Since the early days of gaming, the general idea has always been that games for more of a boy thing. Many of the arcade cabinets of old had a focus on attracting a male audience, be it the bloody and graphic contents found within a Mortal Kombat game, or the prospect of overly sexualized female characters next to the tough, muscular men in Street Fighter. These ideas has led to a crowding out of the female demographic, as well as reinforced the ideals of toxic masculinity. Over the years, however, this idea of masculinity has been constantly changing to be more inclusive, real, and overall a more healthy outlook of what it means to be a man. To explain this change, I wanted to talk about a game series that has been with me for the formative years of my life and has changed and differed as much as i had. That game is Jak and Daxter.

For those of you who don’t know Jak and Daxter was a game series made for the PlayStation series of consoles by Naughty Dog, the same game developers who made some popular games like The Last of Us and the Uncharted Series. Jak and Daxter tells the journey of series protagonist Jak. In his first game Jak was a teen aged boy of some fantasy race of people who looked like humans but with long, pointed ears and various hair colors. In his first game, his good friend Daxter gets transformed into this weird creature, and the journey of the game is to find a way to transform him back. The game was pretty impressive 3d platformer that utilized the game environment to create interesting puzzles and situations. Combat consisted of using punches and kicks to defeat enemies, which usually went down in one or two hits. In game, Jak was a mute who had no dialog outside of his yells and screams as he fought enemies. He was pretty much a blank slate of a character when it came to personality, but even then he showed traits of stereotypical masculine behavior. Jak has a natural drive for adventure and is shown to be quite heroic, even almost getting the girl at the end of his adventure, before being comically interrupted by his friend Daxter.

The second game in the series, Jak 2, takes the series to a much darker and gritter place. The world of Jak 1 is replaced with an urban, authoritarian mega city where class divides are present and serious themes such as enslavement and genocide. The new setting also ages up Jak to that of an adult, who is no longer mute and full of rage and anger. This game also introduces us to the use of guns, which will be a series mainstay. Jak himself takes on more stereotypical manly traits, such and always being angry, always ready for a fight and just overall aggressive. If that isn’t enough he’s also caught in a love triangle between two equally sexually suggestive females. These personality traits follow our hero all the way up until the last game in the series.

Jak: The Lost Frontier is the final game in the series, and relaxes some of the masculine traits that Jak processes. For starters he really isn’t the main focus of the game. That tittle goes to Kiera, once the object of Jak’s affection now a very capable inventor and designer. Kiera also ends up being the person that saves everyone at the end of the game as well. Jak, as charater is a bot more toned down. He’s less angry, being more suave and joyfull at times. The whole love triangle thing no longer exists, and while before he seemed to always have a plan, in this game it seems that he improvises most of the time to get things done.

Although there are more prominent examples of changing masculinity, I find the Jak example to be close in personal to me because that is what I grew up with. A more realistic and all around better example would be Joel from The Last of Us. An excerpt from the book “How to Play Video Games” describes the character of Joel as follows:

“As the primary playable character and central representation of masculinity in the game, Joel is often presented as being vulnerable, imperiled, and victimized by a bleak existence. Much of the violence that takes place—while admittedly cinematic—is neither glamorized nor heroic.[1]“

What it means to be a man has been changing with the times year by year and generation by generation. These expectations and assumptions are presented to us thought the media of entertainment and game media. As many of us may at one point create something that will be presented to the world, it is important that we look at what we create and asses if it is either breaking the mold or enforcing the rules of old. Either way, we should do so responsibly and with the best of intentions.

[1] Huntemann, Nina B. How to Play Video Games (User’s Guides to Popular Culture) (p. 104). NYU Press. Kindle Edition.

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.

 

 

For my final blog, I thought it would be interesting to discuss those behind the games so many people around the world play and identity with daily: the developers. Often times, things including graphics, world building and gameplay are praised when it comes to talking about the games of today. This is deservedly so, of course, but the behind the scenes aspects are just as important as the final product. Unfortunately, I’ve found it to be the case that a lot of people know little or nothing at all about the companies behind the games they’re interested in—this includes the individuals who make up the multiple dev teams throughout the industry. These dev teams include those who perform the key, integral tasks behind creating interactive media:  directors, designers, writers and so forth. Even with this being true, there tend to be too many whose knowledge of these people and their important positions exists only in brief flashes during credit sequences (if they watch those.) While this happens with other forms of media as well (ie tv shows), I think it’s important to talk about because the issue is much more prominent within the gaming community than it is in those which surround non-interactive films—one of the most popular and broadly discussed forms of media there is in today’s world. This varies depending on the nature of the project—whether something is a big budgeted production or a mostly under the radar indie definitely makes a difference. It makes a difference in everything from games to books to movies to tv shows.

Even still, it is difficult to talk about a film without talking about its director, others involved in making it what it is and its working environment. This isn’t to say that those behind films should be talked about less, because they deserve the recognition for their work as well as the level of investment given to the work itself. It is to say, however, that the gaming community is a little bit behind in terms of discussing those who produce the games in addition to the titles themselves. To include the developers in discussions about the games they’ve made is to acknowledge the time, dedication and talent they put into them. It’s not only about being positive or making others feel decent about themselves, either. It’s about what further discussing developers along with the conditions they work in could do to improve the state of the industry beside the world of gaming itself. In not discussing the developers, it is as if their plights are being ignored despite their public effort to make issues within the industry of game development known through platforms including twitter. Though it is often dismissed, the issues of game developers being underpaid and/or overworked to meet deadlines from up top is still incredibly present and tasking on those directly involved. Talking about this issue instead of pretending it doesn’t exist for the sake of tempering impatience toward trivial things like exact launch dates would vastly improve the industry. In addition to this, devs would get the understanding and inclusion they deserve as opposed to being trapped behind tons of tweets and YouTube videos which discuss their work yet unfortunately leave them out.

Back in the times before Columbus discovered the Americas, the Aztec people used to play a game we now call “Mesoamerican ballgame.” The rules were are not quite know as they constantly changed throughout time and weren’t really recorded well. From what we do know we know that it was some mix of handball and soccer, with players limited to using their hips and forearms to hit a rubber ball into a circular goal suspended on a wall. We also know that being the looser was not in any one teams best interest. Sure we hate loosing games now, but back then being the loosing team could mean loosing your life. (Especially if you was a prisoner of war)[1] While many players don’t have to face that now, there is still that pressure for some who game professionally. Take for example one of the best Smash Bros. Melee players Hungerybox. Hungerybox made a name for himself in the Melee community by rising the ranks in torment play. Originally an underdog with humble beginnings, Hungerybox became a force to be reckoned with as he developed his play style: a more slow, defensive play style that focused on punishing bad plays and escaping whenever possible. This generated a lot of hate for him, as Melee was seen as a more fast paced, combo focused type of game. Fans and spectators alike would boo Hungerybox and wanted nothing more than his downfall, even going as far to throw a crab at live crab at him after he won a tournament[2].

Unlike the standard sports of play, esports is, in a sense a bit more personal when it comes to player-to-crowd relations. Take for example that many professional esports players are also popular streamers. When they go live in their stream, they get to notify the great number of fans that they have that they are out playing a game they both like and they should join them. Not only that but the fans will even have the chance to chat with them as well. This medium of streaming makes the experience all the more personal for the both the streamer and the fans. That’s why it comes to no surprise that the fans feel that they should have a larger say in the experience. Sure, when you watch a football game and a player makes a bad call or throws a bad pass, you may feel that you could have done better if you was there. But when you’re in a stream, you have the opportunity to tell the player “Hey, you dun goof.” There’s a greater chance for the audience to have an effect on the field of play, and this in turn can affect the actions of the star players.

Esports is still relatively new and young compared to the traditional games of old, and only time will tell if the medium will garner the attention and respect it’s deserved. While there are negatives associated with this form of massive play, it’s important to note that with time and a strong community effort, the realm of esports can soon be competing for the viewership of old traditional sports as well.

[1]   Petrus, Monica “The Brutal and Bloody History of the Mesoamerican Ball Game, Where Sometimes Loss Was Death” https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/meso-american-baseball, published 1/9/14

[2] EmpLemon, “there will Never Ever be another Melee player like Hungrybox”, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmLSJrA0n9w&t=32s, published 1/26/20

With any video game, setting is an important and basic concept that can set the tone and feel of how the player interacts with the elements found within. Whether is’s going on an galactic adventure through the cosmos or surviving the brain eating horde in the fields of 9th century Europe, settings in general gives us information about the world we inhabit and find ourselves in. Even simple games like tag are limited by the field of play! Game designers and level creators are more aware of this than anyone, as they are the ones creating the landscapes and challenges that the player will have to face. In come cases, this means crating a hallway or room with some statistically placed walls and pickups and populating the area with enemies. Sometimes even a boss with a unique gimmick. Other times however, they take the level and scenery and use it to tell a story, or show how things are changing. A personal example of mines was playing the game inFamous. In the game, your actions had a effect of the world depending on if you was playing the good or evil route. As you did bad actions, your character would wear darker clothing, look dirtier and the world around would look worst for wear with increasingly darkening skies and more dystopian looking buildings. Compare this to the good route, where the skies start parting the dark clouds and the city, while still rundown looking, shows signs of rebuilding and progress. These elements show that your actions have active consequences, and the game designers want you to be aware of that.

Setting too can also tell an underlying story. Such is the case of Bioshock Infinite. In this game we play as Booker DeWitt, a former detective trying wipe away his dept by taking on a mission to find a girl named Elizabeth on the floating city that is Columbia. It’s important to note now that the game’s developers, Irrational Games, were an American company. This comes into play very early on in the game when we are first introduced to the city of Columbia, a steampunk-esque city that somehow feels so advance for it’s time, yet oddly fitting in the themes of 1900’s America. The city is busing with old Colonial architecture and a somewhat similar motif of redesigned American flags, all while robo-officers patrol the streets. The setting is familiar enough to understand the general theme, yet alien and new. It makes the player want to explore and see what chain of events let to this environment. That is the importance of showing, and not telling. As quoted in “How to Play Viedogames,”

“There is both enough consistency and ambiguity present in the design of the geography to keep players speculating without ever being able to establish definitively how Columbia’s buildings are arranged. This makes Columbia appear larger than it is (because no single map contains it all), and it suggests, too, that there may be areas the player has not seen.[1]”

With the right setting, you can craft a whole world that is not only immersive, but also have meaning and creates interest for the player. Sure, not too many players are too focused on the backdrop, but if the elements show themselves without saying a thing, you know you have created an enticing world to explore.

[1] Huntemann, Nina B. How to Play Video Games (User’s Guides to Popular Culture) (pp. 77-78). NYU Press. Kindle Edition.

For my research project, I decided to play an Indie game called Virginia. I’ve never heard of this game until Dr. Cody brought it up to me but it lined up with my research topic pretty well and I decided to check it out. Basically, this game follows a female African American FBI agent as she investigates her first case on the job. Without giving too much of the game away, I must note that in order to “kinda” understand what is happening with the game’s story you really need to play this game multiple times – It has a weird ending I still don’t quite understand… As I played through the game my first time, I realized that it provided me absolutely no dialogue or narrative, whatsoever. All throughout the game, I found myself trying to get a feel for the protagonist’s character through the game’s story all while also trying to piece together what exactly was going on in the story itself. The game’s lack of dialogue, along with many other factors, led for a very mysterious, but confusing initial first play. This lead me to wonder whether or not games like this was popular amongst the gaming community.

Since this game had no dialogue, most of the game’s narrative was up to your interpretation, especially went it comes to the ending of the game. The ending of this game was very much like a si-fi movie. There wasn’t a clear defined way that the story was supposed to end and you really had to make out your own interpretation of what you think happened. Half of me enjoyed that there was a lack of dialogue because it let me define my character how I wanted to. You have the ability to pretty much build your own interpretation of the story and the character itself. How your character sounds, acts, moves is all up to you. On the flip slide however, the game’s lack of dialogue in combination with the random jump cuts to a completely different scene left me confused most of the time.

Lets compare this game to Gone Home, another first person walking sim game we played in class. Gone home had a narrative that would be triggered whenever you interacted with a particular element of the game whether that was a book, Television, etc. It also had images with text that you could read like the letters you’d find. Even though “Gone Home” didn’t provide you with direct dialogue like a visual novel would like “Dream Daddy,” the story was being told through various letters you would find and occasional narratives that would open up a little more about who we were trying to find. In “Virginia” there was no narrative, no dialogue, and barely anything that you’d interact with was anything readable. This made for a very open ended game where playing it multiple times may give you a different interpretation of what happened – which happened to me…

Most of this game was also produced as if it was a movie. There were lots of jump cuts, no real transitions to any of the scenes and there was a really direct path to get to the end of the game. In all scenes you’d have to interact with a very specific element in order to progress to the next scene. This brings up an earlier discussion we had regarding the “Video Games Are Better Without Stories” article where the author was arguing that games with no stories are better and that some games should be made into movies instead. That brought up the question for this game as well. Do I really think that this game would’ve been better as a movie? I don’t really know… I did enjoy the game and the fact that the interpretation of the story was up to the players, there are lots of discussions on the internet about what other people think happened at the end. The open ended-ness of the game created quite the talk online and I feel like that’s what makes this game unique. However, would I enjoy this story if it were a movie? Probably… The thing about video games is the interaction part of it. Even though this game had a very linear game play, it still let me explore the scenes for more than the 5 seconds I’d have if it were a game. Would I have liked it if this game gave me more hints on what actually happened? YES. I really want to know what the real ending to this game is and it’s killing me that I will probably never know.

Spade Memory is a visual novel that goes through the memories of Wisteria (or Wis), who is an aromantic-asexual. The game begins with the premise that the earth has been attacked by Martians who are devoid of emotion. The humans have a built a resistance and began recruiting civilians to help end the war effort. To form a closer bond with comrades, a memory archive was set for soldiers to log information about their past relationships. This is an interesting premise as it does two things simultaneously. Firstly, it combats a stereo-type that aromantic and asexual people are unfeeling robots. Secondly, it introduces the player to the concept that it is okay to not have romantic/sexual relationships and that other types of relationships can be just as fulfilling. After this short introduction, the player is invited to choose between three paths (which can be swapped at any time): dating, family, and friendship. Dating shows the player Wis’s lack of desire to pursue any form of romantic or sexual relationship. Family gives the player insight into what Wis’s family situation is like and how that affected her sexuality. Her immediate family is in general very open and accepting of Wis’ sister who is a lesbian, although Wis is still nervous about telling them. She is worried that they will not understand. On top of that, Wis’s aunt is openly homophobic making her feel less comfortable. When Wis does eventually tell them, they are accepting. Wis also faces similar worries when around her friends. One of her friends is particularly hyper sexual, which contrasts greatly with Wis’s sex-repulsed nature. Though eventually when she does tell them they are accepting. These interactions attempt the give the player an idea of what it is like to be in the closet as well as the importance of having an accepting community when someone comes out. Other highlights of this game are how it brings up issues, such as bad representation and lack of education. Wis has the option to play a dating sim with her friends. Her one friend really wants her to play it because of the datable characters is asexual. The game starts out fine, but by the end of the game it turns out that said asexual character was actually cursed to be asexual, but by the end the curse is removed, and the character is “cured.” Negative representation can be seen in real life media as well, for example, the medical drama House has an episode where a similar thing happens (well obviously with less magic but the general idea of a character’s asexuality being cured). This plays off the misconception that asexuality means a person is broken and that they can be fixed, which is not that case what so ever. This form of representation alienates the asexual-aromantic community by making their experiences seem invalid. Spade Memory also talks about how Wis learned about aromanticism and asexuality through browsing online forums and eventually finding AVEN (the Asexual Visibility and Education Network) where she learned about the spectrum of sexual and romantic orientations as well as sex positivity scale. This interaction shows the lack of education the average person has on different identities as well as the failures of the current education system to inform the public of these. Spade Memory covers many aspects of asexuality and aromanticism, giving the player a thorough background on not only the information side of things, but also the impacts of the current society on those who are apart of the aromantic/asexual spectrum.

First Person Shooters is what a majority of the games that I have played are, especially in recent years (my time spamming Brood War is gone). I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the culture surrounding this genre, as I dive deeper and deeper into the world of esports, primarily Counter-Strike.

Firstly, I feel as if the FPS genre is, broadly speaking, the genre with the most elitists. The people who think that their games are the hardest, and therefore they are the most skilled gamers, and that translates in their mind to them having the right to look down on others. This is a genre that is often associated with being skillful and expressing dominance over your opponents, and that type of game attracts a specific type of personality. One of the most common reason people who don’t play FPS gives to me as to why that is the case is because “the game is hard” and/or “I suck at it and can’t aim.”  Even for the people who don’t play the games in a serious or competitive manner, the aspect of skill is still the dominant conversation. This, I think, speaks to the culture developed around FPS games more than anything else listed here.

The second thing worth mentioning is that, as it is referenced in the article “Examination of the Relationship between gender, performance, and enjoyment of a first-person shooter game” by Toby Hopp and Jolene Fisher, FPS games are often a male dominated space, both to play and spectate. I wasn’t able to find a source for this, but I recall once seeing a statistic for CS:GO tournaments throughout 2018 and the male:female viewership ratio was something along the lines of 94:6. Interestingly, this article concluded that the female players often associated their skill level with their enjoyment more than the males playing did. This is something that, on face value, I assumed would be the opposite. In hindsight, however, the reasoning makes sense. The article states “We predicted that women’s game enjoyment would rest, In large part, on their ability to positively violate stereotype-motivated expectancies associated with FPS games by performing at a high level.” As to what any of this means, I am honestly unsure, as there are a variety of cultural factors at play here. It makes sense, however, that people get enjoyment out of breaking the expectations that people set for them. Breaking the stereotype of “female gamers suck” seems to be a logical thing to attach enjoyment onto.

Final thing I would like to say on this is the fact that, even now, when I show FPS players games like StarCraft, World of Warcraft, or even League of Legends, they often fail to understand the aspects that make it skillful. The sentiment is usually something along the lines of “You’re just watching little dudes shoot at each other…”. The skill behind other types of games often, I find, does not translate well to FPS player’s minds.

 

I wanted to use my last blog as a sort of reflection on this class and life in general, to be totally honest, I had a certain expectation of what the class was going to be like when I just looked at the syllabus and thought this class was going to be a pain. I was wrong and right. This class gave me a lot of different ways to look at game culture and now I can think more critically about game culture and how games can be another avenue for our society. There was a lot of work, from the readings, to the game/creative project there was a lot on my plate for the class, but I can’t say I didn’t enjoy the ride. The social divide in games that I had knowledge of was a lot more black and white then it actually is and I can thank this class for giving me a new perspective. 

Moving on, I wanted to talk about games within mass media. Specifically how mainstream media views video games and the culture that surrounds them. I feel as though that since this form of media is not as well known among the older generation, since they didn’t grow up with video games like we did, that games can be belittled on the basis of it being unknown. The only reason the game industry started to get more recognition is because of the financial aspect of the industry and the prospect of a new place to make money. All this attention is not always good, there were multiple points where video games, violent ones in specific, were the scapegoat to shootings across the U.S. Whenever there was any sort of incident like that one of the first blame was video games. The slander thrown towards games from any political power now has been more subtle with their jabs towards video games then in the past. Besides being an easy target for politicians to shift the blame of an event, the reason video games can be targeted is because of the fear of the unknown. You have to consider who is the audience that politicians are speaking to about how video games are supposedly ruining the younger generation. Just like the politicians themselves, it’s the older generation who has less of a grasp of the game culture since they never had it growing up. I know there were games in the past, but they were rubametry at best and not as developed as they are in the present. As time goes on I think this issue will go away, at least for the gaming industry, since people who grew up with games are going into the roles of raising the next generation they will be accepting of games for the children of the future.