This week in class, we took a look at Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. and its representation of female characters and the player community’s attitude towards female players and game characters. In Adams’s article, he discusses the hypermasculinity that is often seen in other mainstream gaming circles is not as present within the Super Smash Bros. gaming community. The playable female characters present within the game have various ranges of femininity present in their designs, as well as a diversity in agency in each character’s respective games. The roster of female characters in Super Smash Bros shows off some diversity in character and design that can be not as present in other games that contain female characters. 

Within Super Smash Bros.’s gaming community, Adams describes the community as “vaguely positive” towards feminine subjects, and how players within the community may express positive attitudes towards female characters in the game in ways that do not denote a sexual preference. It is also important to note that these attitudes may also be influenced by character arcs a particular female character undergoes in their own games, such as Adams’s example of a player expressing why they liked Lucina. The community also emphasized a character’s mechanics and playstyle over their gender or character, as shown in tier lists developed by the community. However, female sexualization of characters’ appearances was still present within the community, which seems to also be seen in the game itself with characters such as Zero Suit Samus, whose design includes heels and a skintight suit emphasizing her body. Adams noted that instances of sexualization were largely present in a group dynamic, which may play a part to have other members of the community take part in the action in order to better fit in within the group. 

Attitudes towards female players were also less toxic in comparison to other mainstream game communities according to the study. This is shown in many forum posts in the SmashBoards where women were more open in mentioning and expressing their gender, whereas in many other communities female players would often hide their gender in order to avoid facing toxicity from the community solely due to their gender. Many interactions in the SmashBoards forums also show a lack of negativity or comments towards a female player’s gender. In our discussions, we bring up the possibility of this community’s attitude to be tied up with Nintendo’s image of promoting their games as family-friendly. Indeed, the rules of the SmashBoards forums emphasizes that the community is meant to be family-friendly. I think it is worth noting that the expectations of having more younger kids within the player sphere would also change the conduct of some players in regards to interactions with others. 

I think that the lower levels of toxicity within the Super Smash Bros. community in the study does make a point to show that how a game’s and its company’s image also influences the player community. This could show that while gaming companies may not have full control of its consumer community, it should also still go out to create an image that promotes the positivity that it wants to see in its player community, as it no doubt still serves as an influence to the players.

Sources:

Adams, John. “Female Fighters: Perceptions of Femininity in the Super Smash Bros. Community.” Vol. 3, no. 1, 2016.

This week, we discussed the consequences of the current climate of gaming culture and how it correlates to the increase of alt-right ideas within the gaming community. As Condis states in her opinion article, the proliferation of alt-right ideas may be because of the premise of many of the popular games within the sphere itself. Many popular games, particularly online games, feature a narrative “invasion” from the “other” and a heavy “us vs. them” mentality. Many of these games portray a black and white morality where there is a clear good guy and bad guy, with games such as Call of Duty or Counter Strike: Global Offensive, simplifying the premise of war to repelling the explicitly foreign enemies and invaders.. Another consequence of competitive video games is that the emphasis on player skill as a key element in achieving victory in games breeds a mentality where players want to be the one who is “better” than other players in terms of skills. This creates a desire for superiority for other players that can easily start to leak into ideas outside of gaming. 

The results of this is seen in controversies such as #GamerGate where many members of the gaming community see the increased presence of social justice ideas in games and minority groups within the gaming community as elements that are “taking away” their games. 

Some people may claim that this is just a reaction against the presence of politics in their games, seeing games as an escapist medium where politics shouldn’t be allowed. However, I see this argument can be used in some games where there is simply an LBGTQ character and is open about their sexuality. One example I can think of is when Riot introduced Neeko in League of Legends, and she had in-game character interactions and external statements from developers that Neeko is a lesbian. There was some backlash that happened where players claimed that LGBTQ themes were “being shoved in their faces,” and that Neeko’s sexuality does not need to be openly expressed. However, this same backlash is not applied to heterosexual displays of romance in the game and in external media. Examples include Xayah and Rakan’s interactions, showing their love as a couple, in the game, and Senna’s character trailer where the love between Senna and Lucian is openly displayed. When looked through this lens, there seems to be a double standard between portraying openness of LGBTQ themes and openness of heterosexual themes, where people of the LGBTQ group are expected to refrain from open displays of their sexuality. I think the desire to not see politics in a game can be a valid reason for disliking a game, but I do not agree that open displays of LGBTQ themes count as “politics” if heteronormative themes in games are still generally accepted in the gaming community.

I think this pushback against inclusion of marginalized groups and narratives within the gaming community show that developers should put some consideration into how certain narratives in their games are portrayed. 

Sources:Condis, Megan. “From Fortnite to Alt-Right.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 27 Mar. 2019, http://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/27/opinion/gaming-new-zealand-shooter.html.

In class, we took a look at the game Journey and how it correlates to social justice dialogue. The game can be played single player or with another player, and in our livestream, the player plays a character with no arms who travels through a deserted wasteland littered with what appears to be gravestones. The game of Journey does not feature high stakes of losing or a clear win condition. Instead, the game seems to be more to experience a (no pun intended) journey through the lens of the character they play as. 

The creator of the game, Jenova Chen, explains the decision to take away arms and mouths, thus removing the ability to pick up things and to speak, as a way to take away forms of violent online interaction. This includes griefing and verbal harassment through the player characters (Nakamura, 7). I think this also brings up a point in putting to conversation the lack of voice and visibility given to marginalized groups, especially in fields such as gaming, without directly saying it in the game. In addition, the restricting of verbal and somatic interactions through hands forces players to look through other ways to interact with the other player in a co-op experience. Chen also added visual feedback of the player’s character when that character experiences harm. This takes into account that players are usually much more willing to harass others online due to the fact that they are not facing their victim in person (Nakamura, 7). By creating a vehicle for players to see the result of harmful actions done to their cooperating player up close, the players will feel less inclined to commit online harm to other players. 

I think Journey does something unique in that it puts strict focus on the element of cooperative play. This is done through making the players the only characters present in the setting, and stripping any potential for competitive or griefing behavior towards the other cooperating player in the game mechanics. Nakamura mentions that the way that the player characters are designed makes them gender ambiguous, disabled, and non-white. I think this gives a case where a game can be created where the “default character” is not just a generic white person. In many games that I have played where there is character customization, the default model is usually a white character, let alone being able to have an option where they are disabled. I think having the player characters in Journey be the opposite of what is usually present in games with customization brings up another point of view in handling the default model, as well as the highlighting of options not present in customization. While there are a few games out there that highlight the disabled experience, mostly through the single-player experience, I think it would be interesting to see a game such as an MMORPG tackle this issue. I say this because it gives the player a choice to experience this, and the game can give certain mechanical disadvantages to the player for choosing this certain customization that highlights the struggles of disabled people in the real world.

Sources:

Nakamura, Lisa. “‘Putting Our Hearts Into It.’” Gaming’s Many Social Justice Warriors and the Quest for Accessible Games.

Casual gaming and casual gamers has often been an activity looked upon by self-proclaimed “hardcore”gamers and many similar individuals among the gaming community. Many of these games viewed as “casual” games usually do not contain the same amount of competition or stakes present in games that are considered non-casual. For many, the term of casual games can be used to encompass entire platforms or genres of games without consideration of the diversity of games within that genre or platform. I also know many other games from perceived “casual” platforms and genres where the stakes present within the game can be just as high as games from more “hardcore” platforms.

I remember at one point that I became interested in a single-player mobile card game (that was not Hearthstone) that had good artistic design and interesting strategy. From my point of view, the amount of thought that goes into playing this game would not be considered “casual.” However, I have been asked by others why I waste my time on such a game. Their negative perception of the game turns out to be stemmed from the fact that the game was a mobile game. I find it interesting that Hearthstone is a similar game that can be played on a mobile platform, but a game like that is not looked down upon in comparison to various other card games available in mobile app stores. I feel that the game coming from Blizzard, a large game company known for many other “hardcore” games may be a factor in this. 

This is an effect that I see happening in the opposite manner in games from platforms that are considered hardcore. For example, indie games that feature gameplay that are not competitive, stakes-heavy, or require great time investment do not receive as much criticism for being “casual” when developed for a platform like PC. In class, we played Stardew Valley, a game that has received praise and in my experience, very little would call the game “casual.” I think it is interesting that mobile games developed by small developers are looked down upon as casual while the opposite is true for games of more “hardcore” platforms that are also developed by small developers. This is not even considering the fact that browser games are largely ignored by the gaming community due to its perception of being a casual platform, while a large majority of games developed in that platform are from indie developers. There is a clear double standard here in regards to how the gaming community views indie games and games made by smaller companies.

Casual gaming has also often been seen as a stereotypically female activity (Eklund, 5). This probably stems from sexist societal views of women who are better off spending time on domestic activities, and that they are better suited to games that do not lend as much time investment as “hardcore” games. I think this adds to the negative perception towards “casual” games, as many gamers are embroiled in a male-dominated culture that is often sexist. Back to the discussion of the double standard of attitudes towards indie games, I think this is also present when it comes to developers. Most indie games that receive praise from the gaming community are usually male-led projects. 

Sources:Eklund, Lina. “Who Are the Casual Gamers? Gender Tropes and Tokenism in Game Culture.” Social, Casual and Mobile Games : The Changing Gaming Landscape, 2015, doi:10.5040/9781501310591.ch-002.

In class this week, we played a game called Dys4ia, which highlighted the trans developer’s experiences with gender dysphoria, how their interactions with others are affected by their identity, and their transitioning process. 

What strikes me the most about this game is that it plays out in four phases of the developer’s experience, with each phase allowing the player to play through a similar series minigames with some variation in terms of tone or difficulty, with many being symbolic of the protagonist’s emotions and view of themselves. The graphics used throughout the game are pixelated and simplistic, with the protagonist in question being anonymous. This allows the game to focus more on the raw feelings of the individual rather than the identity of the individual. The use of minigames seems to emphasize the fact that the protagonist sees many of her daily activities as things that are constantly in need of her undivided attention and has severe consequences if she “loses.” There is also a lot of chaos in the aesthetic, using bright colors and flashing imagery to highlight the struggles the developer goes through during this time of her life. 

The developer of the game created Dys4ia to illustrate a period in her life where she was going through hormone replacement therapy. In class, we discussed how this game gained a bit of traction and increased the public’s visibility on the trans community. However, this turned out to be a double edged sword as many mistakenly see the game as a representation of all trans experiences. I think that it is important when developers make games based on their experiences, that one sees the representation of the developer as an individual, and not as a person part of a larger group.

We also discussed LGBTQ content within fanworks of different media, particularly in game media, and the higher presence of LGBTQ themes within fan content than there are in the canon content that the fan content is based off of. In my experiences of browsing fanfiction and fanart, there is generally a high percentage of works where characters are part of the LGBTQ community. I think that in a lot of fan content for game media, it can be easier to headcanon a character as someone who is part of the LGBTQ community because of the fact that many games emphasize player agency within a story, and for player characters to be a representation of the player themselves. For many members of the LGBTQ community, the writing of fanworks can be an outlet for their desire for representation in canon media. I think that a higher presence of LGBTQ themes within the canon media also encourages more LGBTQ fan media due to the nature of the fact that fans will usually start off with more material to work with from canon in terms of LGBTQ representation. I think that fanfiction and fanart serve as an interesting footnote in terms of fictional media as it is a derivative form where the creators can change and manipulate the original story. It is almost like in games where players are able to have some agency in how the story of a game plays out.

Sources:

Anthropy, Anna. “dys4ia.” Kbhgames, kbhgames.com/game/dys4ia.Dym

Brianna, et al. “Game Studies.” “They’re All Trans Sharon”: Authoring Gender in Video Game Fan Fiction, gamestudies.org/1803/articles/brubaker_dym_fiesler.

The playing of video games has often been seen as a male-dominated hobby. Women are often an overlooked demographic, and even when companies look to market towards that demographic, they do so with a specific stereotype of the demographic in mind. Along with this stereotype, comes with the idea of games that exhibit gameplay that are not typically seen in the gaming mainstream. These are games marketed towards the “Player Two,” as Chess describes it. Chess’s usage of the term Player Two describes female players as the second thought for many game developers. The games that often can be coined to be designed for the Player Two often exhibit lower stakes, lower time requirements, and places heavier focus on the player actions themselves rather than having the player actions be a means towards a win condition. 

Chess brings up one of the earliest examples of a game designed and marketed towards the Player Two, the Nintendo Knitting Machine. At the time, the Nintendo Knitting Machine was considered something different and maybe even revolutionary. A gaming product that was advertised to female players and lacked many features a mainstream game would have while also introducing new features not seen in games before. However, the fact that a product that intends for players to do knitting while marketed towards girls shows a pretty obvious act of stereotyping to their marketed demographic. There’s a message in there that tells the gaming world that girls are not interested in violent or competitive games, and that they would much better be suited with games that focus on housework, such as knitting. This in turn influences the thoughts of children who see these kinds of marketing and play these games.

In addition, I think this type of marketing is not only detrimental to girls, but also to boys as well. A game that introduces new and unique concepts and mechanics should not only be the interest of one demographic. Almost everyone I know loves the introduction of novel concepts in any medium of entertainment. As an extension, I feel that if it were not the fact that knitting is stereotyped as a girl’s activity, there would be a lot more boys that are more willing to do knitting and by extension be a marketable audience for the Nintendo Knitting Machine. 

I feel that it is important for marketing in games to broaden the demographics they appeal to. I feel that marketing towards specific social groups such as gender or sexuality is a handicap for gaming industries, especially games that are more marketed towards a younger demographic, where many are still trying to discover what they like and don’t like. If a child sees that a game is not marketed towards them, they will think that they are not supposed to like those types of games and may never try them out, not knowing if they may have enjoyed them if they did. Alternatively, they may try them out, but will fear being stigmatized for not “liking what they’re supposed to like” and may keep their enjoyment a secret.

Sources:

Chess, Shira. Ready Player Two: Women Gamers and Designed Identity. University of Minnesota Press, 2017.

It was fascinating to learn of esoteric languages, programming languages designed to serve primarily as statements or art pieces rather than to serve primarily as means to complete practical goals on the computer. One thing I never considered about esoteric languages and programming in general is that they could be a result of the surrounding cultural and political atmosphere in which this field has developed. After all, it is humans, not computers, that create languages to code.

One of the languages mentioned in Tveten’s article is Nasser’s Arabic language قلب, which is a programming language that is written in Arabic. The Anglocentric traits of programming languages is brought into the spotlight. For people who do not know English, it does seem like picking up programming would be much harder for them than for people who do know English. This would cause an inherent inequality for non-English speakers who want to pursue computer science and software engineering as a career. It is discouraging to hear Nasser tell those eager to learn coding without knowing English that it is not possible in the current state of the field. It also brings up the topic of Anglocentrism in a lot of other fields. For example. English is considered a language that all pilots must know in order to communicate with one another. I suspect that it is the result of English colonialism in the past and America’s global influence in the present. Nasser’s language opens up the possibility of non-English programming languages and makes a point that languages do not have to be in English to be practically functional, which could create a more inclusive atmosphere for those who do not know English.

Another thing that is addressed is the idea that society’s views of the binary may have been applied to programming through the binary logic prevalent in software. This was something I’ve never thought about before, and I wonder what kind of logic should exist if a binary logic cannot be replaced. However, there are some parts in which I find myself disagreeing that the way programming uses binary logic can be as harmful as some of the binary logic found in societal cultures. For example, many programming languages have a variable type known as a “boolean,” where binary logic is employed. The logic is that a boolean can only be “true” or “false.” Clarity is important when writing a program, and a straight true or false is clear and, while it employs binary logic, it can be equated with the binary logic of a simple “yes” or “no” answer used in real-world conversations, rather than equated to the binary logic of “male” and “female.” Even so, it would be interesting to see a programming language that rejects binary logic, and what practical goals such a language could be useful for. 

As a student majoring in Computer Science, I had noticed the Anglocentric nature of programming, but I did not notice until now the other political and cultural influences that the field has had.

Sources:

Tveten, Julianne. “Code Is Political.” Vice, 1 Mar. 2016, www.vice.com/en_us/article/3dak5w/code-is-political.

“Aviation English.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 29 Feb. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_English.

The player character in a game can be a point of identification for some players, where the character they play serves as an extension that allows the player to experience the world of the game. However, having the player character be identifiable with the player is not a necessary experience for all players. For some players, there is no need to identify with the player they play as. From reading Shaw, he surmises that the differences may be between the socially interactive aspects of a game versus the narrative aspects of the game. More specifically, social aspects help more to allow players to identify as the character they play as, while narrative aspects help more to allow players to identify with the character they play as.

I think that games that emphasize player freedom and social situations are more likely to create scenarios where players see themselves more as the character they play as, rather than a character separate from themselves. The freedom gives the player character a blank slate in terms of personality and appearance, which the players can impose themselves onto. In a way, it allows players to insert themselves into the story and create the story around them. Meanwhile, games with strong narratives also tend to borrow more practices from stories of other fictional media, where stories from books and films emphasize a protagonist with a fleshed out personality and background. As such, there are narratively emphasized games where the player character already has a story of their own outside of the player. 

However, this does not mean that a player character with an already defined personality and background cannot be identifiable with the player. Like other forms of fictional media, many people have found protagonists identifiable even with differing backgrounds. 

In addition, games with more freedom of customization does not automatically mean that the player will create a character that the player can identify as. I have created characters where I wanted to follow a theme and created based on a backstory I made up in my head. 

Another thing is that some games that are very narrative heavy still contain player characters as blank slates that are meant for the player to impose themselves on and identify as. The example that I can think of off the top of my head is Undertale, where the player character is displayed as racially and gender ambiguous, with no outward discernible personality. However, the story of the game is one of the most important aspects of it. However, I feel that the lack of customization in the game still prevents true freedom from the player to identify with the player character.

There is also the problem where some games that offer player customization do not offer enough design options that allow the player to create a character that they want to play. A key example is World of Warcraft’s customizer for female characters, where for most races, the female versions have similar body shapes. There is also the issue where body shapes cannot be adjusted in World of Warcraft (Brett, 2). 

I think because games are different from other mediums, where the audience can create an embodied experience of a narrative, the subject of identity and representation is important. It allows players to feel represented from their own customization, as well as to push players’ creativity with creating their own narratives.

Sources:

Shaw, Adrienne. “He Could Be a Bunny Rabbit for All I Care!” Gaming at the Edge, 2015, pp. 97–146., doi:10.5749/minnesota/9780816693153.003.0004.

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

There has been much debate over the years about the role of narrative in the world of video games. While many games today put a lot of effort into the story, whether it is through the environment, cutscenes, or the general fleshing out of setpieces, story-centric video games have drawn some ire from critics over the years. Many, such as Ian Bogost, have accused narrative-driven exploratory games such as Gone Home and What Remains of Edith Finch of trying too hard to emulate films and television while not being as good at delivering the story as other storytelling mediums. These games, sometimes dubbed “walking simulators,” focus on linear storylines with emphasis on exploration of the game world in order to reveal narrative. 

I feel like some people direct ire towards these types of games due to the lack of typical gameplay elements and the linear nature of the stories, meaning that the player cannot exert as much control over the game world as other games that exhibit complex game mechanics or stories where player decisions produce consequences in-story. However, having less control over the world does not mean the player does not have control at all. The player is still able to control the protagonist of the game, even if there will always be one destination that the protagonist can end up in. In short, I think critics like Bogost are mainly expressing their dislike of a specific type of game, rather than actually delivering criticism on narrative-driven games. 

It is interesting to note that games that are narrative-heavy are receiving debates now when narratives have existed in games since very early on. Aside from the walking simulator, saying that stories do not belong in games calls into question entire genres of games. Off the top of my head, visual novels and role-playing games are both genres where a narrative is central to its games. Expanding outside of video games, tabletop role-playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons, which has been around for decades, rely heavily on some kind of story in order for a session of gameplay to even exist. Even genres that don’t necessarily rely on a narrative, such as platformers, still have some kind of story. If these are all classified as games, even good ones, then there should not even be a debate about whether or not narratives should be in games.

I also disagree that films and television can execute stories better than games. I think that games offer a unique mode of storytelling that you cannot achieve in other mediums, which is to allow the audience to experience the story as a character within. I feel that I am not the only one who has sometimes watched a film or read a book and became so enamored with the story that I wish I was a part of it. People have made fanworks of fictional media where they create self-insert characters into a particular work. For many, it is fun to imagine themselves within a fictional world and interacting with the main cast of characters as if they are a part of it. Games allow a direct outlet into that escapist fantasy through the integration of narrative into its play. 

Sources: 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/.

The presence of online trolls within the gaming sphere often creates a toxic environment for many players. In our discussions, I also noticed a tendency for trolls to target female players, and that in games with an online voice-chat system, many players will be quick in bringing to attention the presence of a female player. In my opinion, the anonymity and the disconnect provided through screens can lower some inhibitions for players to decide to troll others through the belief that their actions will not receive consequences. In addition, players who get trolled are incentivized to troll back as a form of revenge (Cook et al., 10), creating a cycle of negative atmosphere within the game. 

Fortunately, many online multiplayer games have implemented a report option for unsavory players. Hopefully, the reporting would result in consequences, such as a ban, for their actions. However, this is not a perfect solution, and at most times, they are only temporary in preventing the reported troll from finding other avenues of coming back to the game. In addition, many players, when they get trolled, do not resort to muting or reporting the trolling player in question, even though many people see getting reported to be one of the top negative consequences of trolling (Cook et al., 11).

As someone who had once taken to some trolling and have been on the receiving end of being trolled, in my personal experience, a reaction is generally incentive to continue trolling. If there is no reaction or an underwhelming reaction to trolling, usually the trolling stops due to the lack of reactions garnered from their actions. Particularly, trolling seems to be a form of attention-seeking, both negative and positive. I include positive attention because from my personal experiences, people not directly targeted by the troll might end up finding the situation funny without thinking about the experience from the victim’s shoes, or that in some twisted fashion, the victim “deserves” the trolling they receive due to some arbitrary reason. Thus, they outwardly support and contribute to the troll’s actions, and at times, might even join in trolling the victim. 

This can be detrimental to the mental health of the victim, as it can seem as if they are truly alone in their situation. In addition, as some players might respond to trolling by trolling back, I would also assume other players affected by trolling might go into a new game and troll the players there as a form of lashing out in anger. I assume this, because anger, particularly in a situation where the player has been on a losing streak, is seen as an internal trigger for trolling (Cook et al, 9), so anger from being trolled by others may also trigger one to troll people that were not involved. This can potentially create a snowball effect where players affected by a troll can go on to troll others in a new game, and the players in that new game being affected by it and moving on to other games to troll there. 

All in all, trolling is one of the key factors in creating a negative gaming environment, and may even snowball into a very negative community for a particular game. As such, although there seems to be no direct consequences of trolling, one might eventually find themselves on the other end of an unpleasant gaming experience.

Sources:

Cook, Christine, et al. Under the Bridge: An in-Depth Examination of Online Trolling in the Gaming Context – Christine Cook, Juliette Schaafsma, Marjolijn Antheunis, 2018. SAGE Journals.