A Bit of a Love Note for Well-Done RPGs

I fall into new games the way I fall into any new activity-- with optimism, curiosity, and willfully dancing a jig on that edge of unhealthy levels of obsession. Inquisition has been out for three days and the sadistic "time played" counter tells me without fanfare that I have logged over thirty hours. I'm tempted to stop writing now to instead dedicate myself to this beautifully rendered and complex virtual world for the rest of my waking hours. Husband is lovely and supportive, feeding my physical body with random offerings of meals and snacks as I traverse the mountains and coasts of Thedas, closing rifts and helping random farmers. I promised him I would come back to this world for a few hours this evening-- have a proper dinner. It's his birthday.

A truly amazing game, like any media, should teach you something about yourself, and Bioware seems to have embraced this by crafting a story about the individual player. Sure, they call me Inquisitor, and though sales numbers haven't been released yet, I'm certain it's safe to say that there are hundreds of thousands of people currently sharing that title. And yes, I'm often restrained to making a choice between two options. I can talk to everyone but only select people to the depth that I'd like to. My experience will likely be similarly played through by hundreds of others, but what Bioware has done is given me the tools and invited me to participate as if it were my story. And I clicked the "Join" button to that event invite, because shit looks amazing. Dragon Age feels like a world that truly exists somewhere, and I have been thrown into it. The rift I walked out of might have been my entry from this world into that one, my hinted-at back story an inconsequential reorganization of the universe to make room for my existence. I'm also playing a clever-yet-totally-confused Inquisitor. I freely admit to having no clue what I'm doing and my companions seem to appreciate that.

And this has become a singular experience in playing games. I have a nasty habit of attempting to game RPGs. Even when all choices are "right" I'll go back to previous saves to make sure I have the "rightest" one. Restart the game for the perfect run through, keep seven tabs open on my phone browser so I can make sure I get every chest, access every dialog tree, get the maximum approval, and maximize my skill points. The first thing I did after meticulously sculpt my character's face was antagonize my first companion. 

Sorry not sorry. I've got my eye on you, Judas.

Sometimes decisions are placed before you and none of the options are good. Sometimes all of them seem equally good. Sometimes all of them seem equally mystifying and you choose one because a decision has to be made. It's a very good analogue of how I experience my own life as a clever-yet-totally-confused human being. But it's let me discover that I do care about politics, and that there are some dialog trees I won't attempt to unlock, that I'm not so much a completionist as a sap that can't say no when someone needs help, and that when the world is repopulating with herbs every few minutes, yes I do absolutely have to get every single one of them.

Thirty hours in and I haven't even approached the midway point of the game. I'm curious to discover all the other bits of me I didn't know about.

A Game of Their Own - Understanding Creative Processes in Video Games

"A beautifully designed videogame invokes wonder as the fine arts do, only in a uniquely kinetic way. Because the videogame can move, it cannot offer the lapidary balance of composition that we value in painting; on the other hand, because it moves, it is a way to experience architecture, and more than that to create it, in a way which photographs or drawings can never compete. If architecture is frozen music, then a videogame is liquid architecture.” – Poole

Introduction

Hal Barwood once explained to readers of Game Developer magazine, “Art is what people accomplish when they don’t quite know what to do, when the lines on the road map are faint, when the formula is vague, when the product of their labors is new and unique” (as cited by Jenkins, 2005). Over the years, scholars have looked at the qualities art forms that have developed after the industrial age. Media such as radio and film were initially regarded with suspicion because of their commercial motivations and technological origins. However, they were eventually embraced, celebrated, and supported by the populous, due to the democratic nature of the consumption of these arts (Jenkins, 2005). Such is the same with art created after the information revolution. These new arts created with the advent of advanced communication technologies allow for a redefinition and re-examination of the nature and structure of creativity. Video games are an excellent example of this, as they rely on the communication technologies to exist, but also inspire further creativity in others. In this way, games are not only an art of new media, but are a medium itself. When fully triggered, games are both activated by the audience, and become an impetus for further creativity. 

Characteristics of new media

The arts of new media are defined as creations that harness the connective capabilities of computer technologies, specifically the internet, in order to produce creative artifacts. Jenkins defines art by its affect—in this understanding, art is understood by the temporal reactions it elicits in its viewers (Jenkins, 2005). Beryl and Bauwens posit that the unique characteristics of connective technology itself stimulates new types of creations. They discuss these characteristics of new media art further, with specific notice paid to the democratic nature of the medium bestowed by its social aspects. “The participatory and interactive opportunities offered by the Internet touch upon issues about democratization of art both as a practice of consumption and production and about art, artists and aura” (as cited in Beyl, & Bauwens, 2010). This new media art is characterized not only by its content, but who creates it—redefining our common understanding of what we think of as an artist. This is first confounded by what Beyl and Bauwens further explain to be new media art’s “process of social communication”—symbolic content is exchanged between artist and audience by way of the interactive communication that is the Internet. This allows the artist direct contact with their audience and, in return, the audience inspires the artist.

This co-creative process requires the sort of broad and constant connectivity in order to produce the artifacts made by the artist (2010). The second confound to previous notions defining an artist, is technology’s democratization of resources. No longer the sole purview of those with access and capital to procure the materials for art production, the internet, and web-based tools allows a broader participant base to experiment with art creation (Frank, 2006). Both of these aspects result in a shift in the type of art that audiences wish to experience. They seek a more interactive experience—not only do they want to participate in selecting what they want to see, but they also demand to contribute to the work. (Beyl, & Bauwens, 2010) “These features are often conceived of as social and democratic opportunities of the Internet, that, in theory, enable every user to react, to voice one’s opinion, to distribute this opinion on a global scale, to share it and, consequently, to mould societal debates.” And, more specifically, this applies to the viewer’s desire to manipulate content in based on personal attitudes and preferences, even when participation is not implicitly or explicitly encouraged. Though this drive is not unique to this era, digital and interactive technologies more easily facilitate this aspect (Beyl, & Bauwens, 2010). In summary, because of the interactive nature of the new media’s art and the experience of artifacts created through this co-creative collaboration, art is no longer a broadcast from artist to viewer, rather it has become a conversation between both parties where the product created is reliant on that process.

Nature of Games

Games are one of the quintessential artifacts of new media art. Pearce states that the “malleability, discursive quality, and networked infrastructure of the Internet returns us a pre-industrial culture of play, a time when games were… made up, changed, and reconfigured by groups of ordinary people in site-specific, socially and culturally specific contexts” (2006). In this, Pearce refers to the implicit dependence games have upon their audience in order to activate. Play is utilized—both between the gamer and the game, and between the gamer and other gamers—to manifest the intent and message of the work. Games present players with a world populated by objects, however it is only through the manipulation of these objects that the game is “brought to life” (Atkins, 2006). Wood investigates this relationship, and defines it at recursive—based on the feedback loop between game and gamer. “Recursive space proposes a mode of engagement in which the gamer is both embedded within a space defined by the organization of objects, and also creating that space at one and the same time by altering the organization of objects. … A gamer’s involvement with space is understood as interactions that lead to a series of reconfigurations of the objects, which in turn leads to a generation of space. Recursive space is, then, a mode of engagement in which the gamer is both embedded within a space defined by the organization of objects, and also creating that space as they configure the organization of objects” (Wood, 2012). This process is most literally seen in games such as Minecraft and the Sims where the object of the game is to make alterations the world in which the player is placed in. However, this mechanism also occurs in games where it is not so obvious. For example, as a player moves through a game world, they may open a door which will lead to another area. All games involve movement through the space depicted on the screen—as that player moves through the space, they unlock more of the game world. In this way, the player’s movements, activities, and decisions reflect on the game world, which gives the player more options to utilize to continue this process. While this interaction has been shown to directly contribute to the enjoyment experienced by players (Ang, Panayiotis, & Wilson, 2010), this effect is often unintended by designers. Steinkuehler states that though they implement the game objects, and apply the rulesets, the player often takes actions unanticipated by the designers (2006). This aspect, however, is what allows the game to take on its real meaning, as an art form. At its core, a game is an artistic artifact depicting an experience.  In his work on gameplay analysis, Gee focuses on the difference of experiences between players. Because players will encounter the game in different settings, may take different paths, or discover the narrative in a different order, every player will experience the game slightly differently. “This proactive production by players of story elements … and a unique real-virtual story produces a new form of performance art coproduced by players and game designers” (2006). In addition to this, collective play, and social interaction represent a significant part of the game experience (as cited by Ang, Panayiotis, & Wilson, 2010). A study by Ang, Panayiotis, and Wilson found that as computer games push the boundaries of game play or technologies, the nature of play in that form shifts from one of manipulation of gameplay elements to construction of new objects (2010). Because game designers work in a commercially-competitive industry with emergent technologies, these boundaries are continuously being pushed (Jenkins, 2005). In this way, designers are also able to creatively “play” the commercial industry in order to stay ahead of competing companies.

Game community

Williams warns us that “Games do not exist in a social vacuum, and the reason to study them has as much to do with what’s happening outside of games as it does with what’s happening in them” (2006). Pearce adds to this notion when she states that the “boundaries between play and production, between work and leisure, and between media consumption and media production are increasingly blurring” (2006). Not only do games use players to activate the artifact, but games are in turn used to by gamers to create new art. These synthesized works both expand the work, and have the unintentional side effect of morphing the game into a product claimed by the gamer. Players create content, collaborative documentation websites, and fan-art based on the games they participate in. They write songs based on lore and legends in the backstory of the game, such those written by YouTube user malufenix. They make costumes, in the form of elaborate cosplay. They also expand the narrative on various fanfiction sites such as on archiveofourown.com. Pearce states that these activities “fly in the face of the status quo of centralized, hegemonic, broadcast, and distribution models of media creation” (2006). This results in the rise of a subculture of artists that utilizes the game as their medium or inspiration, as well as an emphasis on content creation from the wider game community (Ang, Panayiotis, & Wilson, 2010). The artifacts created from these expressions are often motivated from a desire to assist and inform the game community, who then, in recursive fashion, better excel at playing the game. (Ang, Panayiotis, & Wilson, 2010) Players with skills and interests in game creation often take this to the extreme, creating modifications, or “mods” for their chosen games—additional content that other members of the community can download, install, and play through (Postigo, 2007). This is game content created not by the developers, but by the fans themselves, often including new tools, narratives, and gameplay mechanics, and is shared amongst the community, becoming part of the experience of the game (Ang, Panayiotis, & Wilson, 2010). This behavior has become so intrinsic to the game community, that many video games are now released with level and game creation tools as a feature of the game, as well as virtual spaces where players are encouraged to share their fan-made content (Ang, Panayiotis, & Wilson, 2010). Such is the case in Halo where players are allowed to create their own levels and invite others to play them. In this way, the creation of artifacts on the part of the gamers becomes part of the understanding of games as a new media art. Postigo explains that the “life of a game” is based not on sales numbers, but the amount of time a game remains a subject of active involvement with their players (2007). As such, it is truly this interaction between the audience and the work, rather than the initial creator of the game, which is the living creative force of this art form.

Conclusion

Jenkins calls video games “a new lively art” in that it opens up new aesthetic experiences and reveals a world of experimentation that is as innovative as it is accessible (Jenkins, 2005). Through use of the connective technologies, it allows for an ongoing discussion between the artist and the player, and the players amongst each other. This opens up a creative dialogue, whereupon the game designer tells players a story of a world, sets its boundaries, and fills it with its opportunities, and the players respond by activating making the stories in this world. This process is where a game is truly activated. The development and creation of the game is like so much set creation and costume crafting before a theatrical performance. It is when the performers take to the stage that the stage itself comes alive. And this creative process is so potent, so effervescent, that it extends past the boundaries of the game, and takes root in the hearts and minds of those players. Game communities often spring up and extend that world, members making their own crafts based on the truths found in the game. Lastly, games often become a medium itself, lending its technology and systems to new experiences created by members of the game’s community. This allows gamers to themselves become developers, and begin the process again. It is these qualities of new media, the open lines of communication between artist and audience and the audience with itself, the development of a community based on participation and production of creative artifacts, and the ability to experiment with media itself that allows us to stretch our understanding of and embrace this new creativity.

References

Ang, C. S., Panayiotis, Z., & Wilson S. (2010). Computer Games and Sociocultural Play: An Activity Theoretical Perspective. Games and Culture. 5(4), 354-380.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1555412009360411

Atkins, B. (2006). What Are We Really Looking at? The Future-Orientation of Video Game Play. Games and Culture. 1(2), 127-140.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1555412006286687

Beyl, J. & Bauwens, J. (2010). Artist Meets Audience: Understanding the Social Meaning of Art on the Internet. The University of Melbourne Refereed E-Journal. 1(5). Retrieved from: http://web.education.unimelb.edu.au/UNESCO/pdfs/ejournals/beyl-paper.pdf

Frank, Z. (2006, July 14). 07-14-06: Ugly, designers, myspace, ugly song, mushy peas, momma, happy birthday becky. the show with zefrank. [Video file]. Retrieved from: http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/archives/2006/07/071406.html

Gee, J.P. (2006). Why Game Studies Now? Video Games: A New Art Form. Games and Culture. 1(1), 58-61.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1555412005281788

Jenkins, H. (2005). Games, the New Lively Art. In J. Goldstein (Ed.), Handbook for Video Game Studies (175-192). Cambridge: MIT Press.

Pearce, C. (2006). Productive Play: Game Culture from the Bottom Up. Games and Culture. 1(1), 17-24.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1555412005281418

Postigo, H. (2007). Of Mods and Modders: Chasing Down the Value of Fan-Based Digital Game Modifications. Games and Culture. 2(4), 300-313.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1555412007307955

Steinkuehler, C. (2006). The Mangle of Play. Games and Culture. 1(3), 199-213.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1555412006290440

Williams, D. (2006). Why Game Studies Now? Gamers Don't Bowl Alone. Games and Culture. 1(1), 13-16.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1555412005281774

Wood, A. (2012). Recursive Space: Play and Creating Space. Games and Culture. 7(1), 87-105.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1555412012440310

March 31, 2014

My Wildstar Obsession: Community and Marketing

Today was the first day in… some quantifiable amount of time I can’t be bothered to math at the moment… that I haven’t been able to log into Wildstar for random play fix. This is a sad world I’m living in— I had gotten quite accustomed to not having any barrier between me and super-fun-stabbin'-times, and now I have to wait for head start to continue said stabbin'.

It has given me the time, however, to review the unending mass of dev videos, blogs, and various other community interactions that Carbine puts out/updates regularly. It’s a vicarious fix, but it soothes the savage beast in the interim. And they provide plenty of salve. This is an aspect of Wildstar that doesn’t get quite as much vocal appreciation from the community, but truly is an unsung hero of development.

So games are one of those quirky art forms that requires an audience. Images/music/choreography/etc. can be created in the home of the artist and never see the light of day again, but can still be widely considered to be an art. Games, on the other hand, can’t be a game until they are played. The very definition of game-ness means that someone has to interact with it in order to unleash it’s game-y nature. In this sense, the anticipated audience makes up a good portion of the game. But game companies are still kinda fuzzy on how to develop this part. Developing communities usually gets regulated to marketing or advertising, which always (unintentionally) has a air of skeeze to it. And this often makes it feel fabricated, heavily constructed, and just fake as fuck.

Carbine has decided instead to operate not as an salesman, but as a community member, and I’ve deemed it (in my infallible wisdom) to be rather successful. They post blogs, they make videos, the troll fandoms and repost their favorites. They get visibly excited about updates, geek out unabashedly about mechanics, and get personally invested in the game. They admit when things go wrong and make fun of themselves for it. They admit when things are awesome, and make fun of themselves for it. They have an awesome sense of humor that mirrors the one their fanbase has (The Nexus Report 5/13 included a Walken Off— a competition members of my social circle has spent years battling each other for superiority). They play with us— while some make a distinction between them, I truly believe that games are (at their core) toys— and using this understanding, it’s the only game community development that makes any kind of sense.

So hats off, Carbine. You not only made a game so good that I am openly, embarrassingly, OBSESSED, about it, but you've come to my house to geek out about it with me. Bold move-- I dig it.

Game Night: Indie Edition - Gone Home

I finished Gone Home a week ago, but I wasn't entirely sure how to begin to describe it. I certainly wasn't prepared to tell others how good it was. I found myself in conversations I feel I've seen parodied in sitcoms, where one person is excited about an event but unsure if it's considered cool or not and wants to talk about it, but isn't sure if they should be wanting to talk about it, and the other person is a normal-fucking-human-being.

me: I finished Gone Home!
normal-fucking-human-being: How was it?
me: It was awesome. I mean, it was okay. I mean, if you like that sort of thing. It was weird. But good!
normal-fucking-human-being: What's it about?
me: It's about a girl and her family. Well, a girl and her sister. But no, actually her sister. And her sister's friend. And you're the girl. But the story's not about you.
normal-fucking-human-being: What's the game play like?
me: You run around clicking on things. And those things give you more insight into the story.
normal-fucking-human-being: So it's a point-and-click adventure game?
me: Yes! But not like that at all. I mean, you point and you click, but you don't adventure.
normal-fucking-human-being: ...
me: Well, not normal adventure.
normal-fucking-human-being: ...
me:  It's an emotional adventure? 

How do you judge a thing if you have no category for it, no schema to understand it, no examples to compare it to? What merits a good whatever-Gone-Home-is?

Super-Brief Spoiler-Free Analysisless Summary
You come home from a year-long trip through Europe, to find your house dark and empty. You start making your way through the house and picking up objects, nosy-neighbor-style, to find out what's been happening since you've been gone. Each paper scrap, letter, and note gives you a bit more insight into the lives of your family members. Over the course of the two-hour game, you put together why they aren't home. (And waiting to welcome me with sweets and rollerskates, having turned the foyer into a personal skate rink with only the best music. E.g., all Ghostbusters all the time. Which is what I expect each and every time I arrive anywhere.) Since much of the game is about the process of discovery, every specific detail I could give becomes a spoiler and thus makes a summary a bit spotty.

Things I like about it
It's loud in all the right places. Every sound is jarring and out-of-place in the silence of that desolate house. Every decibel is relevant. The murmur from the telly sounds summons you down the hall like a whispered name, and you physically hunger for the continued revelations from your sister's journal just to hear her voiceover. The punk rock is terrible and tinny, just like I remembered mid-90s punk and the musical proclivities of teenagers. The sound of thunder is always startling and though the game boasts that there are no puzzles, conflicts, of fights, I couldn't help spinning around to face the door in preparation for a zombie ambush. (No guns ever made themselves available, but I'm pretty sure I could fling one of the bazillion carefully rendered objects and dropped them in the general direction of brain stems.)

You have never been in the presence of a plastic cup so dangerous.

This game is achingly lonely. As you make your way through the post-its and paper scraps, you discover three individuals suffering their own personal crises in isolated worlds, surrounded by each other but utterly failing to connect. It gives the impression of ghosts passing by each other in the kitchen, and sidling past one another in halls. The game makes you meet it halfway. Since the story is told in found notes and bits of trash, you are find yourself inferring emotional confusion, depression, anger, and joy. You're forced to make an effort to derive meaning, and therefore unintentionally become more invested. It's ridiculously fucking immersive.

Time management. It's two hours. (It's two hours if you're thorough and read everything, anyway.) This is the perfect amount of time. Any longer and it would feel like a chore. Any shorter and it would have felt like developer laziness. I make a whole section for this because knowing the right amount of time an experience should take is trickier than it has any right to be.

Moment of awesome: Following the trail of my sister's sleepover antics, seeing the remnants of her seance, and scaring myself by being alone in the dark, empty house and speculating on the monsters and baddies that were going to jump out at me from around corners.

Problems I have with it
It's not a game. There is no indication of what's important and what isn't, so after the eighth toilet paper roll you examine, you have to convince yourself there won't be anything under the ninth. Forced to self-determine importance for the sake of time, you can't stop wondering if there was something special about that last cup, maybe a word carved into the bottom that would unlock another journal entry. It's also ridiculously linear-- once you've explored a room, well... that's basically it for that room. Once there is nothing more to see, you move along. This is likely to be reflective of real life, you aren't likely to snoop through someone's living room, leave to snoop through the kitchen, then get an explicitly worded hint that you might have missed something in the back corner. Except that...

Kidding, it IS a game. And you do get an explicitly worded hint to go back into a specific room. But to uncover the super-secret panels that were put there originally for... a plot device to further the story. The secrets in this game are of the not-really secret variety. And once you uncover them, you feel vaguely disappointed that you got so worked up to begin with.

Stupid Sitcom Family is Stupid. The entire premise of the game is that you have no idea what's going on with your family and you have to discover it. They attempt to explain your ignorance with a year-long trip to Europe-- you even find postcards you sent from your travels! But apparently, your whirlwind trip was so erratic, you didn't have an address for your family to send a letter back to you. Neither did you have time to call, due to all the fantastic travel you were doing. Or maybe, your family didn't want to depress you with the mundane trivialities. Because, you know, this is set in the mid-90's when people refrained from telling their children about the happenings at home. (The better to induce a laugh-track, my dear!)

Moment of screaming furiousness: When half the house was locked from the foyer for no perceivable reason whatsoever. Compounded when I finally found the way in... only to discover that it was locked from the foyer for NO PERCEIVABLE REASON WHATSOEVER.

What the fuck is it?
Gone Home describes itself as "an interactive exploration simulator" and this is probably both the most and least accurate descriptor. It isn't a game in all the head-deskingly frustrating ways that you would want a thing to be a game. But it sucks the player in so completely, pushed face-first into a feels-filled ballpit that the experience morphs into something else, something wholly unexpected and something near-embarrassingly indescribable. I'm calling it a game if only to encourage developers to do more of this part.