Final Paper Proposal

I plan on writing on Rez as well as its relation to games such as Guitar Hero and Dance Dance Revolution. I will write on the fascination with association of sound and image as well as the interactivity with the soundtrack. Guitar Hero, moreso than the other two games mentioned, can serve as a promotional vehicle for newer artists, allowing them to be measured, played over and over again next to classic songs. My paper will detail the effectiveness of rehearsed playback yielding familiarity, yielding affinity with regards to the music featured in the game. While Rez allows the user to create music on a more abstract and visually stunning way, both Guitar Hero and Dance Dance Revolution pound their songs into your head by making them a fun challenge to overcome.

WTF?

http://www.gamegirladvance.com/archives/2002/10/26/sex_in_games_rezvibrator.html

A VERY INTERESTING review of Pathologic (dammit, I wanna play it now)

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=67124

Representing Gamespace

Saw this and thought of McKenzie Wark's idea of the "GameSpace" here used to sell XBox 360's, which would no doubt support Wark's belief in dialog between games, game cultures, game industries, and the larger world.

Link

Open Source Games

In light of my recent presentation I felt it was appropriate to mention another phenomenon besides modding that's going on right now:

http://www.wesnoth.org/

"Battle for Wesnoth" is an open source developed turn based strategy game that is released for free and not commercially developed. Although the game itself is not very rhetorically interesting in the context of most of the things we talk about in class, its means of distribution and development are. Furthermore, it comes with its own editing tools along with source code, making its "open sourceness" readily available on multiple levels of computer knowledge. I'm going to look a little more into this but in the meantime enjoy that game along with a wikipedia list of other open source games out there:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open_source_games

Pokemon Modded for 2008 Election

THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE AN ANIMATED GIF,
but apparently Blogger does not support that, so check it here.

Found on the interwebs. I'm not completely sure if it constitutes a mod (I know it would fail the Galloway definition), but interesting none the less.

sorry for the late post!

In his chapter on Countergaming, Galloway defines the differences between gaming and countergaming. He identifies 5, to which he adds another, largely unrealized difference: gamic action versus radical action. Through the fulfillment of this, he believes, countergaming will realize its true potential as political. Galloway argues that thus far examples of radical action have been difficult to find. Instead, most avant-garde artists have focused on game mods that focus on other mediums such as painting, video, and animation. Instead, he calls for new grammars of actions and alternative algorithms as opposed to new grammars of visuality. He identifies Jodi’s work as apolitical (juxtaposed with Jean-Luc Godard’s work as “hyperpolitical”) because it seeks only to abstract, not to modify gameplay. He calls for an era in which artists subvert traditional expectations of gameplay itself, as New Wave cinema once did for film—it eventually realized countercinema as cinema. Galloway is also concerned with the productive relationship thus far between fans/artists and corporations, citing appropriation and redistribution of fan game mods by fans. He argues that this is noteworthy because most, if not all other mediums have had a contested battleground between fan and corporation (the Star Wars corporation suing fan fiction writers, etc.). Although I tend to agree with Galloway, that avant garde games have not yet realized their potential for subverting traditional grammars of action, I wonder about his dismissal of subverting visual grammars as categorically apolitical.

One point he makes that I found interesting is his insisting on a different definition for reality for game use. More specifically, he finds that the distinction between reality and fiction itself is not useful so he dismisses it as an unproductive category for gaming/countergaming. Galloway writes that there are numerous examples of games that reject fictional narrative in favor of “real-life scenarios” such as a restaging of 9/11 (122). He argues that the “conceit of real-life simulation” has been a staple of game mods for several decades. Reality is also a staple of traditional games that are based on increasingly more representative “real-world” maps. He defines this as apolitical because, as opposed to cinema, reality is not a political import. He thus dismisses reality versus fiction as a useless classification for gaming. Considering the very political hype around increasingly high verisimilitude violent video games, is this dismissal productive? I am skeptical that a game reconstructing the events of 9/11 is necessarily rejecting the traditional narrative tradition of video games in favor of a “real life scenario.” Where does his term “simulation” fit into the debate between reality/fiction?

Beyond Sexual Representation: Sexual Transgression and 'Orgasm Girl'

Where sexualized female avatars, voyeuristic fan culture, and fetishisized video game characters draw a line of propriety, 'Orgasm Girl' makes direct game play out of the seduction, and arguably rape, of a female character. Your objective, as listed in the game's Tutorial is to "giv[e] young girls intense orgasms while they're asleep." The tutorial then re-emphasizes the need for the targeted girl to remain sleep: "give the sexy girl an orgasm while she's asleep WITHOUT waking her up. If she wakes up, it's game over."

From this first introductory direction, a societal transgression seems to be taking place. They culture of "giving girls orgasms while their asleep," is immediately associated with the act of rape, sexual harassment, and sexual abuse. It is firstly non-consentual, as one individual (constituted by the player) acts upon another, without the latter's consent or agreement that would be notably suggested by consciousness. Secondly, 'Orgasm Girl' involves an invasion of privacy, legal and societal, that is visually suggested by the bed, and undergarments that the target girl will wear in the game. She appears to be somewhere private, at ease, while the player's character appears to be an intruder, someone trespassing upon private property, into a visual and sexual realm likewise regarded as private.

It is worth considering here, how these notions of transgression and trespass, that present the game as social uncouth, may be a product of what Michel Foucault has called "the Repressive Paradigm" in the his History of Sexuality. In this paradigm, sexual practice and discourse are made taboo by social factors connected to changes in the economic-political landscape of 18th century Europe. Today, Foucault argues, there is a the rhetoric of release, "liberation" from sex as a tabooed act, and thus 'Orgasm Girl' might be read as a direct challenge to the way privacy, rape, sexual abuse and advancement, are treated and controlled by paradigms born of repression. In short, 'Orgasm Girl' may be construed as a challenge of conventional sexual practice and glorification of the liberation of sexuality that Foucault details in his History.

But even if this is the case, 'Orgasm Girl' clearly disrupts 'appropriate' sexual practice, with a problematic alternative, and it is this act of sexual gaming that we must critically engage.

Aesthetic Overview

From the onset, 'Orgasm Girl' stresses the "adult" nature or its gameplay. "18+" warns the first title seen in the Flash game's intro, "contains scenes of strong sexual themes and nudity." The game then flashes to the game developer's animated banner: "Dark-Street.com Development," with a single star-like reflection edging along the first "D." "Dark-Street.com" is an ironic, if not ominous title for a company that would develop a game relating to heavy sexual themes, the suggestion of rape, and the depiction of non-standard sexual narratives. "Dark Street" would seem to be an appropriate location for such transgressive sexual acts.

Next, 'Orgasm Girl' presents the legs of a woman, covered with nylon tights, framed by a pink border with the camera panning suggestively up, following the legs of the woman to a short skirt, a bare midriff, a bosom barely covered by a thin scrap of white shirt, and a face heavily covered in make-up. Above this woman, a halo blinks strangely. The woman lets her hands rest on her wasp-thin waist, and stares at the user.

In the Tutorial, the user is instructed that this is his/her character, "Orgasm Girl the hottest lesbian angel around and she has only one objective: giving young girls intense orgasms while they are asleep." The halo then, oddly placed on the woman on the title screen connects this description with who the player controls. The player is this woman, and this woman is "Orgams Girl." The Halo also suggests an odd semi-divine quality, either referring to the "lesbian angel's" ability to gain access to the private space of the target girl, or engaging in the old cliche "you look like an angel," angel being a metaphor for beauty.

Clicking "start" one goes to a new "info" intertitle, providing a logistical data to the target girl. She is given just a first name, "Ashley," an age "18," eye and hair color, "green" and "blonde" respectively, and a "shaven" prompt with the word "yes" next to it. Each of these characteristics construct a highly sexualized object of desire. The age, "18," reminds first that she is legally of the age of consent, and second that she is of age to appear in pornographic material. Both of these qualities are problematicized by the fact that she is not awake. She may well be of the age of consent, but her conscious consent is still required. Appearing in pornographic material likewise requires a certain conscious agreement of the depicted subject. Eye color seems completely ironic, as you never see the eyes of a sleeping individual who must stay asleep. The "Shaven" category is left unexplained with the tacit assumption that it doesn't need to be; the type of character playing the game understands completely what this means. And in that regard, the "yes" answer, seems to be the desirable response.

Hands On Gameplay

Click Start again, the game begins. The player is suddenly afforded a near-totalizing view of a girl at sleep. The view is raised slightly as if to suggest that the player is poised over the target girl, not lying down beside her. The totalizing view, perhaps meant to suggest the floating perspective of an angel also allows for substantial access to the target girl. So in this way, the perspective becomes indicative of the power dynamic. The player is entirely in control of the target.

The player interacts with the body of the target girl. He/she is afforded a number of 'tools' to exchange out the default "idle" mouse point. There is "rub" marked visually with a small hand, "grab" signified by a snatching hand, "items" marked with an intersecting tool and wrench, and "shop" marked with a shopping cart.

Navigating the body, the user finds that the "rub" tool allows for the massaging/stimulating various regions of the girl while "grab" allows for the pulling down and removal of the girls cloths. Each stimulus/wardrobe adjustment causes a change in the interfaces "orgasm" meter and "state" bar graph. The orgasm meter is the game's objective: pushing the needle from rest into the orange and then red zones will not only score points for the player, but elicit "sexual" noises from the girl, and obviously, increase her state of consciousness. Perhaps the bouncing needle of the orgasm meter suggests an erect phallus, rotating with arousal into an upright position.

The game's only winning condition is orgasm. Its only losing condition is "Ashley's" waking up. Being too cavalier, perhaps too 'masculine' and direct, like removing her skirt and immediately massaging the vagina, will inevitably cause Ashley to wake up before she orgasms, and lose the game for the player. No, a rapid approach will not work. Instead, the player is forced to develop a strategy of patience and gradual escalation. Massage this, remove that, wait for the sleep state to return to normal, then make an attack.

Interestingly, satisfying Ashley is difficult, even frustrating. Simply stripping her, to reveal an anime-like sexualized cartoon, may satisfy the player's voyeuristic urges, but will not beat the game.

Ultimately unable to beat the game on my own, I sought help. A short how-to video on GameTrailers.com had all the answers, the procedural rhetorics I had either not realized or employed. But on top of the video, at moments of patience or repeated action, commentary condemned the would-be player of the game. "Use this time to reflect on how much of a pervert you are" stated on title, superimposed over the waiting for Ashley's full sleep state to return. Or "It may take a while (to massage Ashley's breasts into arousal) oh well, it's not like you've got a real womans boobs anyway." Each of these messages may explicit what players (particularly male, heterosexual players) are feeling at this time.

In any case, the way to win "Orgasm Girl" is to 1. remove the skirt 2. wait til sleep state normal 3. massage right nipple in circular pattern til orgasm meter leaps into orange. 4. massage pubic area of the vagina until into red orgasm meter zone. 5. purchase sleeping pills 6. apply sleeping pills. 7. massage pubic area until orgasm. This rhetoric will work every time, though the games "win screen" suggests that there 3 secrets to be unlocked, and that certain bonus will be awarded to the player based on getting the skirt off, the underwear off, the bra off, etc. After winning, the player is given 1500 points and put back into the game.

The most suggestive part of the winning procedure is the use of "sleeping pills," again recalling the transgressive, rape dynamic of the game's pretense, and also suggesting a creepy dynamic wherein an already sleeping girl is drugged. After the winning the game, and armed with 1500 points, the player is given the opportunity to buy even more sleeping pills and therefore dose Ashley even more. This will allow the player to achieve "the bonuses" buy stripping Ashley completely without her waking up. This also cements that game as a direct engagement with a form of rape/sexual transgress.

Play Orgasm Girl

Eternal Darkness

Since spring break, I have played a game (not finished yet...) which my suitemate has been badgering me to play since last year: Eternal Darkness, Sanity's Requiem. The basic premise of the game is simple enough: after the mysterious death of her grandfather, a young (naturally attractive and blond...) female protagonist returns to her family home in Rhode Island to unpack the circumstances surrounding his death. Lovecraftian in mood and heavily influenced by Gothic literature (gameplay begins with an Edgar Allen Poe quote), ED at first seems like nothing more than a standard puzzle-solving adventure game where you happen to encounter supernatural opponents to destroy. You take turns alternately playing (3rd person perspective) many of the historical figures who play a role in the century-sprawling narrative of the story surrounding the return of evil unknowable forces to our world.

However, the interesting thing about the game for me is not so much the gameplay or the narrative, though the narrative is particularly engaging and almost unrelentingly dark. Rather, it is the concept in the game design of 'sanity' as an attribute. Gamers will be familiar with health, mana, maybe even ammunition or stamina bars which deplete with use in many games, but this is the first game I have ever known to contain a sanity meter representing with a green-colored bar just how badly the character's interactions with the supernatural have affected his or her ability to perceive the world. You start with a full bar of sanity and every time you encounter a monster, your sanity depletes, but you may recover it by performing a special finishing move on a monster after you have dispatched it.

So what does the bar do and why is it interesting? When your sanity gets too low, the first thing you notice happening is a shift in the orientation of the camera, similar to cinematic reframing, that moves your view on the gamic world ever more skewed and asymmetrical. The actual game camera gets less and less coherent, and the angles shift askew and too close to your character. The camera already resists any sort of omniscience, dependent as it is on moving your character to specific locations before shifting the view. This makes for a deliberately antagonistic gameplay experience mitigated only by your ability to 'heal' your sanity meter later in the game, a facet which, though narratively cohesive, seems almost like cheating. It wouldn't even be fun to do but for the gravity and sheer 'what the fuck value' of the hallucinations your character starts to experience when your sanity almost depletes.

WARNING SPOILERS FOLLOW!!!

So here is the interesting part: when your sanity gets really low, your character starts having hallucinations represented in-game by programming designed specifically to break the fourth wall and mess with the player's head. For example, your character will walk into a room with low sanity, and at this point you will probably already feel a little uneasy with the skewed camera and creepy music and graphics, and then all of a sudden, all of your limbs will start falling off one by one, slowly enough for you to start freaking out before the screen flashes white and you reappear back in the room you just left, whole and in exactly the same position you were in before.

As you all are probably aware of, I am really interested in subjectivity, and particularly interested in how video games reinforce a certain kind of subjectivity in gamers. Eternal Darkness seems like it tries to break this. It deliberately antagonizes the character in a way that is non-competitive. That is, there is nothing you can do plot or goal-wise to prevent these hallucinations or beat them, they simply happen and you endure them. After you gain the ability to heal your sanity, a very curious conflict arises in the gamer: do you keep your sanity low and risk freaking out, or do you secretly enjoy the hallucinations?

I find this to be a phenomenally interesting question, and it raises many other thoughts on subjectivity: does a game have to reinforce an ideology of teleology to be successful? How does this kind of antagonism function in games as opposed to old media like film and the novel? If in fact hallucinations affect your gameplay, how does that construe your subjectivity and aim in the game differently than in other games which would superficially appear to be similar puzzle-solving types? How would any of the theorists we have studied so far respond to this?

One last hallucination (this one really freaked me out): I navigated to the menu screen to save my game. I pressed the save game button only to see a pop-up declaring 'deleting all save games' followed by a progress bar which moved for a brief few seconds that felt like an eternity. Afterwards, the game flashed me the message 'all saved games deleted' before flashing back to my character in the room I had been in previously, leaving me standing in a dark room somewhat hyperventilating over the perceived loss of nearly 10 hours of time.

The developers Silicon Knights are coming out with a new game soon called Too Human based on Norse mythology. I'll be the first in line at GameSpot.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

Preliminary Game Analysis

The game I chose to play was Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare on the Xbox 360. At the most basic level possible, the premise of the game is that there are terrorists abroad that must be stopped before they do something terrible. While the story is purely fiction, it serves as a powerful commentary of the “modern” world. This analysis will focus on the political subtext of the game as a whole and on a specific mission that I found particularly interesting.

The very title of the game tells the player that this game is going to take place in the present. This is important in understanding what it illustrates about today’s world. One of the most blatant political positions that the game takes lies in the role that the player takes on. In this game, the “good guys” are the British and the United States and the “bad guys” are fictional Eastern-European/Russian terrorists. This clearly reminds one of the politics of the Cold War. I also find it interesting that the designers chose to make up an enemy, but chose to use real-world “heroes.” Furthermore, like many games, it is always assumed that the position of the main character is the correct one and the game never stops to question the motivations of the terrorists. We never get to explore both sides of the conflict. This political subtext is clearly indicative of the position that it is the role of the United States and its allies to police the world. The game makes it look like it is our responsibility to do this because nobody else will.

There is a mission in the game where the player is in the gunner position on a helicopter and his job is to protect friendly forces on the ground. The mission is played through the lens of an infrared camera that positively correlates the heat of an object with how white it is. The only way to tell who is on your side is by the presence of a flashing strobe on the friendly characters. I found this mission to be particularly telling of the ideological framework under which this game operates. For example, this mission is incredibly easy on all the difficulties. Nobody ever shoots at you and the only way to fail is essentially to shoot the wrong things. You are given the option of choosing between three completely different weapons. The first is an extremely powerful machine gun that makes people explode when you hit them. The second is a grenade launcher that fires pretty quickly and can take out hordes of people in one reload. The third is a huge missile that takes out large areas and reloads slowly. I go into details on the weapons because it becomes clear to me that the mission is only there for “fun.” In this mission, you essentially get to take out dozens of lives from an omnipotent, overhead position in any way you please. The fun is supposedly derived from the simultaneous lack of danger and desire to kill as many people as possible in a short amount of time. This becomes even more interesting when one discusses the few ways to fail the mission. For example, you’re free to destroy whatever buildings you like except for a large church. The church doesn’t have any implications to the game besides the fact that you’ll fail if you hit it. Although blowing up civilian buildings and homes is perfectly acceptable, the game suddenly has a problem with the destruction of a Christian house of worship. Similarly, it doesn’t matter if an enemy kills a friendly soldier because you can only fail if you kill one. You don’t fail if you kill civilian. The existence of these rules perpetuates the idea that casualties are acceptable as long as they aren’t allies. This mission is a perfect example of the real-world political subtext under which this game operates.

Characters and Player Placement in Nancy Drew: The Crystal Skull

In following last week’s discussion on gender gaming and the relationship between the player and the avatar, I decided to analyze the most recent installment in Nancy Drew PC game serious: The Legend of the Crystal Skill. The company (Her Interactive) that developed the game, so perfectly fits the “entrepreneurial female” run company described in the Jenkins and Cassel article (and its leaders are quoted several times in the articles) that I was very curious to see an implementation of the a “girl game” at the hands of females developers.

From the website: “The games appeal to girls' natural curiosity and problem-solving skills by placing them in the role of Nancy Drew, where they encounter puzzles, brainteasers and a cast of characters straight out of the classic detective series.”

Gameplay Quick-Overview:

The gameplay is based on the explorative first-person style made famous by Myst in 1993. The player navigates a series of semi-static screens looking for active items and solving mini-games and puzzles to progress through the story with some cut-scenes in-between. Despite the statement above implying that puzzle solving is gendered gameplay, in itself, the gameplay seems “gender neutral” or rather it conformed to a traditional unmarked playing style that was naturalized in the genre.

Gendered Characters?

It is important to note that we never see these characters in-game, their appearance is a left to be manifested by the player. I feel this is done impart to engross the player in the game and in part a safety mechanism against introducing more avenues for possible gender stereotyping.

Nancy Drew: The player assumes the roles of the teen female detective Nancy Drew, (the game tag line is “imagine you as Nancy Drew”). In the game, she travels to New Orleans with the intent of vacationing with her best friend Bess in the Big Easy while making a stop at her boyfriend Ned’s request, to check up on his friend who recently lost his only living relative. On her visit to the house, she is entangled in a mystery involving a legendary skull, suspicious relationships, and secret societies. In a tone similar to Diner Dash, she surrenders her vacation time and want of shopping for work. Though in this narrative it is more excusable, as she is serving her own curiosity instead of obliging others and her detective abilities are a well developed hobby as opposed to an official position. As Nancy Drew, we get the feeling that she is enjoying the experience of the mystery as much as we are.

Her equipment does not screen “girly” either, she carries a phone, a backpack (not a purse), and a notebook that she fills with observations, no lipstick or compact for this girl!

Ned: The relationship with Ned is not heavily touched upon in the game, there is a sentence here and there that implies that there is a long standing relationship between the two, but unless you have prior awareness of the back story, he is not confirmed as her boyfriend. Our interaction with Ned is limited to our ability to call him, but in that there is a disturbing revelation: he is a looming male caretaker that emerges as the player struggles through the trickiest of the puzzles and has not yet given up enough of their dignity to console an online walkthrough. Ned not only listens to the progress of investigation, but with no prior knowledge himself, can provide frightenly knowledgeable hints at how to solve the difficult puzzles in the game, often noting places and items that you have not yet explored or communicated their existence to him. Not only is a disturbing break from the narrative, it also is negating a bit to the independent character of Nancy Drew to have a boyfriend who has the answer to the entire puzzle and is just letting her play along.

Bess: Bess is Nancy’s best friend who accompanies her to New Orleans for the means of shopping and fun. She is regularly forced to deviate from her vacation by Nancy to do some snooping of her own in her convenient location in a hotel in New Orleans, and she justifies this break by thinking that she might be sooner reunited with Nancy for some more shopping and fun. She is flirtatious with suspects, careless with evidence, and is only armed with her compact, but she preservers along and does her job well to the end. Whereas Nancy is the anti-stereotype, Bess is a stereotype that embraced her feminine qualities without letting them prevent her from engaging in same activities as Nancy. What is comforting about her microcosm in the New Orleans hotel is the realism of the narrative. There is no omnisent Ned, the only guidance she has is from Nancy, the experienced detective, and the guidance always shows a refreshing tone of natural uncertainty. Her intercourse with her friend coupled with the player’s engagement as both characters at different times provides a false yet comforting sense of female camaraderie that creates a safe yet adventurous world for the female gamer.

Conclusion

While the gameplay doesn’t break any new grounds, I think that this game compared to the other gendered games we played, makes best strides towards creating a comfortable environment for female gamers without gendering the gameplay narrative and or reinforcing stereotypes.

Original Starcraft

I played the game starcraft for a couple weeks.

It was a game I had played before online, but never indulged the single player option. I went through the story as best I could, but found myself needing the cheat codes to complete the game. I found myself interested in different things having revisited the game as a more educated gamer than when I first played it many years ago. When I was younger, I noticed more the ability to micromanage a small city/army. Before, most of the games I had played placed me in the position of a single character capable of action within the narrative or world of the game. My fascination with Starcraft rested within the ability to do many things at once with many different characters. The terran (human) campaign starts you off by making sure you can perform the basic functions of the game. They ask for you to build necessary buildings and raise 16 fighting units. The game moves sequentially utilizing the skills you attain from the levels before. In a few missions, the game strays away from the multi-tasking, town management aspect and takes you into puzzle oriented levels. Much of the game forces you to manage resources, as well as special characters (which of course cannot die during the mission).

Revisiting the game now, I notice things such as the personalities behind the characters you click on. If you click to alert the characters, they give different responses and gladly follow your orders…..unless of course, you continue to click them. They start to send you the message that they are annoyed with you wasting time and poking them. I notice the fact that even though you are managing different characters, you technically are a character as well. The position of power the game places you in presents an interesting take on omnipotence and reification in games. If you were to pretend to be in the world of starcraft, your character would be in a similar position of telling a mass of soldiers what to do from some kind of computer.

Bow Street Runner

Preliminary Game Analysis

Bow Street Runner is a game produced by a small indepdendent company as a commission for Channel 4, a British television station, to promote their historical fiction series City Of Vice. The game (and series) focus on mid-1700s London, and center around the creation of the Bow Street Runners, the first government-funded police-like force.

The game has the player walk through solving a series of murder cases as a Runner, with an interface generally somewhat similar to Myst (click-exploring), but with a more restrictive set of choices, plus smaller tasks which vary but whose interface frequently bears resemblance to Trauma Center (one of the mini-tasks is in fact suturing the stab wounds of a potential murder victim).

One facet of this game which strikes a bizarre contrast with other games we have studied this semester is the balance between winning and failing. The game consists of five 'episodes,' each of which is one case (though they intertwine quite a bit). Each episode plays a short introduction, then places the player at one scene. There are a certain number of tasks to be performed at each site, some of which are optional and not ultimately useful. The others are considered required (gathering specific evidence or listening to witnesses), and the game does not permit you to leave one scene until all required tasks there are complete. The game does not allow you to shoot yourself in the foot and completely miss a piece of information you will need later. In addition to this, the game itself provides very clear hints of what needs to be done at each scene; clicking the question mark box at any time presents a box giving a number of hints about tasks to do. At the end of each episode, after following the trail and gathering evidence, you must present your case to a magistrate to acquire a warrant for an arrest. You are asked a series of questions, and asked to place pieces of paper representing people and evidence into an evidence box to answer or support an answer to each question. You may answer incorrectly 4 times before you have "failed" and are scolded by your superior. However, if you fail to get a warrant, street justice takes its toll, or the criminal simply disappears, and you progress to the next episode regardless. Even the minigames cannot truly be failed. One example is the several instances where the player is expected to pickpocket evidence or keys from unaware suspects. Failed attempts either have the character say "Hey!" and then turn back around, or get up and help you in the door you wanted to get through to begin with.

We have discussed things such as rhetoric of failure, where the impossibility of winning, or the inability to progress in any meaningful way are the author's method of making a point. However, you cannot lose this game except by inaction. In fact there is only one episode (the last, produced some time after the first four) in which you can die, in a brief gun fight. And even this death is not meaningful, as after a couple deaths one has essentially memorized the locations of enemies, and can simply shoot them in the order they appear. There is no limit to the number of times one can die and restart right at that shootout. There is no meaningful penalty for dying. So even the one place where you can die doesn't actually contribute to any sort of loss.

This has interesting tie-ins with the narration of the game. As one might expect of a commissioned game about the first police force, the game casts the player as a rising hero. The dialog in the game makes frequent praise of law enforcement. The final line of the game when you "win" is that "the future of the Bow Street Runners was assured, and with it, the fate of London," implying that London had no future without law enforcement. This and other lines, along with the inability to fail, carry a heavy "inevitable triumph of justice" message.

Another interesting aspect of the highly restricted game play is the moral implications. When talking to uncooperative subjects, you are often given the choice of taking some agreeable demeanor (sympathetic, charming, etc.), or being harsh. But being polite frequently fails (perhaps a smaller scale rhetoric of failure), and the game disables that option, leaving only harsh conversation. Frequently this also fails, and the only remaining choice of action becomes either 'slap' or 'punch.' At one point, while interrogating an arson suspect, there's a good 5 minutes where the only action you can take is to punch the suspect in the face. Eventually he gives up information, but only after you've punched him in the face about a dozen times while he's shackled in a chair. This is considered the correct course of action.

This game is intended to be relatively true to the time period, so much of this the authors would likely attribute to that. However the extent to which these things are drawn out suggest the authors had other influences as well. This of course does not even begin to tackle some of the other non-gameplay aspects of the game, as the games female cast contains exactly one grieving widow, and all other women in the game are prostitutes (the first episode uses the word 'harlot' more times in an hour of play than I think I've ever heard used in any context before).

Toy Coasters and Doll People

Roller Coaster Tycoon is a fairly aged game that, during its time (1999), was quite popular and caught on in the “casual” game crowd. It is a simulation business strategy computer game in which the player must successfully run a theme park, complete with gentle kiddie rides, needlessly dizzy spin machines, proper food and drink stalls, restrooms, staff, and of course, roller coasters. The game is played across a variety of scenarios, each one offering a unique landscape or partially functioning theme park and a set of specific goals that must be reached. In most cases the scenarios either call for a certain number of guests or park value to be reached by a certain time limit, although in the expansion packs there are some interesting scenarios where all the time and money restrictions are lifted, or where you have to finish several incomplete roller coasters.

In the game you are placed in a godlike restriction where your only restriction seems to be money (and in some scenarios even that restriction is lifted), your abilities reaching as far as picking up any individual and placing him anywhere within your park, including any large bodies of water. The color of your rides, the layout, the terrain, and the scenery are all changeable provided you have the proper budget, but with enough money there are no consequences for plucking out all of the wildlife, leveling all the mountains, and building over lakes or the ocean. Only in one scenario are you told “local wildlife officials prohibit you from removing trees”, but this serves not as a delicate environmental awareness, but a nuisance and annoying hindrance to the player who must simply build around them. Likewise, in the world of your theme parks there is ever no representations of outrage or politics at what you do, the theme park merely exists and is given space to exist, with no interference from communities protesting against whatever construction or destruction you choose to enact.

In this way, Roller Coaster Tycoon creates something of a toy world, with its own strange currency, physics, and aesthetics. The bright and colorful graphics are evocative of the colorful and childlike aesthetics of theme parks themselves, and the graphics go for more cartoonish than realistic representations. However, the roller coaster aspect of the game takes itself quite “seriously”, offering graphs measuring g-forces, ride times, train length, etc. Customization gets extremely detailed in some cases and the assault of statistics codes the roller coaster aspect of the game as highly technical, masculine, and “real”. On the other hand, people are simplified down to the level of commodity; you can peek into the inner lives of guests, and immediately see their statistics ranging from aspects of their current mood to their ride preferences to their money on hand to their thoughts. This level of godly omnipotence is interesting in of itself, but even more so is how race, gender, and any other identifiers are wiped from guest identities. When picking up people, your hand icon turns into a little toy crane device, further reinforcing the idea of “toy world”, that these guests are not their for their enjoyment but your success.

Ultimately, I feel that Roller Coaster Tycoon draws on similar appeals The Sims and other casual games do with a sort of dollhouse/toy world aesthetic. With seemingly godlike control over your little amusement park world, the absence of “real world” concerns to impede your progress and the detailed statistics of rides creates this idealization of running a “perfect” or “toy world” utopian theme park where environment is either a tool or a obstacle, identity only exists in a few relevant statistics, and rides are given more detail and realism than anything else in this gamic world. The end result is at least an interesting study in what is considered to be “relevant” in a highly destructive and obtrusive business in real life.

Croftian Evolution

It's worth looking at Lara Croft as diachronic subject and not simply as a static signifier.

Over the past decade, Lara Croft's visual characteristics have changed, begging the question of why? Is it simple graphics upgrades, or does Lara Croft need to be perpetually reinvented for the next generation? Are certain avatars more sexualized than others? Is this a response to shifting social norms or does Lara continue to stress the same qualities of sexual identity?

It is also worth considering Croft's evolution against the evolution of other popular characters like Mario or even more androgynous character like Pikachu or Kirby.

What qualities are repeated to impart the 'essence' of the character and what changes to keep the character 'contemporary' ?

Wedding Dash makes me want to never get married

Preliminary Game Analysis

Game: “Wedding Dash” http://www.shockwave.com/gamelanding/weddingdash.jsp

The protagonist of this game initially gets roped into organizing her best friend’s wedding last-minute. After doing such a “great job,” she begins to get booked as a wedding planner every weekend. To play the game, you must pay attention to each couple’s desires for food and wedding location so that you can “order” the correct items. You also must pay attention to whom the guests request to sit next to (and whom they specifically request not to sit next to), as well as which table they want. The game player also controls a second, nameless character who serves dishes and cleans plates. The main protagonist does little except watch the wedding and occasionally put out mini-disasters such as feuding bridesmaids and swarms of bees.

The ambiguity in the title, “Wedding Dash” is evident upon game play. Although the protagonist is literally dashing around through weddings or at least from one wedding to the next, the subplot in the story is her desire for a wedding herself. After her first string of successful weddings, she is congratulated by her friend Flo (of “Diner Dash” fame). However, her reply is not happiness with accomplishment of making money or being an excellent wedding planner, praised by both happy couple and guests alike, but instead is with her happiness that she received a date. She is elated with all the single men available to her and replies, “The best part is that the best man asked me out a date! Too bad I’m booked for the next 7 weeks!”

This seems to reinforce the traditional idea that a successful woman must either delay or sacrifice a personal life; she cannot have both. It also seems to suggest that the female character is motivated not by personal or professional reasons but instead is motivated only by a desire to meet “single” men.

Later in the game, when she goes on the delayed date (these scenes are relayed via a cartoon) the dinner is interrupted by a call to the protagonist’s cell phone. She excuses herself to take the callm, which we find out is from work. While she is gone, her date chats with a blonde waitress and ends up leaving with her. Again, this makes a clear argument that a woman can either have a professional or personal life, but not both—in order to keep a man happy, a woman must constantly be available for him or else he will run off with someone else who is.

The game also contains a narrative of the failure of marriage. The newlywed couples are constantly having bubble conversations in which they are simultaneously elated (“Lets’ have her plan our 50^th anniversary” and “I am so happy!”) and ignorant or incompatible (i.e. “You do want 10 kids, don’t you?”). This is not restricted to any one couple but instead each couple seems to be set up as an object of ridicule, as doomed to fail. Still, our protagonist constantly makes offhanded comments about how she wishes she were getting married instead of planning the weddings, despite the fact that they seem doomed to fail.

Spatially the protagonist seems incompetent as well—she does not really do anything. With the exception of consoling Aunt Ida, who cries at weddings, and preventing other “disasters” (Disaster averted! 200 points!), she simply watches the wedding from afar, something that seems to reiterate the fact that it is not her who is getting married or participating in marriage. When the user plays the game she is generally playing as the waitress rather than as the protagonist. The main character of the story is distanced from the user; we do not as much identify with her as we do her work for her (she is incompetent and just wants to date). Although we play the role of the employee (the waitress), we are not being ordered by her and instead have the ability to make our own decisions, and, in some cases, order her (to extinguish cooking fires, etc). This places the female protagonist in an extremely weakened position; she is essentially an airhead (who always dresses in skirts/dresses) who wants to get married. The confusing identification Flanagan writes about is therefore nearly impossible as the protagonist literally does nothing.

The Wiki World of Warcraft

Annie Marie-Schleiner's "Parasitic Interventions" article makes an interesting point of conclusion.

Online massively multi-player RPG's (Role Playing Games) like Ultima Online and Everquest are one gaming enclave ripe for future culture hacking... Opening up the source code of RPG's to hacking and to allow game editors to be developed for popular usage would enrich the experience of inhabiting the game world allowing player to "interface" with their surroundings rather than inhabiting an environment preordained by dungeon masters/ deities. - Page 9.

In other words, Marie-Schleiner is interested in editable Worlds of Warcraft, MMORPG's with the potential to be modified, distributed and reconstructed to account for the considerations of the players. Her suggestion, characterized by the phrase "ripe for future culture hacking,"(my emphasis) acknowledge that this has yet to take place. Instead, RPG's remain aloof from cultural open sourcing and game mod paradigms that have become standard in gaming, as they are controlled by "dungeon masters/ deities." People whose status is attached to their current power and control in the world of MMORPG's.

I think that Maria-Schleiner's observation is a fair one. Indeed, RPG's remain notably outside of the game mod phenomena. But there are also obvious reasons for this, relating to the nature of the RPG and especially the MMORPG, which must be engaged with.

Why can't we wiki the World of Warcraft? Because the game is not about missions, landscapes, or avatar modification, that conventionally form the nature of things modified by game hackers and cultural remixers. Marie-Schleiner for example, traces the way Doom, Quake and Marathon have been open game sourced and modified. Where these games set up a limited number of 'official' missions, levels, and game experiences, modifications extend the game, creating new spaces to play once the old ones have been exhausted.

World of Warcraft, or Ultima Online and Everquest as Marie-Schleiner cites, are fundamentally a different type of game. They are a game world, whose coherence as a reality requires a sort of cross game fidelity that First Person Shooters and narrative games do not. Unlike narrative games, MMORPG's are non-linear and are designed to feel limitless. They are open spaces for exploration, which is notably different that the closed track gameplay of narrative games that allow little latitude in how levels are cleared.

RPG's like WOW, Ultima, and Everquest, also feature other human players, interfacing between multiple individuals where narrative/conventional games only allowed the negotiation of an individual to a pre-programmed space. As a result, there is a practical consideration for the exclusion of modifications. Namely, how can individuals negotiate with one another when the protocols through which they act, play, and communicate are open for constant individual editing. Like pick-up games of football, MMORPG's require the adoption of local rules, standards among players that will allow everyone to compete fairly. Ironically, while Marie-Schleiner argues that allowing individual mods of MMORPG's would allows for "the enrichment" of RPG's, only the opposite seems true. That ability of individuals to freely edit their world would compromise and destroy the richness of that gaming reality. Marie-Schleiner notes that these games have "immersive worlds complete with their own economies of exchange" but does not consider what these very real economies require, namely, fidelity and restrictions to modification. Consider this CNET article that engages with how online economies develop as a result of trust in the stable value of certain goods, services, and forms of currency employed in online spaces. Without such fidelity, the worlds would devolve into anarchies and not the type of utopias that Marie-Schleiner seems to attach to realms of free and easy modification.

A Quick Article

http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/04/poll-sex-in-gam.html

I found Consalvo's Hot Dates and Fairy-Tale Romances to be an interesting read. A couple parts of her analysis of The Sims, however, stuck out in my mind, because Consalvo did not discuss the practical considerations which she mentions in other parts of her analysis at all for these important areas.

First, it comes up in the following passage discussing the creation of custom Sims:

Finally, the manual makes and interesting move in conflating gender with biological sex, and reifying both as a primary signifier of identity... Feminist scholars such as Judith Butler have correctly challenged the sex/gender conflation, arguing that genders (and their constituent attributes) are assigned to sexed bodies in an artificial manner... (Consalvo 184)

While this is certainly a valid criticism of the game, for whatever reason, Consalvo omits any discussion of practical reasons for this. As she mentions elsewhere, The Sims is foremost a commercial product from an established large-scale game company, where avoiding alienation of the target audience takes priority over social statements the authors may wish to make. The sex/gender distinction is useful, but unfortunately making it an explicit consideration when creating a Sim would likely confuse or simply be lost on much of the target audience; this is a potentially-contentious topic, which is further from the core themes of discourse than some other areas where the game has already hedged its bets (such as gay marraige).

The presentation (or rather, lack of forced presentation) of homosexuality in the game is another place where Consalvo is purely critical of the game, but omits practical considerations. She raises the issue of gay-window gaming, where homosexuality is permitted, but it is possible (even easy) to avoid seeing homosexuality in the game at all. She writes:

Options not explored will not surface... [The Sims'] appeal is based in part on its attempts to accurately "model" human life... (Consalvo 188)

She then continues on to discuss how the game is more realistic with gays in it, but this is not required by the game. This is certainly true, but it seems there may be another reason for this (which I have no evidence to support) other than simply not desiring to alienate the homophobic portion of the target audience. We've talked a lot about how the game designer's potentially-subjective viewpoint on matters tends to slip through and come across as a message in games. It seems reasonable to expect that the designers of The Sims were aware of this, and made some decisions to consciously avoid having the game perceived as what they (the designers) thought it should be, and to allow the reality it models to be whatever reality the players choose to see, and remove as much subjectivity as they felt they could. This might explain why gay marriage does not exist in the game (when it was released no states had made gay marriage officially/legally recognized), among other things. The result of this tact is sort of disturbing, they they're intentionally allowing people to live in fantasy worlds of their own creation, but seems like a point worth thinking about.

A quick study of Portal

In one of my other classes in a tangent, we started talking about the Valve game Portal as an area of strong feminist critique. The main thing that Portal does, which ties closely to Mary Flanagan's "Hyperbodies" essay, is force the player into a female position, unlike games that either make you a male (Gordon Freeman in Half Life) or give you a choice of avatar that is unessential to gameplay narrative (Alex D. in Deus Ex 2). But unlike games like Tomb Raider or Parasite Eve, Portal does not offer a 3rd person distanced perspective, but collapses the identity of the player inside the female, creating a narrative not of godlike control but of being a female in imminent danger from the crazed GLADoS. Following Half Life's philosophy of never interrupting game environment with cutscenes that disrupt the illusion of control or shock the player awareness outside the game character, there is never any distance from player relation and character control. Gender only appears objectified or apparent when you "mirror" yourself by staring through a portal pointed towards you, creating a sudden disconnect in the player at the sudden surprise (the game in fact forces you to do this during the opening sequence). Add a deserted, non-violent and puzzle environment with no monsters or aliens, but an invisible omniscient female technological beast, and there's something very atypical of Portal's gender dynamics and placement.

I'm ranting a bit aimlessly right now, but we can delve more into this: instead of weapons that "pierce" and "kill", like the childish AI gun turrents, you have a weapon that only creates spaces (spaces that keep you safe), or "orifices", if you will. The final deranged boss fires a giant laser, which you use your portals to redirect it back onto itself then grab the "ball" nodes and throw them into a fire. And you aren't "superhuman" or "superhero", the only real superhuman thing you can do is fall from great heights without getting hurt, which is narratively explained by scientific fancy footsprings. The narrative is more closely not of the male blasting through the alien base, but female in the deserted horror house of the abandoned science facility, absent of monsters but full of dangers in a masculine technological space.

Is this a revolution in gender gaming? Or is it somehow troubling that the non-sexualized, non-objectified mainstream female protagonist must inhabit a different space than the male, where she is not allowed to shoot aliens but navigate through a dangerous environment that she cannot shoot at, but create portals (or perhaps femininize the space with orifices?) to navigate and essentially gain control over? And Glados is a female computer. Just saying.

EDIT: Consalvo - "For example, the original Donkey Kong (1981) game featured the player as the male plumber Mario attempting to rescue Princess Zelda from the giant male ape."
Princess Peach, not Zelda.

Also, one thing that immediately pops out to me is that Consalvo is forgetting there is a very strong difference between the construction of gender in Japanese video games and American. There's more of a sterilization of sexual promiscuity I feel, the "hentai" or overtly sexual being marginalized off of the mainstream, and the "romantic" aspect of FF9 is something I feel of a Japanese response to girl gamers in Japan, but in a very troubling way. Final Fantasy has always been very concerned with narrative, and fantasy has always had a gendered appeal to females (just take my word for it). Are they just throwing a little "for-the-girls" add-on? I notice a lot of similarities with some FF storylines and girl anime. Furthermore, Consalvo's arguement about the feminist masculine portrayal of Zidane fails to take in account of Bishouju, or "pretty boys", who in Japan are somehow "more masculine" or attractive by being long haired, overly romantic, somewhat girly (by American standards), and "pretty".

I think that Consalvo's erotic love triangle argument is a little weak in a cultural context, but then again in America there is a very different reception of Japanese gaming narrative norms. I don't know how many gay jokes have been made about Marth (the Nintendo Super Smash Bros token Bishi), since there have been so many. There is a huge slash culture surrounding other FF characters like Cloud and Tidus (FF9 never really caught on), and the homoeroticization of Japanese video game protagonists are there. It's just that I'm not sure Consalvo has the right take on it.

The newest Final Fantasy game features a female central character. Before the game has come out though, (American) gamers are accusing her of simply being a "Cloud with a Vagina". Hmmmmm...

EDIT EDIT: By the way, this isn't my one page analysis of Portal. Just a response to this week's post.

need to brush up on your dating skillz?

haven't been out for a while? need to refine your game? desire a brief flash of anime porn?

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/66766

re: not safe for work environment

Gender and Identity in Games

I was surprised by the direction that Thursday’s readings took. While I was expecting them to expand on the ideas covered in class on Tuesday, they opened my eyes to a new way of examining gender in video games. The main idea that I took away from the Flanagan article was related to how the player can identify with the main character. I always thought of character identification in terms of a strict dichotomy. One could either see oneself as the main character or as a spectator to the characters actions. I’ve never thought of the possibility that multiple “I” identities could exist simultaneously. I agree with Flanagan that this “double consciousness” creates some serious questions about gender in video games. In talking about the feminist science-fiction work Proxies, Flanagan is demonstrating in a more concrete way that multiple identities can share the same “body.” The reason why I’m drawn to this concept, is because I’ve never thought about how women identify with male characters. While I’ve always been well aware that gaming is highly skewed toward males, I’ve never considered how this affects the critical process of identification with the main character for women. Even after these readings, I’m still confused about how women identify with male characters. Does the existence of this double-consciousness allow women to identify with the character? Some people like Uma Narayan feel that people who aren’t members of oppressed groups cannot identify with characters that are. At least for me, I feel like I have to agree with Narayan. From my personal experience, I feel like I identify with female characters less than I do with male ones. I don’t know whether this is because it is a rare occurrence that I’m not used to or whether it is because I’m male. If it was more common, could it become something I could get used to? Do women identify with male characters in the same way that men do?

With regards to the article by Mia Consalvo, I was surprised by the problems raised by The Sims. I’ve played the game before, but never noticed most of the things that the reading pointed out. It really seems like The Sims is pushing heterosexual, white, male norms on its players. The writers of the game made conscious decisions to program the game the way they did and even write the manual the way they did. I’m not saying they should be progressive in their product or that they should push a liberal agenda. I just don’t understand why they chose to make the decisions they made. I don’t think giving players the option to marry gay characters or providing players with an equal number of character models to choose from is very radical. Making skewed decisions like this is something common to many games and something the industry should address in my opinion.

A comic

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=254

Just a link

Felt it was appropriate for this week:

http://www.feministgamers.com/

Gamer Girlz

“Some argue that the core assumptions of the girl games movement involve a ‘commodification of gender’ which will necessarily work against any attempts to transform or rethink gender assumptions which American culture.” (Cassell and Jenkin, 1)

This sentence resonates with me the most from the Cassel and Jenkins article and the recent criticism of the female gaming clan, the FragDolls. The FragDolls are a Ubisoft sponsored female gaming clan that exist under the glossy goal to “represent their [Ubisoft] video games and promote the presence of women in the gaming industry.” The clan has come under fire for being no more then a more active version of a booth babe, and for tailoring their image to the “hot” female gamer stereotype. Ubisoft is also criticized for exploiting the sexuality of the female clan members to promote their video games and thus undermine the objective to promote the presence of women in the gaming industry. In defense of the FragDolls, the image of a young, attractive female has long been exploited by the advertising industry to attract consumers to a product. I’m arguing that the FragDolls are no more an exploitation of female sexuality for selling Ubisoft games then Maria Sharapova is for selling Nike sports attire. Since the formation of the Major Gaming League in 2002, video gaming has become a sport and the gamers athletes. Gamers dedicate their time to perfecting their strategy and technique, they retire young, and the superstars are the heroes for their younger fans and a source of admirations for the rest, in a commercial sense they are perfect platforms for pushing gaming products. The FragDolls get more attention then other clans because of their gender, but their sponsorship and identification with products should not strike such a tender note with feminist critics, underneath it all they are female athletes who are kicking ass on the same platform as male gamers. “We can too, as good as you, and in heels”.

“We female gamers tend to make things worse on ourselves either by flaunting our girl gamer status, or by demanding the industry cater to us and in the long run, all we need to do as my one of my fellow writers would say, is shut the froag up and just play games. “ (gamer blog)

I feel that female gamers struggle with a sense of identity as a female, in fright of conforming to a female stereotype, they feel that the best way to become part of the gaming community is through assimilation of the male gamer ideology and mimicry.

“On the outside, you attempt to conform to an order which is alien to you. Exiled from yourself, you fuse with everything that you encounter. You mime whatever comes near you. You become whatever you touch. In your hunger to find yourself, you move indefinitely far from yourself, from me. Assuming one model after another, one master after another, changing your face, form, and language according to the power that dominates you. Sundered. By letting yourself be abused, you become an impassive travesty.” (Irigaray, "When Our Lips Speak Together," trans. Carolyn Burke,)

The struggle of female identification in a male dominated medium is a long one. In the quote above Irigaray talks of female writing, the struggle for identification within a male dominated language and to create a feminine text without falling into the plots and themes of “silly lady novels” (Elliot, 1856). Even though female gamers now comprise 38% of video game market (ESA 2008), the female gamer and game development community still struggle with the same lack of identification that Irigaray and George Eliot faced in the 18th and 19th centuries: parading in pink isn’t acceptable, but mimicry and assimilation seem to be a cop-out. As a female gamer how do you retain your gender identity without falling into the pits of gender classification? As a female game developer how do create a feminine game within a dominant ideology which is not your own without acting within and reinforcing an identifying stereotype?

Gender Essentialism in Games

I am deeply troubled by the Jenkins article "From Barbie..." from a gender perspective because of the seeming obviousness with which Jenkins treats boy and girl gamers. Jenkins' entire analysis of the reason the Girl Games failed but nonetheless influenced modern approaches to the female demographic is deeply infected with the specter of sexual essentialism.

When he maps out the differences between the modes of interaction and interests of boy and girl gamers, he is only reinforcing the societal conception that there are essential characteristics of the personalities of each gender. I do not believe that this is a productive way of analyzing the discrepancy between the numbers of male and female gamers. In fact, analyses such as his are part of the very reason, in my opinion, why there still is such a discrepancy. In my experience the divisions that Jenkins borrows from Laurel are vague over-generalizations of what games have been traditionally targeted towards each gender, NOT what each gender wants to do.

With the current generation of games in mind, it is especially important to consider the individual relation to the game as something transcendent of gender/race/class boundaries because, as we have been told over and over again by some of the theorists we have read, games fundamentally reconceive our subjectivity in gamic terms. Hence, there is no reason to simply assume that gender etc. enters into this newly mediated relationship in the same way it does in our outside lives.

Perhaps what would be more productive than simply trying to make games that boys or girls might like would be the creation of some sort of Bogostian persuasive game that challenges gender roles through a gamic structural paradigm free of any gender bias or intent.

The Cassell/Jenkins article is useful in terms of outlining the various and often opposing or conflicting views on gendered gaming. One tactic stood out though: that of creating girls' games that respond to market research and focus groups. While it does seem like a practical and financially low-risk way to begin to establish a market for female gaming, something about its resignation (for lack of a better word) to create games based on the current trend of products marketed to girls -- the equivalent of packaging them in pink boxes -- doesn't sit well with me, even if it's only supposed to continue until the market is more firmly established. Admittedly, the whole category of "girls' games" doesn't sit well with me in the first place, for no reason I can adequately explain other than some weird aversion to acts of categorization in general. But if we are considering girls' games as a separate genre, I'm not sure simply responding to market research is the way to go about making any significant changes in the industry. While these kinds of games may convince girls that computers aren't just for boys, they run the risk of creating an entirely new dichotomy that posits certain computer practices (such as digitally designing clothes and accessories) as female and other practices (such as more exploration-based gaming) as male. I agree with Jenkins that a game like The Sims should act as a model of what we should strive for, although claiming that it sits apart from what Jenkins labels "boys'" games seems a bit much. It's not that it fits within the category of girl gaming that makes it successful in this regard, but that it seems to resist these kinds of gender-based genres.

On a more personal note, I distinctly remember playing Barbie Fashion Designer when I was younger, as well as another Barbie game in which players style her hair and do her makeup (for that game in particular, I remember getting the most pleasure out of creating some of the least Barbie-esque styles, such as combining blue lipstick with bright green streaks in her hair). I'm not sure these games are what sparked my interest in computers, though. I'm pretty sure the more gender neutral, education-based games are what made me think of computers as fun -- off the top of my head I can remember Zoombinis, JumpStart 3rd Grade Adventure (both of which were somehow still fun in high school), Put Put and Pep's Dog on a Stick, Oregon Trail, and a virtual interactive 3D dinosaur museum (being chased by a roaring, bloodthirsty 3D T-Rex was scary enough that I'll probably remember it for the rest of my life).

I do remember at one point buying a Barbie that came with a small plastic computer and software that was supposed to sync up to this Barbie-computer combo. If set up correctly, Barbie would say different things at certain points while you played the game on your own computer. I was so excited to finally be able to interact with Barbie and to have her give her own feedback rather than me simply projecting my thoughts onto her. Unfortunately, my mom and I could never get it to work properly. I was so disappointed that I didn't go near a computer again for a long time. I suppose if we're going to rely on girls' games to encourage girls to play with computers more, we should make sure the games function in the first place -- a game that doesn't work may end up alienating a girl from computers even further.

The Redistricting Game

I noticed that the Redistricting Game is on the syllabus for this week (today), and it reminded me that I have been absolutely delinquent in posting what remains of my GDC notes. This one's particularly relevant because it's actually about the Redistricting Game. The guy who made it came to the GDC to solicit other serious game designers' thoughts on improving the game, which he recognizes is not perfect yet. Have any of you played through the game yet? I'd be curious to know if you come up with the same critiques that were mentioned at the GDC.

It seemed to me that what most of the other designers wanted out of this game was something that would be more striking, more upsetting to the people who played it. The cartoony graphics and the abstraction of the dots representing Democratic and Republican voters didn't give the game the immediacy that many thought the game needed to make an impact - especially after hearing how passionate the original designer got about this issue.

Although the designer wanted this game to be objective, several of his reviewers felt that it needed to make people angry, and that he should have invested more of his own feelings about redistricting into his game in order to make his players feel as strongly about the subject as he did. A few suggested that he ought to make a stronger push for media attention, and one came up with a kind of 'War of the Worlds' scenario that would make people really afraid of the fact that this kind of thing is going on /right now/. At the very least, many agreed that people should be able to see themselves reflected in the gameplay, by giving them something that's easier to identify with than colored dots on the screen. Allowing them to play at gerrymandering with real districts (rather than a made-up one) might help give the game that personal feel.

None of this is to say that the Redistricting Game has been a failure. In fact, the game has had great success getting people to write Congress, and getting Congress to take notice. We're playing it in class, aren't we? But in general, players were dissatisfied with the end-game survey as a way of motivating civic action. They felt that you have to lower the bar for people to get involved. One person came up with the idea of a button (which you can click at any time during game play) that allows you to send messages to your Congressman as soon as the game makes you angry enough to want to do so. Others suggested an idea from those livejournal quizzes that are everywhere these days: give players who finish the game something to post on their journals. How many voter blocs did you screw today?

• http://www.redistrictinggame.org/
  
• response: has gotten more Congresspeople to sponsor the Tanner bill than any other effort
  
• critique #1: simplify the context as far as tiny dots representative of Dem/Rep, because it's hard too differentiate dots from each other
  
• critique #2: passion in the presentation from the guy who made it was ... can you get into it faster? Needs brevity of message
  
• designer: objectivity was the most important thing here; didn't want to alienate people by being overbearing with a political stance
  
• does note that the most popular thing about the game is the (very slanted!) opening video, but insists that you need to be objective or people won't be convinced
  
• critique #3: art style, which is very cute, felt very disarming, very pleasant ... inappropriate
  
• critique #4: call to action was a survey, suggest that there's a share with friends feature (a la every LJ quiz ever), add zip code feature that links to write your representative, etc.
  
• how do you generate civic action from games? "One Click Civic Action"
  
• another guy to chips in to add, from his experience, that the people to lean on here are not the Congressmen but the state legislators. He's very invested in this project :)
  
• suggestion: incorporate the 'call to action' into the game from the start, rather than wait to the end for a survey; have, e.g., a button they can click at any time to send angry letters. Angry!
  
• critique #5: there's no personal connection with the blue/red dots on the screen; you want citizens to say 'That's me being manipulated!' and get pissed off
  
• difference between objectivity and sterility! >:-( It comes across as a lecture, not insight
  
• information does not change behavior; affective
  
• suggestion #1: make it a War of the Worlds spoof, get a lot of press attention with it, etc.
  
• How would the game be different if the first thing you put on the chalkboard was "We need to make people mad?"
  
• critique #6: don't make it an abstraction, show them that it really affects them and their area
  
• suggestion #2: play from viewpoint of the people who have initiated lawsuits
  
• critique #7: doesn't teach people the actual reasons some of these districts get drawn like this
  
• story: when redrawing a district, one party started at the top, took what they wanted; the other party started at the bottom, took what they wanted ... middle got lumped in
  
• story: redistricting in a black neighborhood guaranteed a black rep, inciting Democrats to sue each other over the racism of it all, but it also guaranteed two Republican reps in the districts that were created from the overflow
  
• can you make it fun to be mad, teaching things like this?
  

Cynicism and Social Realism

Earlier this week Melanie examined the ways in which an assumed though unarticulated liberal ideaology was at work in Bogost's writing. In reading Galloway I was struck by the fact that his notion of Social Realism was necessarily critical. Galloway makes an illuminating assumption in crafting his concept of Social Realism.

In discussing Bazin's notion of realism Galloway inserts his own telling interpretation. Galloway claims that realism for Bazin "approximates the basic phenomenological qualities of the real world." This is a pretty logical assertion.

It gets problematic when Galloway defines "real life" as not simply a visual representation but also "real life in all its dirty details, hopeful desires, and abysmal defeats." This vision of real life is terrifyingly cynical yet, it forms the basis for Galloway's conception of Socail Realism. It is peculiar that the details of life must be "dirty." That desires should be "hopeful" hardly discounts the fact that the represent a lack in the first place. It seems cynical hyperbole to claim that all defeats should be abysmal. This notion of the real is problematic. I'm sure many people would concieve of the "real" in cheerier terms. Even for the marginalized and oppressed does life not also contain fulfillment? Success? Delightful details?

Galloway goes on to claim that "Because of this [realism as a phenomenological approximation of a dirty, defeated and at best hopeful real world] realism often arrives in the guise of social critique." It is out of this cynicism that Galloway can go on and explicitly tie realism with social critique, going so far as to claim that "the realist game designer" must "capture the social realities of the disenfranchised" (84). This claim that realism must be critical stems from a view that a realistic representation of life is necessarily negative because life itself is inherently grim. While I think the notion of social realism is highly promising, I do think that some of Galloway's assertions about how oppression and realism are causally linked is worthy of a second look.