This week we talked about Esports.  Very recently gaming has become more and more popular. What was once seen as a mindless pass time has now transformed into a serious profession.  One of the most interesting things about Esports for me has been the resemblance it has to physical sports.  Sports have been around for a very long time, and the community and culture around sports has had a lot of time to develop and evolve over time. When it comes to playing video games, it has just very recently been seen as a possible profession. There are many similarities and differences between the Esports and regular sports. One similarity is the path to becoming a professional in sports vs in Esports. For regular sports, people often have to be a part of a team and build up their skills until a scout comes and picks them up.  For Esports players it is similar in the sense that they have to either play on a serious gaming team or work their way up to professional standings by competing in many smaller competitions.  Most people compete in gaming conventions and can get noticed by people there.  Unlike regular sports, video game players can become noticed through their own personal streams and be picked up and put into an Esports team that way. Another similarity between the two are how games are presented to the viewer.  Both have similar editing styles and commentary. There will be replays of interesting plays, and there will be the commentators hyping up the games and explaining to the viewer what is happening as it is going on.  At the end of games, certain players can even be interviewed.

There was a time where I was extremely into Overwatch and I watched a lot of Overwatch league.  I would always watch my favorite team the NYXL and cheer for them to win.  They would have the commentators that were very entertaining.  The players would have their own jerseys and each team would even have their own entrance to the stage at the start of every game.  People could get tickets and be in the crowd to watch the games happen live. When they would show the crowd, I would see people with jerseys of their own, face paint, merchandise, and funny signs they would hold up to the camera. It was just as energetic and exciting as what would typically be seen in a stadium for most regular sports.

Unfortunately, one difference that sports and Esports have is the stigma attached to them.  Worldwide, sports are accepted and ingrained into most cultures.  Video games is still seen as something that shouldn’t be taken seriously by a lot of people.  I hope that over time, more and more people will respect the talent and skill it takes to play professionally. Hopefully then, Esports players can be taken more seriously just as normal sports players are.

Works Cited

Taylor, Nicholas Thiel. “Now You’Re Playing with Audience Power: the Work of Watching Games.” Critical Studies in Media Communication, vol. 33, no. 4, 2016, pp. 293–307., doi:10.1080/15295036.2016.1215481.

Last week we discussed fighting games and first-person shooter games. Both of these game types are associated with violence.  FPS is associated more with weaponized violence and fighting games are more associated with hand to hand combat.  Both genres of games are associated with a high degree of hypermasculinity.  With fighting games, I feel that the hypermasculinity could steam from the design of female characters within the games.  For FPS games, I feel that the hypermasculinity could steam from the community surrounding the game and how people view FPS games as a “guy game”.  This could be based off of the idea that warfare and violence are typically male driven, thus it is carried through video games.

Within the article, “Female Fighters: Perception of Femininity in the Super Smash Bros. Community” by John Adams, the concept of vague positivity was brought up.  Vague positivity refers to positivity expressed toward female characters within games that isn’t based off of a sexual or romantic manner (106). When reading this I was actually pretty surprised. It’s unfortunate that the norm is for players to criticize female characters in games or to overly sexualize them.  When creating a tier list of all the fighting characters, the preference for the characters seemed to be based off of the characters merits, not people’s personal feelings towards them. Because of this, there was no real gender preference.  I feel like this should be the normal for any kind of game and has character selection. This reminds me of games like Rainbow Six Siege and Overwatch which both include a good balance of female and male characters that each have their own unique abilities and role on the team. When I play both these games with friends, no one really focuses on the gender of each character and everyone is comfortable playing characters that aren’t their own gender.  I would be curious what the overall attitude would be towards female characters in these games if there were to be a study conducted in the same manner as the one in this article. I would think that the overall attitude of players toward female characters in these games would fall in line with the results that were found in the article.

With fighting games and FPS games, there always seems to be this issue of hypermasculinity but games such as Super Smash Bros are combating that.  Other fighting games like Mortal Kombat are known for their hypermasculinity and that probably will not change.  In Mortal Kombat the female characters are often wearing very revealing clothing with exaggerated bodily features.  The design of the female characters contributes to how players view femininity in that game.  Super Smash Bros does not have female characters that are designed in that way, so the focus if taken less off of the design and femininity of the character and more on their actual moves and abilities.

Works Cited

Adams , John. Female Fighters: Perceptions of Femininity in the Super Smash Bros. Community.

In class last week we talked about player created content in games.  One of the examples we looked at was Minecraft. Minecraft is an amazing example of this because the whole point of the game is for players to unleash their imagination and create new worlds of their own.  The creativity and imagination of players is truly inspiring. Personally, it motivates me to want to play and build my own worlds in Minecraft.  Player created content reminds me of fan fiction in a way because the creators of the game provide a world in which players can create what they want. For fan fiction, people take inspiration off of pre-existing things and create their own things with it. Minecraft is a pre-existing game that provides the players with the tools they need to create whatever they would like.  This is what makes Minecraft very different from a lot of other mainstream games because every player’s experience will be unique and tailored to them.  Another game that is tailored to player created content is Jackbox.  The humor and entertainment that steams from the game comes from the players themselves.  This is really cool because any person can play these games and have completely different experiences with them.  It appeals to all different kinds of people.

There are many games that have an option for players to host their own custom game. In a custom game, players are able to alter the rules or mechanics of their game to create their own versions for them and their friends.  When I would play Halo Reach all the time the main reason would be for custom games.  That was because my friends and I would make unique maps and alter the mechanics of the game to create new game types.  Even many years after the game was released, my friends and I would still play just for the custom games.  There is even a forge mode within the game that allows players to create their own unique maps.  This allows the players to make their own maps from the pre-existing material provided within the game. This allows players to personalize their play experience and it makes it more appealing.  Overwatch has a custom game browser where players can look for games that other people have made.  Players are able to create their own versions of games and share them with anyone who is interested.  I personally believe that having a creative aspect added to any game is a bonus and can be one of the most exciting things to do that keeps players interested.

Overall, games that allow for player created content encourage players to take control of their play experience.  Players can include a piece of their identity in the games they play, and that can be shared to many others who play the game as well.  These games bring a new wave of inclusions and inspiration into the gaming industry.  The main restriction would be the imagination and creativity of the players themselves.

Works Cited

Minecraft. Java ed. for Mac, 2017.

I both find it interesting and not surprising that video games have followed suit with other gendered activities such as sports.  It is not surprising that since the early wave of video games often mimicked actual sports, that the same expectations surrounding sports would transfer over to video games.  Before understanding the question of what “casual” games are and who they are associated with, I feel we first need to look at society as a whole.  When it comes to sports, men’s professional sports are unfortunately more popular than female sports are. Anything that has to do with sports would generally be advertised to men.  Another example of this would be guns.  Usually guns and warfare are geared and advertised toward men.  It is not surprising that first person shooter games are considered more hardcore and geared more towards men. I feel that if we want to address this gender gap when it comes to video games, then we have to address the gender gap within society overall.  Within “Chess for Girls? Feminism and Computer Games” by Justine Cassell and Henry Jenkins, it says “Hurtig and Pichevin conclude that sex is only a variable when gender is at issue—that is, only when socially constructed categories are evoked having to do with what we expect of men and women” (6). I agree that most things aren’t inherently gendered, but society places these expectations on gender and categorizes activities around those expectations. Society expects women to not have time for video games, thus “casual” games are made to be played in small intervals without much dedication needed. I don’t see the need to stamp a gender on these kinds of games.  I know plenty of women who prefer to not play games labeled as “casual” or “girly”. I also know plenty of men who enjoy playing games that are considered to be more “girly”.

I think that labels such as “casual” and “hardcore” should be less about the actual game and instead refer to the attitude a player has toward a particular game.  I feel that any “causal” game and be considered hardcore if a person were to dedicate themselves enough to it and take it really seriously.  I also feel that any “hardcore” game can be considered causal to a person who doesn’t take it seriously and just plays it every so often. There are many people who take the game Destiny 2 to be a very “hardcore” game because it takes a lot of dedication and knowledge about the game to be good in it.  However, I don’t dedicate hundreds of hours on the game in order to have the best gear or weapons.  When I play, I just jump into crucible and play with whatever weapons I have at whatever light level I am, and it doesn’t bother me.  I have a more casual attitude about a game that people label as “hardcore”. I know people who play Candy Crush every day and have dedicated so much time and energy into it even though it is considered to be “causal”.  I feel like these labels discourage people to play games outside of what is expected of them or advertised to them. Moving forward I think we should all take a step back from labeling games as “casual” or “hardcore” or “girly”, and instead treat all kinds of games equally just as those who play them.

Works Cited

Cassell, Justine, and Henry Jenkins. From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games. MIT Press, 2000.

This week’s class was about the representation of the trans experience in video games.  Further than that, this week surrounded the idea of underrepresentation in its many forms.  It is extremely disappointing that the LGBTQIA community is often overlooked in video games.  In many cases, the representation of that community is vastly inaccurate and disrespectful.  Within the article “’They’re all trans Sharon’: Authoring Gender in Video Game Fan Fiction” by Brianna Dym, Jed Brubaker, and Casey Fiesler, it is said that “Underrepresented fans of media, such as women, members of the LGBTQIA community, and other marginalized people use fan fiction (new narratives constructed from elements of existing media) to critique and recraft their representation in media” (Dym, Brubaker, Fiesler). Before this week, I haven’t really cared much for fan fiction or have taken it too seriously. I see now that fan fiction can be one of the best ways to express different experiences, point of views, and accurate representations of communities. This is because content is being created by those who are being represented in these fan fictions.  It is a way of spreading and sharing new creative ideas and experiences with others.

Much like the LGBTQIA community, those with mental illness are also grossly misrepresented and stereotyped in video games.  For my research project, I am focusing on the game Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice. The main character is a woman warrior who has psychosis.  While doing my research I found many cases in which mental illness was seen as something evil.  Words to describe characters in video games who had some form of mental illness were “crazy, dysfunctional, evil, insane” etc.  In many video games that have mental illness, it is often associated with the bad guys or unimportant “crazy” encounters with characters that aren’t important to the story. Within past classes we have talked about how the LGBTQIA falls victim to the same representation in games. Where they are too seen as the “bad” guys.

These representations are all too common and make games such as Gone Home stand out.  One of the positive things about the game is that it doesn’t have a bad ending. It is relatable for those who are aren’t a part of the LGBTQIA community also.  I think that this ties into the reason why fan fiction is so important.  It gives people the change to write the happier endings for themselves.  With certain fan fiction being seen by others, it can encourage people to be more comfortable with who they are because they have more things they can relate to.  People wouldn’t have to stay subject to those gross misrepresentations of their community by people who don’t take the time to understand it.  This stands for gender, disability, weight, illness.

Works Cited

Dym, Brianna, et al. “‘Theyre All Trans Sharon’: Authoring Gender in Video Game Fan Fiction.” Game Studies, 2018.

Personally, nostalgia is a big part of the reason why I feel so emotionally attached to certain games.  I feel that I can relate to both restorative and reflective nostalgia when it comes to certain video games.  Restorative nostalgia “wishes to recover the lost paradise of the past and reconstruct it in the present…restorative nostalgia is uncritical of past mistakes or failures and instead relies on romanticizing and recreating, brick by brick, the monuments and moments lost to time” (318).  There are so many games that I wish I could go back to and play just as they were with not even the slightest difference.  When 343 Industries came out with Halo 2 anniversary, I was skeptical on if it would live up to the same feeling the original game had given me years prior. Within the campaign there is an option to switch between the old graphics and new ones. 343 Industries was smart to appeal to the restorative nostalgia that many of their players would have for the game.  When playing, I found myself often staying in the original graphics and trying to experience the game exactly how I did the first time I played it.  I agree that there is much more to experiencing a game than just the graphics or controls.  When I first played Halo, I was sitting right beside my older brother, in the same room, with split screen on.  I was much younger than I am now and my perspective and how I went about playing the game was so much more different than it was when I went back to it all those years later.  I did feel the initial excitement and nostalgia, but it still never quite felt the same.  I feel like the nostalgia arguable comes less from the game itself and more from the situation and time period that surrounds the game.  Sure, a game can represent a certain moment in someone’s life or a certain time period, but it will never truly bring the player back to that situation, time, and mindset.  To me it seems like restorative nostalgia is a grasp of a past that we can never return to, but one that we romanticize and tell ourselves that it is possible by striving to recreate the games themselves perfectly.

This connects to reflective nostalgia which “does not seek to reconstruct the past in the present; instead, it is nostalgia consumed with the act of longing itself, a nostalgia that wallows in the irrecoverable ruins of the past” (318).  I find myself relating more to restorative nostalgia because even though I know that I can never recreate the past experience of playing a game, I still always try to.  One game that I experience reflective nostalgia is Burnout Paradise.  The reason for this is because I always use to play this game with a particular person.  Even if the game got remastered, I choose to not play it because I know it will never live up to the memories I had of it when playing with that person all those years ago.

Works Cited

Payne, Matthew Thomas, and Nina Huntemann. How to Play Video Games. New York University Press, 2019.

Having more positive and accurate representation of different people in video games starts with the people in charge of making the games.  The thing that caught my attention the most this week was the “FeministWhorePurna” incident.  It is upsetting that it is even an incident at all, and even more upsetting that it is undoubtably not the only one of its kind.  First, I am just confused as to how something like that slips through the cracks of an entire company.  But I am glad that it didn’t because it shows the kinds of people who are employed to make such games and it gives clarity as to why games can misrepresent people so much.  I agree with the statement Robert Yang makes in the article “On ‘FeministWhorePurna’ and the Ludo-material Politics of Gendered Damage Power-ups in Open-World RPG Video Games” that, “FeministWhorePurna is not just a rogue prank by a sole misogynist commercial game developer: it is a useful lens to articulate wider systemic problems of gender representation in video game culture” (98).  If there are video games being made by people who believe in gender stereotypes or gender inequality, then those things will leak through into the games that are being made.  Video games can be seen as a direct reflection of those who are making them.

The game Dead Island, which was talked about within the article, is a clear reflection of how the mindset of the people making the game can leak into the game itself.  Two female characters within the game (Purna and Xian Mei) are the embodiment of stereotypes for their race.  This is a reflection of the mindset and beliefs of those who created these characters.  Not only do gender stereotypes play a role in the development and appearance of characters in a video game, but also the abilities that are associated with a character too.  There are many video games where the female character is the stealth character, or that the female character at some point would have to be a distraction for a group of male enemies so that the protagonist can save the day.  In many cases, women in video games are boiled down to fragile, objectifiable, side characters in a male driven world. This can only be attributed to the mindset and beliefs of those who are developing the games.

In recent years there have been many cases where there are strong female protagonists who break the mold of what had been mainstream in the gaming industry for so long.  Games like Life is Strange, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, and Gears of War 5 all have strong female protagonist that prove the depth and complexity of humanity beyond that of gender, race, or stereotypes. Not only is it important to represent gender in a more realistic and complex way, but also things like age, culture, sexuality, disability, etc.  These are all things that deserve to be represented in an accurate way, but the only possibility for that is if those who choose to represent these things actual take the time to understand and appreciate them first.

Works Cited

Yang, Robert. “On ‘FeministWhorePurna’ and the Ludo-Material Politics of Gendered Damage Power-Ups in Open-World RPG Video Games.”

Streaming is a very challenging occupation in general.  It requires a lot of time and energy with very little security.  Even the most successful streamers can lose their success overnight due to taking a break or making a public mistake that angers their viewers. It is upsetting that it is even more challenging for women to even become successful streamers in the first place.  I find it interesting that there are many people out there who complain about the fact that some women become successful streamers by showing their body instead of actually playing games. But they don’t realize that the reason those women become successful is because there are people who want to see that. I feel like those who only view women’s stream to treat them like objects are the same people who go to other women’s streams expecting to see more of their body.  I feel like that is where the harassment comes into play.  Within the article “Nothing but a “titty streamer”: legitimacy, labor, and the debate over women’s breasts in video game live streaming” by Bonnie Ruberg, Amanda L. L. Cullen and Kathryn Brewster it states, “Yet, even as these commenters insist that their grievance is with how much (or little) these women streamers play, their language returns to women’s bodies. Breasts become markers of illegitimacy” (474).  When there is a conversation about female streamers it almost always ends up being a conversation about their body. When it comes to a male streamer, there is almost no conversations about his body or any other excuses for how he got successful.  Even if a woman streamer were to become successful, there will always be people who will question her success and attribute it to her body. Even the women who do use the platform for its purpose and are serious about gaming are harassed by people who expect them to show their bodies.

This issue around women’s bodies are also reflected in the games that people are so used to playing.  There are many games now that try so hard to create female characters and avatars to fit player cultural expectations about gender.  Female characters and avatars mostly now have specific physical parameters they fall into. Within the article “Revision of Queer Bodies: Modifications of Sexual Affordances in World of Warcraft” by Noel Brett discussed the evolution of character structure through the years.  It is clear that game designers are gearing characters toward what society believes would be the ideal bodies for both male and female.  Although these high expectations are represented for both males and females, I feel that females are the ones who are held to those standards more and are compared to those standards more.  I stream sometimes but I only really ever stream for my friends.  Even when I do stream, I never stream with a camera.  I have considered streaming more often, and maybe even building it up to stream more regularly and with a bigger audience but instances where women don’t get taken seriously or are harassed hinder my motivation to take streaming more seriously.  It is a shame that women have to take these things into account when streaming, and they can’t just engage in their hobbies free of judgement.

Works Cited

Bonnie Ruberg, Amanda L. L. Cullen & Kathryn Brewster (2019) Nothing but a “titty streamer”: legitimacy, labor, and the debate over women’s breasts in video game live streaming, Critical Studies in Media Communication.

Brett, Noel. (2018). Revision of Queer Bodies: Modifications of Sexual Affordances in World of Warcraft.

I am personally a really big fan of having narratives within video games.  I don’t think games have to have narratives within them to be good games, but I do feel like there are many unique and amazing games that are solely based on a narrative.  Within the article, Video Games Are Better Without Stories, Ian Bogost states “Players and creators have been mistaken in merely hoping that they might someday share the stage with books, films, and television, let alone to unseat them” (Bogost).  I feel like this statement is implying that video games are trying to be just like books or movies instead of being seen as its own separate and unique platform. He mentions that video games will not be able to tell a narrative better than other things, but I feel like he is missing the point.  Experiencing a narrative through a video game is unique on its own.  Instead of passively experiencing a narrative, players are able to be active in the stories that are being told. I believe that this leads to a stronger level of immersion.  Playing a game demands the attention of a player more than a movie demands the attention of a viewer.  A player can feel like they are a part of the narrative instead of just feeling a disconnect and like they are on the outside looking in. I love to watch scary movies and even though I may get scared, I am still able to commit and watch the movie to the end.  However, I find it very hard for me to play certain horror games because it feels like a more intense experience.  The survival or escape of the main character is up to me.  I have to make sure that I don’t mess up or that I make the right decisions or else something bad will happen.  When watching a movie, I know that I have no influence on the events that are going to take place.  I can passively just sit there with little to no energy and experience the narrative.   With books it is the same thing, the beginning, middle, and ending are all written already.  No matter what my personal thoughts or decisions would have been, it doesn’t matter.  With a video game, more times than not I can choose what to do and how to deal with the obstacles.  I believe that all different forms that content can come in should be accepted for what they are.  Video games has its many differences from other forms of media and that should be valued.  The modern version of gaming is still something very new, and the incorporation of narrative is also something very new to gaming as a whole.  I believe that the stories that can be experienced through games will only grow and expand.  The ways in which people can influence a narrative will only grow.  I see a lot of potential in the future of gaming and I find that exciting.

Works Cited

Bogost, Ian. “Video Games Are Better Without Stories.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 25 Apr. 2017, http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/04/video-games-stories/524148/.

One extremely important thing that has been made apparent to me within this past week is that the differences between all of us is something that should be highlighted instead of looked down upon.  In the class activity where we looked through our personal gaming history for any trends in our past, I noticed that there weren’t many games that I have played where there was a character that represented myself.  I guess in the past it never really occurred to me that I was never truly represented in a character.  Sure, there were games in which female characters were present, but in many of them they were this socially idolized version of what a female should be.  Their attire was always way too revealing, and their bodies were always way too exaggerated in specific areas.  Even with those examples of female characters sprinkled throughout my gaming career, there were still very few games in which I was even given the option to play as a female or even have a game where there was a female protagonist.  Nowadays there is a bit more representation of females, along with the option to choose between a male and female character.  But I have noticed that it took a long time for this small addition to games to even be made, and it seems like such a trivial option to have.  I also see how underrepresented things like race, culture, sexuality, disabilities, class, religion, and many other things are within the gaming community.

This makes me think of the “Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference” article by Audre Lorde because she talks about how difference is not being viewed as a positive thing, but instead it is something people fear.  Within the article she states, “We have all been programmed to respond to the human differences between us with fear and loathing and to handle that difference in one of three ways: ignore it, and if that is not possible, copy it if we think it is dominant, or destroy it if we think it is subordinate” (Lorde, 115).  The mindset of fearing and loathing difference is the very reason for the underrepresentation of the majority of the world’s population.  Since society doesn’t like things that are different then that gears game developers to just create characters that have been successful and the same for generations.  It is even more disappointing that when people do speak up about these issues and do strive for accurate representations in the gaming industry, then they are seen as heretics who want to ruin the gaming experience for everyone.  The way society views difference just motivates the big brand gaming companies to keep making the same kinds of games with the same limited character representation because that is what people like.  I feel that in order to truly start making a difference within the gaming industry, we have to push and spread this idea that the difference between us is what makes the world an interesting place and it is what makes the world unique.  Risks need to be taken to show the world that difference is exciting and good and that we are all worth being represented in our favorite games.

Works Cited

“Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference.” Sister Outsider Essays and Speeches, by Audre Lorde, Ten Speed Press, 2016, pp. 114–123.