Identities and separate roles in the virtual world

This week’s lecture is on MMO (multiple players roles online) that stimulate my interest in the studies of identity in new digital age.

The notion of the term “identitiy” has been diversified with the emerging of digital network cultures. The term  identity” was originally referred to the idea of “being who or what a person or thing is” (def. Oxford). Identity is built up with human interaction. People develop their identities with language through communication. The historical context of identity has suggested a basic evolution procedure for  changing notions of identity according to the reformation of social construction. Identity, back to Agrarian Era was determined by the State and geography hence people’s family network and the social class they were born into generally define their social statusWith the emerging of digital age, additional meaning were added to social identity and meanwhile, the notion of identity has been altered and becomes more complicated with the multiplication on individual status.Theorists stated that identity forms within the processes of social cognition and self-interaction. The process of cognition involves the procedure of selecting and filtering of other’s memory toward their impression on us. Identities on SNS in digital age were largely referred to our “self-definition” of oneself which is how people pretend or present themselves to the public, resulting multiplication and overlapping of identities as an obvious fact in the world of digital media.  Consequently, The notion of identity in contemporary network age has distorted due to reconstruction social cultures and networks. and the meaning had to be redefined.

Provided that the arrival of digital age have bought a big turning point to the notion of identity, The opened network public in digital platform such as social network sites and games has caused problem for controlling self-identity and personal information. Several research claimed that adolescents gamers tend to feel threatened by the unmanageable privacy in network public. The emerging of network culture also contributed to the contemporary social conflict. The information,  texts and images that people provided to digital platform had been treated as the portrait of their real self by others. This caused problems of indentity fragmentation and decentralization of individual identity. Sociologists have claimed that it is common for people nowadays to have multiple personalities and identities, therefore, judging someone only from virtual world is unfair. Accordingly, digital platform are seen to be a place of self-isolation.

In conclusion, the emerging of virtual network culture has big influences toward individual identity in contemporary time. Digital platform provides enormous platform for transportation information and communication, hence provided the ease of creating multiple identities and roles.

I'm not a gamer! ...Or am I?

So I've always believed that I am not a gamer. I know I have written about this before. But maybe things have changed since three weeks ago. I don't play PC games or console games often. Actually, I could probably count the amount of times I have played games in the last year on one hand. I just don't get into them. And when I do play it's never longer than 30 minutes. However, the games on my phone have appeared quite appealing and it is almost like I can't not play them. If we think about the Walker reading he talks about traits that indicate addiction, which include: "an inability to regulate how much time was spent playing games, continuing to play despite the negative effects on their lives, and a progressive worsening of their relationship with games." Well I can probably say that all three of these traits apply to me with my relationship with Candy Crush Saga and poses the question, "Does this make me a gamer?" I'm not even sure what the answer to that question is. I don't know if I'm a gamer because of the amount of time and effort I put into (or set aside) to play Candy Crush. To be honest, I hope the answer is "no," simply because I don't want that label. The label is so stereotypical and carries with it certain connotations that I'm not used to. I expected to know the answer to this question by the end of the course, however, I would say that I am even more confused now. Before the start of the course I was adamant that I was not a gamer. Now, I don't even know. I wish someone would just tell me already!

Audition Online

Audition Online a downloadable multiplayer online casual rhythm game which was extremely popular around 2007 and 2008. During this period, many of my girlfriends were playing it. “This online music and dancing game allows players need to compete and cooperate with players from around all over the world. The objective of the game is to dance your way to virtual stardom by syncing avatar’s moves with the beat of today’s hottest pop music” (MMOBOMB).

There are two traits in this game that I think are contributed to its success. The first one is in the game there are a variety of game modes that are available to the players to choose from, which makes this game can be played by all kinds of players (no matter you are a beginner or a skilled player). Personally thinking, the single-player mode is important to a game, not only because it can make the game keep attracting new players since it allows them to be familiar with the gameplay, but also because it allows all the players to improve their skills through practicing. The single-player mode in a game can help to contribute players’ confidence when playing the multiple-player mode. In the virtual game world everyone is anonymous and faceless, which allows everyone to directly and truly express themselves.  So if your skills of playing are terrible, others may curse you in the chatting room. It definitely will weaken the beginners’ self-esteem in the game world and even his or her confidence in the real world. Besides, the single-player mode also can satisfy players’ vanity. Almost all people kind of want to be “the center of the stage” at some moment in their lives, so even if they cannot acquire that kind of feeling in their real lives at least they can get it from a virtual world. After practicing a lot in the single-player mode, you can be the spotlight in a multiple-player mode. The second main reason is the fashion elements in the game. From the perspective of music to discuss, in this game there is a fully-fledges song list with today’s hottest pop music. From the perspective of characters to analyze, girls are beautiful and boys are handsome, and all the in-game clothing and accessories are really stylish. So this game definitely can attract the players, especially who always want to be in the trend of fashion. When you play the game, you may have the feeling of “I am a fashion girl/boy”.  In this role-playing game, you are allowed to create yourself based on your ideal image: be beautiful/handsome, and be fashionable, which may to some extent improve one’s self-awareness in the real world. The virtual world allows you to hide the real you and pretend to a person that you want to show to others. Right now, it seems in this dancing and music world there can be no any social discrimination such as class discrimination, gender discrimination etc., since any discrimination can be avoided because of the gameplay, but is it? Actually, there is some class discrimination that not be avoided through the gameplay, but on the contrary they are caused by the gameplay. To be specific, in this game many of the better clothing and accessories that can be used to customize your avatar need to be purchased from the cash shop using real money, so it means if you are rich in the real world, you can be also rich in the virtual world, and vice versa. Overall, I have explore the issue of players’ self-identity in a game world through analysing the two traits of Audition Online.

Rage Quit

I figure since this is my last post of the semester on the last day of semester, it’s appropriate to write a post about rage quitting. I pride myself (somewhat absurdly) on the fact that I very, very, very rarely rage quit. It’s to do with stubbornness in general, but I also feel like once I start a task I must finish it until it’s done.  I can be stuck for hours on a level in Machinerium or Portal without giving up; I can play the same 30 seconds of game play in Hotline Miami fifty times until I stop dying ; I’ve spend a whole day playing one level of Cave Story just to get the run time I wanted.  Basically, I’M NOT A QUITTER, OK?

But one game finally toppled me, and it came from somewhere I’d never have expected. I am sad to say that I rage quit Unmanned. It’s not a “difficult” game, there aren’t really puzzle challenges that you can either succeed in or fail. What broke me down were the seemingly arbitrary decisions you have to make, and the consequences of these decisions.

You are in game. You are shaving. You can either choose to agree that it’s a “delight”, a “tedious duty”, or a “challenge”.  This kills me because there is no obvious “right” answer. No amount of skill that I have, physically or mentally, can help me choose the right answer. But once I have chosen it, and a few similar ones after it, I get a badge! But then I miss a badge. My friend who’s watching over my shoulder, who’s played the game before, tells me I’ve done something wrong to miss that badge. If I want to go back I’ll have to start the game again (which is much easier to do in choose-your-path books or online text adventures, not here). So I carry on. Another, similar “challenge” where I’m driving and am asked questions. I miss both badges.

And then I quit.  For pretty much the first time ever. Unmanned, and how it makes skill irrelevant, its seemingly random outcomes, has bested me.

The mechanics of its agency has done this to me.  For me, agency implies an ability to make informed decisions, and not just meaningful decisions. Walking around the world of Half Life 2 I use agency. However if there was a blackout, and I couldn’t see anything, it would feel like that agency was revoked. And for me, Unmanned feels a bit like a blackout. I may as well be “choosing” the answers blindly for all the good my thinking about them does.  And this structure is diametrically opposed to games like Super Mario where if you try hard enough, if you gain enough skill or muscle memory, you can succeed!

In Unmanned, the decisions are meaningful, but impossible to be informed. And this just kills me. 

Alternate Reality Games – Community and Competition

Yesterday’s lecture content on Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) left me dwelling on a number of points, largely to do with what I see as their reliance on both community and competition. They’re an interesting phenomenon, arguably grouped as games because of similarities they share with puzzles. Both involve a broad goal in that the player is asked to ‘solve a problem’ and find a point of closure by demonstrating how most/all of the pieces of information link together. ARGs might also include a narrative of some kind, acting as the content to be pieced together as it’s fed to the players.

The intricacy and appeal of these games is most likely what simultaneously draws and requires so many participants, establishing a community through on and offline communication. Kevin highlighted that aspects of these grand puzzles can be so complicated in solving that a large number of people with a collectively broad skill-set is often required. Potential ways to solve problems from the clues provided can be explored, and subsequently eliminated should they prove to meet no end. This is where the value of communication and co-operation comes into it; the whole idea that ‘many hands make light work’. At first I couldn’t get over how cool the idea of hundreds, even thousands of geographically disparate people collaborating to solve a shared problem was.

But then it’s easy to think of the internet, and the emerging network society as ultimately and positively connective, especially when combined with the word ‘community’. It’s a very emotive word for those of us living in Western, Post-Industrial societies that can at times feel like a mass of strangers living right next door to each other. The discourse of community found in descriptions of ARGs carries a lot of idealism I think. This is not to say that co-operation, division of labour and sharing doesn’t take place in the play-out of ARGs, but I think the notion of community does something to hide the fundamental drive of competition within these games.

As Kevin noted participation in ARGs, especially at the higher tiers of engagement, will most likely take up A LOT of your time. Integration of these games into forms of communication that are prevalent in the workplace, University, domestic setting etc. means that one can easily get away with participating in ARGs while those around you would be none the wiser. Vast amounts of time could be discretely spent doing nothing of what you’re supposed to be. Adding to this is the temporal dimension of ARGs, by which I mean that the game doesn’t stop simply because you’re not participating at a particular moment. There’s room for an intense level of competitive paranoia should the individual be so dedicated to the game that they feel unsettled when not pursuing it’s execution. Kevin compared this to the feeling of social exclusion when not logged onto Facebook; the impression that one is missing out, and has no idea what is being missed. In the context of an ARG this feeling has the added pressure of gamer competition.

Sure, not every player in an ARG approaches the task with a competitive attitude. I’m sure the vast majority of players know that they’re not leading the pack in unravelling clues along the way, subsequently relishing in the co-operative side ARGs. However I believe there’s an interesting dichotomy of community and competition present here. While multiple minds are needed to share the workload of potential ways to solve an ARG, a competitive spirit arguable drives this community toward the shared goal.

Stuck in Limbo: Exit Loops

"Are you sure you want to exit? Any unsaved progress may be lost."

This point of being dissuaded to exit the current game being played was raised at one of my tutorials on Thursday a few weeks ago and thought it very odd that I hadn't thought about it before. The World of Warcraft Service or Space reading also reminded me with the quote from game producers Blizzard to heavily immersed/problematically using patrons stating "they could always walk away".

But game developers of the coming age will make this simple choice of "walking away" as difficult and as tedious as possible, with the addition of game space exits, lobby exits, chat exits, and main menu exits. A personal example of this multiple feature quitting is the MMO League of Legends. After winning or losing a game, one must click to exit the physical game into a post-game lobby, where the members of either team can thank, troll, or criticise one another with statistical evidence about the game being present. Once the player has finished this, they are faced with two ways of exiting the lobby - to 'play again', or exit. And by selecting the exit option, the client takes you to your homepage, where it is just as easy to click the largest and most central play button again, and even easier to chat to your online friends on the chat bar bottom left (acts like facebook). Finally, pressing the small x on the top right of the homepage will prompt "are you sure you want to log out?", and after selecting yes you are free from the shackles that is one of the most addicting games I've ever played.

Another slight variant of this entrapment into the game is making game saves excruciatingly time consuming, with the likes of the Grand Theft Auto series save points. As you progress through the storyline, the main character generally has missions further away from his apartment as to allude to his reputation increasing. In order for you to exit the game with your new progress saved, you must return to the apartment on the other side of town just to save, and follow a similar routine as to LoL above exiting to main menu before you can actually exit the application.

All in all, this creates a vulgar procedural rhetoric, where the system rules of the application takes the user for a painstaking ride to get off, and in personal experience usually leads to a relapse where another of your online friends catch you out of game and invites you to another. In a sense, this makes the games persuasive, however we don't hold the physical game accountable. Why is this? Because it is our (well mine at least) self-control leading us back to playing more of the video-game, not the game itself, although it provides us with the desire to do so. Being asked about save games also produces this rhetoric where the player has probably saved their progress, although returns to the game space just to check, having that chance of delving into another mission just because its 'on the way home' (GTA). Upon researching deeper into this, I struggled to find any content along these lines, which I also found intriguing - maybe no one else has thought about this critically? It disheartened me that such a lack of agency in terms of quitting games has gone reasonably unnoticed due to the sheer saturation of this procedural rhetoric that motivates players to stay in games. Or maybe I'm just not looking in the right places.. But either way, gamers should reserve the right to exit a game on the spot whenever it is convenient for them, not be stuck in this never ending loop of exit prompts and questions of save-games that only returns them back to the environment theyre trying to escape. I suppose that these rhetorical questions initially derived from common courtesy for exiting games as developers were genuinely being mindful of players losing their progress, but now it seems that this feature is just being exploited to keep them trapped in the text.

Canoodling between the sheets/screens

Is romance, even love, in a virtual context of any real life relevance? This question was posed in FTVMS314 Technoculture & New Media, largely in reference to romances in Second Life. My initial answer was mostly no, because true personal connections require physical contact. And yet many a romance exists in virtual spaces, whether games or otherwise. Dating websites, for example, have taken up millions of patrons on their search for love. Are games like Second Life or other MMO's any less valid of formats for sparking up relationships?

I've known many people to find and maintain friendships via MMO's, which I can see as a perfectly valid venture. Platonic connections based on mutual interest are viable in any setting. What makes romance any different? Am I that primitive that I cannot conceive of a meaningful relationship that doesn't involve physical contact, much less ever meeting the other person? Is the emotional connection felt through virtual interaction and communication not enough? As history attests, relationships have existed over the centuries as long as partners are able to communicate. In a setting like Second Life, with all its exotic wonder, avatars have the perfect settings for fostering romance whilst players communicate and interact. And avatars, as any investment in virtual spaces, are an extension of the player's self. Indeed there are entire websites devoted to helping players find romantic hotspots, get married, and even simulate sex. If a player's self-extension is able to participate in these activities as a substitute for real life limits, who is to say the emotional experience derived and shared is any less valid?

I still find it hard to validate a relationship that is merely based on communication and virtual interaction. But with online spaces presenting more of a grey area than anything before in our lifetime, maybe that will change.

ARG's potential legal issues

In tutorial I asked Keven about some of the legal ramifications of ARGs when the players may over step some boundaries. As Kevin said often players go far outside what is expected and intended by the puppet master. This got me thinking as to liability for ARG's.
Aside from obvious cases where groups such as 4chan illegally target someone as a "game" the other instance came to mind of what if a player did what they THOUGHT the puppet master wanted, only to wind up in some sort of legal mess (trespass or hacking something they shouldn't have). Obviously the puppet master had no intent, and therefore cannot be held responsible, but what if the player thought they were able to go over the area in question, or access that email or web page because they thought it was part of the game? I can see a potential worry for players, puppet masters and for the companies that bankroll them, more for publicity stakes, than from a legal point of view if a bunch of their players got arrested or fines.

Time after time

This course has broadened my perspective of video games. I never before considered much of what happens behind the games that we actually play and invest ourselves within. I now apply many of the terms and concepts that I have learnt to other areas of my life, starting to every now and again critically analyze it. For example, with digital immigrants and the newer generations who are being born into technology, my niece who is not even two years of age is able to take my sister's Samsung Galaxy and go onto YouTube.  Not only can she do that, she then proceeds to scroll through the content. Every so often she'll select a video to watch, most often being songs such as Glee or Gangnam style - (this is how I managed to stumble upon Minecraft Gangnam style).

There are so many perspectives of video games that also develop from different generations. The younger you are, however, and/or more accustomed you are to the culture of video games displays the depth in your understanding of how this new medium as a technology works. Mainly since these are the individuals being affected by it. With the term 'affect' I mean in relation to video games, parts of society use either negative or positive connotations to follow it. Everyone has their own opinion and experience with video games. It's mainly how the information is fed that can determine how the individual may then perceive it. For example, in the media, video games are glanced upon with very negative perspectives that seem to stretch across tangents that create correlations and/or connections linking this to that (i.e., this man committed a crime, he played shooter games in the past = THIS MUST MEAN SOMETHING).

Talking about video games is messy. I know that for sure. This is because of all the different opinions that everyone has. It's obvious to show that the younger parts of our society get silenced out because they are viewed as being vulnerable and not knowing any better. But relating back to my niece scrolling through YouTube and actually finding clips that she is looking for, I must admit is fucking amazing, yet it also scares me. My niece is more technologically competent than my mother who has only just reached her 50s and still needs me every time she wants to upload a photo. If my mother ever touched my sister's Samsung Galaxy, she'd prolly end up frustrated from not knowing how to make it work the way she wants it to. Even I didn't know that through this phone you can swipe the screen sideways and bring up more content to look at on YouTube .. not until my niece showed me.

Another important thing to take note of is how the individual can become so invested in 'virtual' online worlds. It can be fun, no doubt about it, spending hours on end grinding to get to that level you've been working for just so you can venture through that cave at the end of the map and destroy these monsters and get the best weapon and then sell it for gold in order to better your character's appearance (tldr).
People can be bored! Some times there's nothing better to do than spend your spare time invested in starting a new game in Fable, Skyrim, or Pokemon.
Games are social! From personal experience, the group of friends that I've hung out with since high school and leading into uni have been the ones that I play League of Legends with. This is awesome, not only because we're friends in real life, but since we're able to stay constantly in contact with each other through a new medium where it might be unlikely we'll see the other the next day. It also creates great conversation since we all know what the other person is talking about :) sadly not for our other friends who don't.

Back to the point I was actually trying to make with this, which was, well, games are growing and we're growing with them. Games will continue to change over the years and are likely to never stop (or at least, not any time soon). Games do adapt to new changes in technology and to the media. It didn't take long for most societies to start abusing the use of video games and Androids for commercial purposes.
What I mean by we're growing with games,  is that younger generations are becoming more adaptable to technology. Technology is broad, but with video games, we do have our own world that we live in which our community of gamers exists.

On a post I made a week or so ago about sexism with video games, a girl in our class pointed out the difference between her and her friends playing League of Legends. She noted how different it was experiencing the game in comparison to her friends because of how they had been playing for such a long time and knew how to play, whereas she was new to the game, and didn't have the same mindset straight away. The point here is that there are those already within this world, and those who are slowly entering it. From when we enter the game, context means everything in terms of how we experience the game. When a new individual enters this space, they will begin to understand it from their own perspective over what they initially go through.

Before I make this any longer to become an extreme TLDR, I just want to note about how enjoyable this course was and how great an experience it was to actually study something that a very wide range of people are a part of and enjoy.

I'm prolly now going to start playing Mass Effect, since I only just got it and know for sure that my experience playing this game will definitely be different to anyone else :)

- Georgia Cob.

I also became so increasingly addicted to the hexagon game. Sadly investing so much of my life I managed to clock 117 seconds. yay.

The Game of Love

As someone who has never played one, I find the concept of MMORG’s intriguing. I can appreciate how they can be alluring and a consuming form of entertainment. The social element to these games that provide a compelling dimension and the reason many participate and find friendship through the shared experience.

It seems, for some, the bonds forged on quests or conquering the enemy extends beyond banter.

This article from the New York Times tells the story of two people who met within the World of Warcraft game, romanced and have become a couple. They had chatted within the confines of the game for a couple of months then took the step of meeting up in person. Interestingly the article is not published in the Technology pages, but the “Fashion and Style” section and makes the case that gamers are real people too. It implies that with 12 million people playing the game, it may be fertile (virtual) ground for meeting a partner as, in comparison, the leading match making site has a subscriber base less than one sixth the size. Two people in the tutorial today mentioned they knew couples that had met through MMORG’s.

It highlights that not everyone’s game experience is the same, or their motive for playing the game.

To meet in a form represented as an avatar and then again physical manifestation must be interesting. But maybe the process of getting to know someone well in-game is not that different from navigating through the layers of social conventions in the “real world”. 

People will seek out people... and hopefully have a little fun along the way.  That game is never over…Happy Valentines Day. 

Reddit and ARG's

Users of Reddit are often referred to as a community. I don't go on the site a lot myself but a friend is always telling me about what incredible problem solvers the users are. He told me about one post he'd been following where a someone had admitted to incest with a young girl. I'm hazy on the details but from what I remember, the anonymous blogger had uploaded a picture of a room for some reason. Within less then an hour, the Reddit community had tracked the guy down. Firstly someone identified a toy mascot and asked others whether they recognised it. Sure enough, someone did and a Reddit user who went to the school contacted the school.
Interestingly, Reddit has a whole section for people to help out with solving problems called The RBI- Reddit Bureau of Investigation (http://www.reddit.com/r/RBI).
Here, an online community attempts to solve problem from stolen phones to missing people. Surely the reward is more satisfying then the Eureka moment discussed in the lecture since a lot of the time, these problems are not fictional. People use specialist knowledge (often of technology) to help out free of charge.
I've also come across a user's attempt at ARG. Under the title Possible murder confession on Reddit, the blogger reflected on his experience of creating the story.
"Honestly the whole thing was starting to creep me out. Writing the story wasn't too bad, but interacting with other redditors while in character as a remorseless killer--well, it made my flesh crawl."

Unlike some of the games talked about in class, the man behind the fictional story was in direct contact with people trying to solve the problem. It obviously took it's toll on the guy.
It appears Reddit has the ideal community to create a really good ARG, yet it would be difficult to make it sufficiently challenging.

Lloyd Thomason (2691650)
Word count: 311
This week I contributed to the 'sound design in video games' post

Sound design in games

In response to: http://ftvms212-328-2013.blogspot.co.nz/2013/02/sounds-in-video-games.html

Bringing up the point of sound design in games is very interesting, because I think it is often left unsaid how significant it is to the construction of experience. As mentioned in the previous post, many games rely on sounds and music in order to create a sense of ambiance and atmosphere, as well as for the construction of purposeful mechanics within the game world (e.g. footsteps in counterstrike)

Something which i would like to add to this discussion, is the idea of sound design as an indicator of pointed artistic direction. The interaction of sound-design, visual aesthetic and gameplay was previously a relationship heavily defined by necessity. The music accompanying 8-bit games on consoles such as the NES were limited to the sound capabilities of that console. However, we are now seeing a divergent attitude towards visual design and sound design, where it is possible to create games with the nostalgic visual aesthetic of outdated game design, with unrestricted possibilities to create sound-tracks which go outside of those originally tethered to their format. This means that visual styles intrinsically linked with novelty and ludic value can be placed in a state of juxtaposition alongside complex and detailed music and sound-design, significantly altering the experiential boundaries.

For example, Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery employs a low detail, 16 bit visual style. While this visual style is ratheer simple, it is matched with a complex soundscape of music, such as ambient soundscapes, and the occasional Sabbath-style riff (\m/). This juxtaposition of simple visuals with a varied and  complex set of soundscapes presents a new contextualization for the experiences within the game, and creates a sense of depth and connection to the visually simple game-world.

Similarly, the 2012 game Hotline Miami presents an example of this recontextualisation through using a visual style which is reminiscent of games of the time in which it is set, Miami in 1989, as a way of emphasizing the setting. The audio presented is a warped modern impression of the house music of the time, filtered through the madness and violence induced haze of the main character. This warped mix of diagetic content with non-diagetic context confronts the player with warped scenarios, which rely heavily on the changing music and sound-design in order to establish the different mission levels, intervening story sections and nightmarish-dream sequences.

Narrative

Picking up on the discussion of Narrative from last week, i thought i would discuss some games which i think present interesting models for weaving narrative into gameplay.

As brought up in lecture, Portal  and Portal 2 are games which achieve a balance of storytelling and gameplay which is unique to the game. so much of this is defined, however, by the structure and content of the game itself. It is only allowed through the fact that the game is set in a stage-by-stage setting and structure which allows for the pacing of the storytelling to be told as the player progresses. This is very clever, as it avoids players being confronted with repeating dialogue and a loss of pace. The pace of these games are instead built up from the themes of manipulation and unreliable narration. The slow blurring of the clinical setting into a far more menacing and twisted scenario is undergone so that the player, without being explicitly presented with an explanation, is motivated to escape and defy their boundaries.

Bastion is another game which was brought up in the lectures, and having played it I can agree that it is a unique experience in regard to its approach to narration. The way the game is presented, first with a very low degree of exposition lends itself to a slowly unravelling plot and backstory. This is told through a narrator who, according to the players actions, provides a unique and user-defined narration. Not only is it unique to have a story-book style narrator, but to have one which so closely follows the players actions adds to the loric quality of the game. it makes the actions far more than a set of motions, which any shoot-em-up platformer can quickly fall into. It makes the cartoony world of the Bastion feel like a much more living entity as you fight for it.

A game which I  think had an interesting and affective model for narrative and storytelling was the Max Payne series, specifically Max Payne 2. The narrative is based on Max’s internal dialogue in the the trope of film noir which informed the game stylistically. The combination of this and the third person perspective from which the game is played, creates and interesting dynamic as if Max is recounting the story to you, rather than trying to help the player embody Max. Thematically this can be seen to play to the nihilistic content of the game, as even though you control his actions you cannot actually help him out of his constantly spiraling state, only push him deeper into the action. The trope of the anti-hero in the Noir genre is heavily based in concepts of hopelessness and nihilism, and by taking control of Max this theme is only furthered. I think this can in some ways create a strongly affective experience, even more so than some noir films, as it emphasises the characters lack of agency in this sort of situation, and by pushing the character through this worsening situation the player absorbs some of the responsibility for the on screen events.

Why I hate MMO

The lecture and readings this week on MMO only reinforced the reasons on why I absolutely hate MMO games.  

A few years ago, when MMO started to get popular, my boyfriend at the time discovered it and thought it was the greatest thing ever invented. He tried to teach me, but I was a casual gamer and I struggled. All we did was run around in this huge, never ending place, looking for things shooting people, and hearing funny voices at the same time- I didn’t get it.

It was scary to see him so immersed in the game. He had the normal attributes of an addictive gamer (playing hours on end etc) but that wasn’t the scary part.

Lessig argues that cyberspaces have the potential to be the most perfectly regulable spaces ever inhabited but unfortunately this is not happening. How can you distinguish what is real or not, when you are continually communicating with real people in this alternative world where space never seems to end. You can practically go anywhere- up buildings, through windows, underground- it was limitless. There is no regulations, and you cop abuse or can abuse others. It is addictive and life consuming as you are stuck in this alternative world and you get lost in a play trance- you could forget that it is a game and wonder around in this world forever. I think, when you hear the other players talk to you, it becomes real. It is a dangerous territory, and people should proceed with caution.

Dis-Able Gamers

Earlier this week I gave a presentation on the topic of Disabled videogamers and their social context represented in the games medium. It covered areas of concern that disabled videogamers face and also addressed the topic of social networks available to these players.  I also thought that many of these themes may parallel across the two disciplines of study that I am currently assigned to.

To introduce the topic I have attached a link of the prezzie file that maybe viewed as a basic reference and support. http://prezi.com/f6hdl5c8-opu/edit/#0_5277991

Able Gamers
http://www.ablegamers.com/
The able gamers foundation was setup to provide the some 33million disabled users of the, some 11billion, videogame industry with a forum and environment to communicate and interact. The site has various forum feeds and 'newsfeed' like visuals that inform the community with the latest links and info going on in the videogame industry right now. The foundations introduction video, below, provides a wonderful framework for any interest in this avenue.  

BrolyLegs
As my interest in the topic grew I research a little deeper and found a young gamer by the name of Mike 'BrolyLegs' Begum who has been crippled with Arthrogryposis his whole life. Contradictory to his physical impediment, it seems that Mike has found legs in the videogame Super Street Fighter 4 where he is the world champ Chun Li player. From enduring such terrible circumstances, and coming out relatively on top, Mike is a true warrior and motivator to many around him offering inspiration and determination. Below is an interview about his case.

Begum has a goal to own a videogame store and is currently studying at university doing a business degree.

Second Life
To further my involvement of this avenue I decided to interact with a social network and see for myself what kind of interaction and representation the disabled community had in the social network medium of Second Life. Upon a little research online I had come across a fact that there was a virtual bar that users could go to and 'potentially' hang out with other disabled users. Now I say 'potentially' for the issue arose that one need not be disabled to interact and socialise, however it seemed a prerequisite to be using a wheelchair. Wheelies was the bar in question however much to my disappointment it seemed that this location was no longer in operation. Further digging revealed that there was another location called Taupo that offered a similar service. Taupo, as in Taupo New Zealand? I wondered if this was sign and thus it was that I undertook the experience.

I teleported to the location and had a quick introduction to the site, donned my wheelchair and took for the bar. Sadly however, my task was to no avail and could not be completed as there were no other users online for me to interact with. This didn't stop me thou and I took off to a new location to see what my response would be in other social circles.

London was the next local, and I came across a group of people all gather toward a beach mingling by the seaward view. I wheeled myself up and quietly joined the circle. I wasn't sure the kind of reception I was to receive, so I played it gently. After a good ten minutes of listening to the mic enhanced chat that was happening between three of the users, I typed my way into existence and asked how I could dance like the clown looking fella to my right. After some required comic banter about "putting my right foot in and my left foot in" and shaking them all about, I was shortly greeted with some action windows and a series of dance moves to choose from. "Whoo hoo" I exclaimed in type text as I proceeded to dance around, wheelchair still attached. Shortly an audible comment arose from a gentleman "Bird" sitting on the wire to my right whom stated, "That's it you got it! I bet you wish you could do that in real life a buddy."
So that was it I concluded, I could already start to feel a sort of prejudice and regard as other for being seated in a wheelchair. I left the circle and danced in around the corner. I think I will go back to Taupo.


Concluding
Even only after a few mild interactions with the media forms already I have seen many reasons that support the benefits of videogames from a disabled perspective. With SNS supporting players and family and offering  a monitored environment for all to interact, to games that are increasingly involving accessibility factors and requirements, and networks were one can literally "paint themselves into being"; videogames and disabilities are become increasingly joined and merged together. Thank goodness.

Peace D

MMO addiction

After the tutorial fully understood why my brother have zoned out expressions all the time and get frustrated when they get told to simply do a chore because their head spaces are still immersed in the game, But I never thought it would be so intense . This is explains why dinner is scoffed down and then straight back to the computer. Whether it is unhealthy or not it does affect their whole day because during the holidays there is no leaving the computer chair, even a trip to the bathroom is made in such a hurry. I always wondered what they need to get back to. They must be missing out on something on Warcraft 3..."DOTA" is what often gets shouted as they abuse each other from across the room, yell at other players and laugh at the mishaps of the game. But I have noticed how the older one delegates missions to the other, is there a theory for this? using a sibling or using another person to do the boring missions or things that help level up ect. These observations have been more interesting and relatable as the course went on and now as MMO's are discussed it creates a whole new reason to understand the inner workings of theses games in order to understand why or how absorbed a person can get. Time is always un-negotiable because very second you arn't at home, something within the game world hapens, do people feel disapoitned they were out with people or out doing an errand to miss out on an event? is this level of dissapointment the same as a situation in reality? or possibly more?. I hope the video game paper gets rescheduled because as a form of new media, no one takes it seriously but surely one day people will notice how important online interaction within games is, and how this affects people socially and economically.

A 13-year old gamer has six guns. Media response: SHOCK HORROR future murderer!

As an extension of Rachelle's post on videogame violence and addiction, I thought I'd comment and explore an example of 'good parenting' that unfortunately still resulted in a media sh*tstorm about violent video games and their link to firearms, but said comment became pretty long and horrid to read without formatting, so here we go:


This Eurogamer article was posted by Kevin here on the blog, and it gives a case study of a gamer who developed an interest in firearms as a result of his family buying him Call of Duty, so they could supervise him playing at home, rather than going round to a friend's house. Responsible parents buying their progeny restricted content, yay! Keeping in mind of course that for every golden example, somewhere on the internet it is possible to find a not-so-golden counterpiece, especially when this is the side chosen by the mainstream media: this particular example was only reported because said 13yr old was found with one of his guns at school for a dispusted reason.

"I have six pellet and BB guns," says Aidin Smith, a 13 year-old resident of Springfield, Illinois. "These include two BB guns, modelled on the M14 rifle and M1911 pistol, and two pellet guns, modelled on the AK-47 and M16. I also own an M14 BB rifle M1911 BB pistol. And I got an AK-47 rifle, M16 rifle.
"My favorite is the M1911. I shot a real M1911 when I lived in the country. I shot with my Grandpa. I love the action on it, it is like a real M1911, it recoils and springs back like a real gun. All of them are ones that are in Call of Duty. I like guns more because of Call of Duty. The M1911 is a pistol in almost in every Call of Duty."

Article goes on to quote his grandfather, who had taken him to the gun range and "showed him what the real thing can do. I told him never to point a gun at a real person and that no one gets an extra life if you shoot them." That's some deep and meaningful wisdom right there.


With many mainstream violent games, such as this the often lambasted CoD series, I believe they restrict your 'negative' behaviour: like leaving a team member to die or bleed out, and shooting innocent civvies or your comrades.
Some will also reward you for 'better' kills, involving precision targeting and conservative fire. Of course this can still be seen as training for a serial killer's rampage, as the media would have us believe on a regular basis.  We should all be familiar with the hypodermic needle theory by now.

If we were to restrict this sort of morally-questionable content would we not be painting a picture of a perfect world, a perfect war?

(Given, this series will also teach you that ammunition is abundant in every corner of the world and that the West is always best, so they're not the greatest examples. . .)

With regards to the school shootings, little attention is placed on the media's coverage and (un)intentional glorification of such events. It really is easier to point the finger at someone else: none of the videogame developers interviewed for the Eurogamer agreed to discuss the report's questions, nor did the NRA on what role guns in video games had on their sales.
 Again, as with video games, we can't restrict content or newsreporting to stop copycat antics. But what can be done is a change in attitudes and production values. In this course we have heard tales about alternative means of demonstrating death or violence without the need for "BOOM HEADSHOT"-esque visualizations and buckets of gore. A careful balance is needed to lower expectations for hyperviolent content, as with overly-sexualized representations of gender stereotypes and other issues modern game developers face.

But of course, we can turn to a Youtube clip for simple answers to the problems. Problems which were still evident in the reporting of the Sandy Hook shootings :/

History of/Always online DRM

I recently watched this interesting short documentary summarising the history of DRM in computer games, from the 70's to today. It's interesting to see the progression in the ways companies have attempted to protect their products from piracy and how we came to have the systems that are put in place today. Always online DRM is showing up more and more in massive titles such as Diablo 3 and the long awaited new addition to the SimCity franchise. It's overwhelmingly clear that by and large the consumer base despises this kind of content restriction, and developers have felt this first hand; in an 'Ask Me Anything' thread on Reddit posted by a Maxis development team users showed an overwhelming negative reaction to the notion of forced online play. Companies using this kind of DRM are holding the games you buy hostage and the consumers aren't buying it. What will happen when they decide to shut down the servers that not only contain all of your save data but your ability to play a game that you bought? (this question could also be applied to games that lie undownloaded in Steam).

Is this a start of a darker age of buying games, or a short lived trend that the community will rebuff? DRM doesn't have to be so draconian, as we can see in Steam, so why the heavy handedness? It seems strange that these well known studios can be so out of touch with or totally ignorant of the community opinions, and their plans originally meant to save themselves money will in the long run both damage their reputations and their profits. It's as though they treat the entire community as people who would pirate at the first chance they had, so they take away the right of play without supervision. To me it seems a destructive and counterproductive way of protecting content, but it is one of those things that is a long progression of seemingly reasonable small steps that result in an almost totalitarian gaming environment.

One of the more interesting forms of DRM