extensive is through graphics.

Another point of this article is that little details that sometimes go unnoticed actually play a crucial role in games. Iftekhar puts it as, “It can be a poster on the wall with information that would seem mundane otherwise, the ramblings of a non-playable character about his day-to-day life, the terrain with all its vegetations and inhabitants, the currency that sets the tone for the world, the clothing that tells you more than you need to about how well off their economy is or perhaps about the weather” (5). As we can see, there is a chance that throughout your gaming career, you could have missed some of the signs that these little details were trying to tell you about the fictional world you were engaged in. I know I have. Having read this article, I plan to look at the finer parts of the world’s where games are based upon. By doing this, I truly believe that I stand a better chance of understanding the time period a game is based upon and an overall purpose of the characters and how they interact with their environment.

Lastly, when looking at the article “Learning worldbuilding from video games”, I think that we can establish some connections with one of the assigned readings for this course, Mark Wolf’s, “BioShock Infinite: World-building”. Iftekhar’s article surfaces more on the ideas of literature and video games, while Wolf’s work is more about narration and how the real world compares to imaginary worlds in games. For example, Wolf states, “BioShock Infinite demonstrates that video games not only tell engaging stories and can introduce us to immensely detailed imaginary worlds but also invite us to reflect on our own world. Even when the worlds depicted are overtly fantastic and unrealistic, they can nevertheless create desires in their audiences, cravings for new technologies such as flying cars…” (80). With this quote, we can say that some may look at a game’s environment and compare it to what they want to see in real life. This forms a direct correlation between video games and literature, which is arguably Iftekhar’s purpose. This means that people can reflect on the real world as they read as well. Although it may be harder to envision, people can have fantasies about what they want to see in our world vs the world in a book.

To sum it all up, I think that people should become aware of how important a game’s environment really is to the overall message and story of the game. We can even draw a connection to video games and literature. Either way, both writers and video game creators have a tough task at hand. That task is making the environment/setting clear to their audiences. And with us as the receivers, how we choose to put meaning towards the environment/setting is completely voluntary.

-Andy Kissoon

During the second week of this course, I really enjoyed our class conversation about trolling. The article that most of our discussions were based upon was “Under the bridge: An in-depth examination of online trolling in the gaming context”. This article gave the different perspectives and viewpoints that one can have towards trolling. Before reading this article, I thought about all of the times that I trolled my friends and even the random strangers online. I also thought about my reasons behind these acts. I came to the conclusion that most of my actions were carried out because I wanted to annoy and get a funny reaction out of the targets. However, after reading this article, I learned that some of the things that I did not consider to be trolling actually are!

According to the article, which was written by Cook, Schaafsma, and Antheunis, some of the types of trolling are verbal, trash-talking, flaming, misdirection, spamming, inappropriate roleplaying, behavioural, inhibiting team, contrary play, and aiding the enemy (3329). For me, the most surprising type was definitely trash-talking. I found this act surprising because it is something that I can admit that I engage with almost every time I play sports games. One game in particular is NBA 2K. I frequently trash-talk my opponents and even my own teammates about their myplayer. A myplayer is a personalized character that represents you in the game. In the more recent 2K games, there can be different archetypes of myplayers, such as lockdown defenders, sharpshooters, shot creators, etc. You can make your myplyer better by playing in actual NBA games and making VC (Virtual Currency). As you play, you can unlock and upgrade your myplayer in different levels. For me, the best part of the game and the place where most trash-talking occurs is called the Park. Here, you can bring your myplayer to a basketball court and play against strangers. You can also play with your friends as teammates in a three on three or you can even play a stranger one on one. Sometimes, the opposing team can have their microphones connected, which means you can hear them talking. When this is the case, I connect my microphone as well and I trash-talk, just for the fun of it. Some of the things that I would normally say are “Your player is trash”, “Your player can’t even get a rebound”, “Play me one on one”, etc. Now I will admit, I have said these things, but, they were never meant to hurt anyone in any type of way. However, after reading this article, it is possible that some people could have taken these comments in many other ways. As a result of this, I have now made it my goal to stop this form of trolling when I play sports games. There are many other appropriate ways to engage in social conversations over gaming platforms. There is no need to make fun of others, especially if they did not start the trash-talking.

Another point of the article that I wanted to tie in with my personal experiences deals with trolling as a group. Cook et al. quotes, “As it stands, trolls are aware of one another and are often connected to other trolls, forming at the very least a loose community. In fact, many members of our sample reported trolling more often in groups than alone. Historically, trolls have been treated largely as individuals (see Buckels et al., 2014)” (3337). This quote shows that there are times where multiple people engage in the act of trolling at once. I think that this shows that people basically like to create their own forms of the game within the game. Trolling itself might be a reason why people even log on and play a game. Although there is no real way to stop people from trolling, what can be done is educating the video gaming world about the different types of trolling, and the choices they have to combat the issue. Whether they want to ignore the trolls, report the trolls, etc., that is completely up to them. Overall, instead of trolling back, there are many other peaceful approaches that can end things. With that being said, if trolls are not finding their way to sensation and interactions, they might not last that long after all.

– Andy Kissoon

After one week of this course, I have to say, I found myself looking back at all of the video games that I have played or came across during my lifetime. To be more specific, I tried my best to recall the character representation in these games. I did this because we had some good discussions this week about the lack of representation of women and other groups of people in a substantial amount of games. This then led me to conduct some research on how the gaming world got to this point to even begin with. During my research, I encountered Dennis Scimeca’s article, “The Gender Inequality in Core Gaming is Worse Than You Think”. In his article, Scimeca gives an in-depth analysis of gender representation in various games across the gaming world. One creative point that he mentions deals with the people behind video game development. He states, “The overwhelming number of men in video game development is the ultimate cause of these concerns” (4). After I read this quote, I thought to myself, the title of this article is exactly on point. Let alone gender representation, we have a larger problem in the video gaming world. What I mean by this is, the lack of diversity around the people who create these games. To me, although men are more likely to be credited with game development, this does not mean that they are the only ones that can play the game or even be represented in the game. That being said, we must find a balance. This can even start by allowing everybody to have a say during the development of a game. If the people that feel like they are being left out of the gaming world took part in creating it, chances are they would include themselves, which could be a building block to resolving the issue of underrepresentation. 

On top of this, we can even draw a connection between this article and the Feminist Frequency video we watched on the first day of class. To go more into details, a part of the article mentions how economic success for video games never really strikes as a concern, but rather, the concerns are more on the surface of culture. This is also a point that is brought up in the video. The speaker mentioned a game that was actually rewritten and still succeeded. Even though the video focuses more on women not having the chance to be the “real hero” in most storylines, the main takeaway with my connection is that economic concerns of video games are usually the least of the worries. Games will sell. Games will be played. But the real question is, who are the people that are actually recognized in the game? 

All in all, these issues that we covered in the first week are often overlooked by people in both the real world and the gaming world. I really look forward to understanding the different viewpoints and perspectives that people have to offer about the various games out there. Hopefully, these issues are brought to the attention of the right people, this way, everybody can embrace the real joy that should come along with the idea and act of gaming.

-Andy Kissoon