After reading the chapter on militarism in How to Play Video Games by Mirrlees, I was intrigued by some the comments within the chapter. Growing up with video games as a part of my daily routine, I have played my fair share of first-person shooter video games. With that being said, it connects with a couple of different points within this chapter on militarism. For instance, how The Global War on Terror has made its way into our hearts and minds. I couldn’t tell you why military-like games retain and hold my attention better than most games, but they just do. However, I feel as if video games are more direct when “pushing” the militaristic ideas onto their audiences. To explain, films such as Full Metal Jacket, and television shows like Band of Brothers allow for enough room for interpretation from the audience’s point of view. Movie goers can form unique thoughts and opinions towards a movie, where as a game does not. In Full Metal Jacket’s case, even though the director wanted to convey the transformation from men to killers, the viewers can make up a completely different view-point.

“Militarism permeates popular culture, encouraging American citizens to perceive martial violence as a righteous and a noble solution to geopolitical problems that vex the United States” (Mirrlees, 242). I believe that this statement relates to how militarism is pushed heavily through video games due to their lack of freedom or choices to do what the player wants to do within a video game. Most video games that are militant often have the player follow a strict campaign that allows for most actions to not be decided by the player, but is rather predetermined with underlying ideals and attitudes by the developers and writers. Since most of the motives and underlying themes of a video game are pre-determined in a sense, it is a lot easier to push the militant ideology onto younger, more immature minds through popular video games.

Thinking about it now, I never really understood the mass appeal towards video games where the main objective is to kill someone else. Why/How do these games do so well in sales? Coming from my point of view, I have never had an interest in war or power; So why am I addicted to playing games where war and power is the main premise. Has militarism been pushed onto the public for so long, that it eventually became normal to simulate previous wars that already happened? Have militant video games always been this popular even before 9/11?

After a very weird semester this year, my junior year is finally coming to close and this will be my last blog post for DMS 448. Being a straight, white male, I was going into to this class just looking forward to the days where we would be playing World of Warcraft in class, to start thinking a whole lot about the identity of the video game community as whole and how I fit into that community. Being a male, it was easy for me to navigate through the multiplayer universes with online members but after taking this class I finally started to see how hard it must have been for girl gamers and anyone who wasn’t male to just simply trying to enjoy themselves playing online.

Growing up I was always kind of a little shit, but I knew my morals. I always liked to create fun out of a situation, even if It resulted in my brother chasing me down to get his revenge. However, it was different in gaming. I went through stages where would try really hard for games, and then there would be points where I didn’t really care at all. I grew up playing Call of Duty regularly, so it got boring pretty quick. To cope with how boring some games became, I started to find new ways to create my own fun within the video games I enjoyed. That fun can be characterized as trolling, even though I knew my actions weren’t detrimental to someone’s health. I was kind of skittish to say that I trolled back in the day, but my definition of trolling was very off from what we were learning about. I would trap people in corners, ninja defuse bombs, and reveal teammates positions (in casual games not ranked), but would never use my voice chat to make somebody actually bad about themselves, due to being scared half the time to put in my mic. What this class made me realize is the massive depth trolling has; trapping people in corners to telling somebody an awful statement, and the effects that has on somebody or a community.

After writing and researching on the disconnect within eSports for the female gender, I couldn’t imagine trying to load up a game of Call of Duty as a female with her mic in. During the times I would talk to my teammates, I would immediately be called out for being a kid, but as the game would go on it would slowly drift away, especially if I were playing well. Not so much for girl gamers. Back in the day it did not matter how good you were, there was such a persistent stereotype for girl gamers that would make it hard females to even want to participate in playing video games. Thankfully as time has passed, the toxicity towards female gamers has been diminishing ever so slowly over time. What I hope for the future is that video games become so big for both the male and female genders, that it becomes the new normal for girls to play games growing up. I would love to watch eSports events where a female team is facing off against a men’s team. The diverse culture that eSports could obtain, could create a whole new genre of sporting events that nobody has ever seen before.  

After reading Bonnie Ruberg’s chapter on the communities in which video games create, I thought of my past experiences and the communities that I have been in. The vast territory that video games inhabit causes multiple genres of content to come about. However, even with the toxicity of the game culture nowadays, that are numerous amounts of communities that are created through video games that allow people to connect and relate with one another through mutual liking of a video game. What that brings about is a sense of identity for you and your friends who are included within your community. Just like how Bonnie Ruberg and three other colleagues built a virtual community for the intersection of queerness in video games, anyone can connect with others to partake in the shared liking of a video game; no matter the size or popularity. “All games are the products of the developers who build them, whether or not they are a part of the video game industry, and all games are played by a wide range of individuals, all of whom bring their own identity and unique set of experiences to the game” (Ruberg, 118). Video games allow for all to connect and play together. For me, I never thought of meeting anyone through playing video games until relating and becoming friends with a group of random guys while playing call of duty. It was very unique; I was a freshman in high school, a couple guys were in college, and lastly, we had thirty-year-old, all being different ethnicities as well. We never met in real life but met one day while playing and became relatively close for having never met. For the time we played the game together, a lot of great experiences came from a community created from a game that I loved to play. That is the beauty about video games. The sense of community they can create is awesome. I think about those times in high school and miss those days playing call of duty with a community I felt comfortable playing in.

Another community I was a part of that relates to Ruberg’s chapter was the Rooster Teeth community. Even though I wasn’t actually playing a game, watching others play gave me a sense of community as well. With the help of Youtube, Video game content creation is very accessible. I started watching Minecraft Let’s Plays and before I knew it, was a part of another community as well. All it takes is one game for people to like, and after that, anything can happen. Whether it is connecting with others through playing, or creating content for others to enjoy, video games create immense communities for people to feel comfortable in.

After reading through Newman’s chapter about ball and paddle games, I instantly thought of the past and thought of the impact of technology on society. With the rapid rate at which technology has been expanding, the numerous amounts of revolutionary video game consoles that have been released are growing in number as time goes on; Having started with the ball and paddle games like pong, compared to modern games such as Half Life: Alyx, a realistic virtual reality game where you basically can control a human being in video game world. In virtual reality games, the amount of immersive controls that are available to the player stack up, making me ask the question; how much more immersive can a video game get. VR games are completely changing the landscape of video games in general, shifting the area immensely, adding in new controls, a VR headset and controller, and much more. However, I think of this quote from Newman’s chapter that challenges some of my thoughts about the progression of video games, and their purpose. “Ball and paddle games carried on a tradition of family play in domestic space, but they also transformed the typically feminized space of the home into a playground for masculine competition and technological innovation” (Newman, 209). To start, there were many progressions in video games to name just from this quote. For instance, I never really thought of how all early games were played; in the family room, on the one television in the house. Back then, I could sense the competitive nature of video games in relation to how it is today. Even though this is one of the more obvious shifts in technology, it plays a role in why video games were considered to be a masculine hobby. Firstly, since the first video games were sports games, the sense of competition was drawn to the male gender. No early games allowed for female gamers to really connect with the game that they are playing. Most girls would end up taking part in other hobbies due to the lack of technology not allowing them to connect to something virtually. Hence, as technology expanded, so did the growth of more female gamers. More platforms are evolving for everybody to feel comfortable while gaming. More games are available for console that can relate, ad connect to not only female gamers, but the LGBTQ community as well. With more controls to control a game with nowadays, it is easier for somebody to feel connected to a game’s narrative and its character. As time goes on, more systems will be introduced, and more people will start gaming. Even the more simple and basic games such as mobile apps will remain popular because they still attract an audience. My mother will play her phone games for a few hours a day because of the simplicity to them, and their relaxing nature. It doesn’t have to take being the new VR game Half Life to become immersed in a video game; it could be as simple as pong.

Growing up a straight, white male, this class is a challenging transition to try and think like others and see through the eyes of the LGBTQ community while playing video games. I have been thinking after reading “They’re all Trans Sharon” by Brianna Dym. I was curious when i came across this in the reading; “not only by adding queer characters but leaving narrative choices and details open so that players can interpret character identities in multiple ways”. In my history of video games, I thought that I have played a few in my history that can relate to this concept. Take in mind that being a straight, white male, I tended to play a lot of first person shooters and sports games, rather than walking simulators or other more relaxing games that may have allowed the player more control over their identity in the game. However, one of the game series that I used to play that can expand with this topic of identity in video games is the Fallout series. Fallout 3 was the first game that I experienced that gave the player that much control over the actions within the game. Looking back at the game and even replaying it, there are multiple ways to express one’s identity through their character. First off, dialogue can play a massive role in expressing oneself. Not only can the player flirt with other NPC’s, but barter and trade, or even argue. Even though it doesn’t relate with our class, Fallout granted the player to express themselves to fictional characters. Even though the LGBTQ community is represented in the game, it is done very slightly. However, I thought of the quote from Dym’s article about adding in queer characters and leaving narrative choice up to the player. Since the Fallout series does leave the narrative in some sense in control of the player, what would adding in (more) queer characters do to the game itself? Yes, it will make the story more diverse and relatable to some players, but I believe others will be left confused. I am all for more representation in video games, but for the right games. Even though the times are changing right now, and diversity is expanding, too much representation in video games I believe it will take away from the game itself, having the player focus more on the morals of the story, rather than the gameplay itself. That’s why I believe representation in games for marginalized communities depends on the game being played. If they added in a trans character in a game like call of duty or battlefield, yeah it is great for identity and diversity in gaming, but it also brings up a lot of questions as well. How will straight players take this addition? Does it even help with creating a more diverse narrative? Will it create a more toxic environment online? Depending on the game genre, I believe a more diverse narrative with more representation should be included within games that aren’t as high paced and chaotic like Call of Duty, but rather with games that focus on the story rather than the gameplay.

This week, we started playing Life is Strange, talking about the genre of “player two” video games. After sitting through our two online classes this week, I put some thought into the idea of player two video games, and if there were any that I have played in my lifetime. The idea of player two video games was just introduced to me this week due to various factors. One is that I am male. I realized this after going through our discord chat for the past two classes, seeing that most of the females were saying that they enjoy less competitive, relaxing games. Games such as animal crossing was heavily referenced due to the amount of cooperation needed, low violence, and slower paced gameplay. I believe that this is the case due to the way someone was raise, or the tendencies learned during childhood. I am a minor in communication, and this player 2 theory links very closely with a theory of communication. That theory being how boys and girls learn their roles in this society. Boys growing up are seen playing more competitive and violent game/sports growing up (football, airsoft, ministicks). Within these games, the boys are more focused on who is going to win, rather than playing together. For instance, a group of boys playing king of the hill would look drastically different than a group of girls playing king of the hill. Early on, males learn this competitiveness through reality, and transfer it over to video games. Same can be said with girls. Girls grow up playing house or dolls because that is/was the norm. It was an oddity to see a young girl play sports with the boys and vice versa. I believe that this norm of reality in some ways shaped the video game community. I do not come across many female gamers because I either play sports games, or violent first-person shooters. Female gamers focus on games such as animal crossing, or Life is Strange due to the relaxing nature of the playthrough, directly relating to a group of girls playing dolls.

Another thought that piqued my interest was the thought of E-sports and player two video games. Even though the e-sports scene is growing massively in size, there rarely are any female gamers within the mix. Video games are much different that sports, not needing top physical capabilities to perform to the highest level. So, I am curious as to why there aren’t more pro female gamers on the scene playing for teams. Is it because most games that are a part of the e-sports scene are too competitive, not attracting the attention of female gamers, relating to Chess’s Ready Player Two. I believe time will tell, with females within e-sports. When I say bigger community, I mean possibly more games to play professionally that relate more to women, and more female players on the big stage. I believe this will not only make videogames rise in popularity immensely but attract more female gamers to play a broader horizon of games.

For this week of classes, were adventuring into platforms and interfaces. Throughout my history of gaming, the platforms that I used were mainstream; platforms such as the Playstation, and Xbox were the machines that took up much of my time, but occasionally playing PC as well. I would like to argue that I was even involved in various sub-platforms as well. I believe that the Call of Duty, and Halo series could be argued as platforms as well. Even though it is not the underlying the hardware and software of a computer or a PlayStation, it is the thought  of the brands such as PlayStation and Xbox that helps them accomplish their goal by having people play on their system, nasically being part of the motivation of the companies. Games like Call of Duty and Halo are sub platforms that attract players to certain systems, and not the other. I believe games like the Halo and the God of War series are some of the pinnacle platforms for brands to really separate themselves from the others. God of War is a platform for PlayStation, while Halo is a platform for Xbox. Both games create a community and a sense of culture that helps define the type of system that those games are played on.  The specific games that come out for a certain system help with sales, popularity, and control of the market. The better “platforms” available can be make or break for certain players.

After reading Bogost’s chapter on Platforms, I understand that the representation and restrictions of the Atari is what made him form a bad opinion of the game Pele’s Soccer. However, I believe that can be related to my sense of platforms ranging with certain gaming systems, and the idea of sub-platforms. “Every computer contains a central processing, or CPU, which performs the operations and calculations to operate the rest of the computer-reading and writing it’s memory, it’s controls, and it’s display” (Bogost, 264). The CPU in this sense for PlayStation could be how God of War runs on someone’s PlayStation in their living room. Just because someone really enjoyed playing tht specific game in a setting that they enjoyed, and on a system that ran the game smoothly, their opinion of PlayStation is going to relatively stronger than their opinion of Xbox.

“Queering the Controller” was an interesting read in my opinion. I understand that video games do not truly immerse the player into a situation, but how could they (excluding VR). I do not know how companies are going to create controllers to emulate real world feeling for the corresponding event within a game. They compared this feeling with the sensation received after using sex toys. I do not think, without having something being inserted into someone’s body, video games will ever truly create that immersive of an experience. It is a very interesting and complex topic to dive into, but as time goes on, I believe new features are going to be introduced to the public by gaming companies to create a truly immersive experience for gamers.

Representation in video games is a very broad topic that I never really began to explore since enrolling into this class. I feel as if representation in video games is not as talked about as it should be, believing that some groups are more represented than a lot of the other groups. Starting with my game history, I played a wide variety of PlayStation games with narrative stories ranging from true experiences, to made up fantasy worlds and characters. What I noticed is that in all the games that I used to play, only a few titles throughout my time gaming included or represented the LGBTQ community. One game being a relatively new title to an ongoing series, Borderlands 3 included non-binary, gay, lesbian, and queer characters within the game, in a way making me realize about the LGBTQ representations in video games. On top of that, the previous game in the ongoing franchise Borderlands 2, and The Pre-Sequel allowed players the chance to play as a bisexual character by the name of Axton, a white male who comes off as quite masculine, and Athena lesbian sheriff. Out of almost all the games that I have played, Borderlands seems to give fair representation to the LGBTQ community. Knowing the fact that I have played over hundreds of video games in my lifetime, its quite eye opening as to why most games do not include LGBTQ characters. The Borderlands series was one of my first encounters of queerness in videogames and did not hinder my experience; so I am curious as to why equal representation in video games is not more common than it is.

After reading Where is the Queerness in Video Games by Adrienne Shaw, a lot of points stuck out to me whilst reading her article. One in particular was the comment about LGBTQ characters within video games, addressing to the audience that most PC’s are not a part of the LGBTQ community. I believe this is where the representation of that community is skewed. After finding out that both Axton from Borderlands 2, and Trevor from GTA V were bisexual, I had no idea that either characters were, and that is part of the problem. “However, Trevor and Curtis are only explicitly shown to have sex with women, and Hana’s relationship to her partner, Rain, is only hinted at in the game” (Shaw, 3880). I believe that if game developers want to better represent a community within their game, make it more known to the players. I have played both GTA V and Borderlands 2 for countless hours and am just now finding out that characters from both games are a part of the LGBTQ community. Not only should the developers include more playable LGBTQ characters, but relay to the audience a backstory of the character through in-game collectables, or through video productions explaining the lore behind the game.

After looking through the LGBTQ game archive, I found it very interesting how many games that I have played throughout my lifetime has included characters from this community. Me being at a young age, I probably did not understand or comprehend the depth of the gender of the characters, but there were a lot more games than what I was expecting. Also, I found it odd with how modern times are changing, there aren’t more games under the 2010’s column that has represented the LGBTQ community. Maybe the list isn’t fully updated.

Hatoful Boyfriend is a game I remember talking about with a fellow co-worker over the summer. I couldn’t remember the name of the game until we played it in class but the second we started streaming, it all came back to me. My friend was THRILLED about this game and was fully invested emotionally. This game is both humorous and weird and the thought of playing a bird dating simulator is definitely not a common one. Part of me wants to know how someone came up with the decision to create a bird dating simulator game. Dating human characters in a game is one thing but birds?

Hatoful Boyfriend is one of the reasons why I think that dating sims are one of the most versatile game genres out there. Dating sims leave the door wide open for game developers to be able to step out of their comfort zone and create something that has never really been done before. We saw that with Dream Daddy where you go around dating different Dads. Dating sims are also a simple way to create a game that isn’t too complex but represent a group of people that might usually not be represented very often in games. There’s a dating sim called Katawa Shoujo, where you find true love with one of the several girl characters in the game. What makes this game unique though is the fact that every character has some sort of disability. People with disabilities are a group that is not often represented in video games so being able to create a game that does so is amazing. With just a simple search on the web, you can see the multitude of dating sims available to us. Jurassic Heart involves a T-rex, there’s even an alpaca and printer(yes a printer) dating sim game out there.

There seems to be no limit when it comes to dating sims. If someone has made a dating sim about a printer, I am sure it can get even weirder from there. There’s no saying what dating sim developers will release next. I’m tempted to delve into the black hole that is the dating sim world and really see for myself how much weirder these games can get.

As time went on, games became more popular and widespread. What was once a hobby enjoyed by a select few with the time and resources soon flourished into a whole subculture that had regular tournaments with thousands of fans and cash prizes in the hundreds of thousands. Accessibility to games became easier and even transcended generational gaps. Indeed a culture and fan-base rose form these event, and as with anything that develops a large and loyal following a hierarchy has developed in the gaming sphere. Sure, many of us argue over the better console or game, but even in those arguments there still exist that hierarchy. I’m of course talking about the distinction between casual and hardcore gamers.

The terms are rather loose in their definition, but in general a casual gamer is someone who plays games in a casual manor with relatively little gaming experience or experience in a game with a “low barrier of entry. ” An example of such a game would be Tetris, as the concept is simple and easy to learn compared to the mechanics required to play a first person shooter .(Running, movement, aiming, shooting, aiming and moving, etc.) Hardcore gamers are those who have put in hours into a game to understand how to be an effective player. Think of those like your traditional pro esports players.

Within this hierarchy there seems to be a resentment towards the casual players to the hardcore gamers, and many hardcore player would say that some casual players aren’t “real” gamers. This idea of being a “real” player breeds a culture of exclusion and toxicity as many hardcore players feel that their favorite game is being encroached upon. That is how the ideology of the “filthily casual” came to bear roots in some online circles after all. This idea of “casual vs hardcore” serves to only divide gamers and create unnecessary areas of toxicity and sexism. In a research report by Lina Eklund she found that:

“Consequently, the tropes of women as casual gamers
and men as hardcore hide the fact that the casual game category as well as
traditional games are engaged in almost equally by men and women.[1]”

This distinction in all honestly does nothing more than exclude many gamers from a game-space that they could add to and be a part of. In all honesty gamers should see the increase of players coming to their games as a compliment, especially those games focused on a multiplayer model. This gives their favorite game developers more clout and finicial resources to either improve on the game they have now or create a new version of their game that can have more features and even more polish.

When It comes to the game-space in the future, I would like there to be a utopia that is accepting of gamers of any creed, race, sex or religion. These places are areas where we go to to forget the woes of our day or to catch up with friends we no longer can see on a personal basis. I hope that in the future the distinction of casual and hardcore games will cease, and that we can all be just “gamers.”

[1] Eklund, Lina. “Who are the casual gamers? Gender tropes and tokenism in game culture.” Social, Casual and Mobile Games: The changing gaming landscape. Ed. Tama Leaver and Michele Willson. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015. 15–30. Bloomsbury Collections. Web. 24 Feb. 2020. .