Checkpoint Reached

A gaming blog exploring game design and the state of the games industry

[dysphoric-affect]

Harnessing The Butterfly Effect And Omnipotence

I’ve recently been musing over the best and worst aspects of the main entries in the Elder Scrolls series, and as I was recently musing over the most popular quests from them I had a bit of an epiphany, specifically in regards to the “Whodunnit?” quest from Oblivion’s Dark Brotherhood quest-line. For those who aren’t familiar for whatever reason, the Dark Brotherhood is an assassin faction within that series, and this particular quest has you locked into a house with five other guests, gathered there under the pretense of a game they were invited to partake in: within the house is a chest of gold, with the first person to find it getting the spoils; the door will remain locked until there is a winner. The dark reality is the five other guests are all targets you are contracted to kill by the host, the game a pretext to have them lured into one spot and trapped so they’ll be easier to dispose of in one fell swoop.

Two things contribute to what make this quest so universally beloved. One is the emergent character development. When you come in, each of these characters has their own background and personality and preferences they operate from which are easy enough to learn given the smaller, more intimate setting and the lack of time limit to complete your objective. These give them definite opinions on all the other guests. As you start to kill them off one at a time, you will see your choice of who to kill influence those opinions for better or worse. Kill someone another character hates early on ? They feel some regret at having made assumptions about them and feel they didn’t deserve that. Don’t kill that same hated guest for a while? That hatred becomes suspicion they are the killer. Wait and then kill that same hated guest? The suspicious guest feels even worse than they would have if you killed them early, because they realize their bias clouded their judgment. Inversely, kill someone another guest loves and they will become suspicious of someone they didn’t dislike before. In contrast, keep killing everyone but the guest they are affectionate toward, and see that transform into fear as they logically become the obvious suspect in their eyes. All of this, critically, comes from the player’s choice. You have the time to learn who these characters are and deliberately choose the order you take them out in to play on these biases and crushes and fears and suspicions, granting a unique manner to be evil compared to elsewhere not just in that faction’s quests, but the entire game at large and in gaming in general.

The other critical aspect is that the quest is so open-ended in design. Rather than most quests that have a set chronology of steps that happen story-wise toward completion, you are only given an abstract final goal and are free to determine what the particular steps are toward achieving that, providing a toy box of different story elements, level design elements and gameplay capabilities which can be arranged however the player likes. There are 120 different possible orders the guests can be killed in, which alone is an incredible amount of choice, but once you account for the different events you can make happen by influencing them, places within the house you can kill them at and the actual way you execute them, it becomes impossible to calculate mathematically just how many different specific ways the quest as a whole plays out. That makes this quest rife for enthusiastic discussion among players, as it is practically impossible that any two players will have done the same thing, giving each their own story to tell.

The epiphany I had in relation to this quest is realizing that this quest isn’t primarily great because of the fun opportunities it provides for evil role playing within Oblivion, or Elder Scrolls more broadly, or in RPG’s and gaming in general more broadly still. The evil context within which those dynamics existed and how that was presented did make for tremendous fun that enhanced what made it great, but I think it is a mistake to see the core of that fun as something that can’t be divorced from the evil moral nature of the quest. Rather, those two dynamics of emergent character development driven by player choice on the one hand and player-determined methodology toward macro goal completion on the other hand are the true core to what makes this quest so popular.

This distinction is an important one to make, because without making it we may acknowledge that quest as a great moment in Oblivion, but we go no further. When we do make that distinction, though, then we can start to consider them independently of an evil context or an Elder Scrolls context and begin to see the potential of exploring and applying them in different ways in other games yet to be made.

The dynamic of emergent character development based on player-choice is a particularly important thing to consider toward the future of RPG’s in particular, although other games can also stand to benefit from incorporating such a system as well; Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War stand as especially salient examples of non-RPG’s that have begun exploring this kind of territory. For all the change players can affect in RPG’s up to this point, the influence they exert tends to be centered on macro-scale events and characters. Achieving the next level of sense of impact on the world by the player within these experiences, however, will be contingent on achieving the sense of ability to influence minor characters and events in the way the “Whodunnit?” quest does.

The trick to this isn’t a technical challenge I believe so much as a narrative one and a logistical one: that is, coming up with the sheer amount of content needed to apply this concept on a more global scale in the game world, keeping track of all of that on the part of developers to ensure the execution of all the specific parts are smoothly handled, and handling the presentation of this within the game such that players clearly understand how their actions have affected and are currently affecting characters, as well as having a sense of how their actions will affect things going forward depending on the choices they make. It may be practically speaking impossible for a player to keep track of all the specific instances where their choices have had or will have a butterfly effect, but ideally when approached this should be handled in such a way that most of the time it is easy enough to understand where the player’s actions played a role and in the rest of the cases that it can be figured out with a little effort on the player’s part, whether from memory and/or from in-game means, such as questions these affected NPC’s could be asked. The challenge this presents is monumental, but the closer to complete actualization of such a system a developer out there gets, the closer they’ll have come to making a living world within their game, a horizon larger games have long sought to reach.

The dynamic of player-determined methodology toward macro goal completion even more obviously has application to genres outside of RPG’s as well, though certainly application within it too. Often up till now the majority of freedom associated with quests in games has tended to be the timing on when the steps are performed. Giving more options on the nature of approach would greatly expand this sense of freedom. Part of this could and should come from existing in conjunction with a system of emergent character development and the opportunities that creates, but beyond that consideration should be given to give more options on types of approach, level design-based pathfinding, available tools to use in gameplay and so on - within reason for what is occurring in the story - to expand that freedom further still. Consideration should always be given as well to providing instances of all the above that are unique to given quests/objectives to enhance variety in general for its own sake as well as give that specific quest/objective its own unique flavor, but at the same time never overly pushing any particular method as the “right” way of approaching it. Even the subtle implication that there is a best or better way of doing things within an objective takes away from that true sense of full player self-actualization in their approach, so care should be taken to avoid that, at least if trying to provide true self-determination for the player.

As games - especially RPG’s - are getting ever more complex, there can be a tendency to get lost in concern for how big the world is, the number of quests and characters present and of course the graphics of the experience. It is fine to expand on those aspects, but getting lost on those at the expense of not considering these other avenues of adding depth and complexity to the experience seems to me to be not seeing the proverbial forest for the trees. It is a particularly unfortunate loss considering that these systems I’ve discussed, while undoubtedly able to make good use of advancing technology in games, are not dependent on that to be able to exist. They simply require creativity and hard work from developers who realize the vast potential that can come from their pursuit. I hope as we go forward more developers will tap into this relatively untapped well to provide us depth and immersion in our games we’ve never seen before, whether in Elder Scrolls or beyond.

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[dysphoric-affect]

Judge For Yourself

As this decade ends and a new one begins, I find myself waxing reflective, as I’m sure many of you are, about what gaming has brought us over the last ten years and where it’s poised to head next. Just to be clear, when I say what gaming has brought us, I don’t simply mean the new consoles and games that have come out during that time, but even more broadly the trends in game development on the one hand and in the gaming community on the other.

It’s also noteworthy that the 2010’s mark the first decade in human history where social media has been a prevalent part of our daily lives the entire time. The ability to share our interests and opinions with anyone anywhere is now a power in everyone’s hands. This has correlated with the growth of gaming, leading to the ability for the communities surrounding a game to support each other and inform the public at large about every facet of a given game much more easily, making games more approachable than ever before. In this respect, the ubiquitous nature of social media has impacted gaming for the better.

Unfortunately, this is not the limit to the impact such outlets have been able to have. With the ease of ability to share your opinion with anyone around the world has naturally come the ability for negative opinions to be disseminated far more easily and widely than ever before, too. While everyone is certainly within their right to avail themselves of that resource and share their feelings when they don’t enjoy something, or at least are let down somewhat by it, it is to me quite another matter if one is to deliberately encourage negativity in others in the gaming community, whether out of seeking validation they are “right” or more simply for the sheer act of garnering attention toward their existence and validating them as a person more generally. With our lives being limited in length and with there being enough daily sources in said lives to incur negative feelings from for any of us, I am of the opinion that nobody who makes their modus operandi encouraging negativity deserves the dignity of our attention, lest we encourage more of the same.

Yet, clearly my opinion doesn’t seem to be shared by as many as I wish it was. Everywhere you look, the monster of toxicity now runs rampant. While that expression may have preceeded this decade, this is the one in which it truly manifested itself into the household expression it is today. We now exist in a state where a single cut feature by a given developer to make room for a newer idea within a given series or trying to do anything different in general will be met with angry backlash online by people who denounce the game in question as “trash” and the developer as “dead” or deserving of going under.

Claiming any given game’s quality in such a derogatory way and wishing those who made it would go out of business for offending our delicate sensibilities as consumers when they put a great deal of time and effort into such projects and when their failure would hurt their livelihood and that of the families they are supporting would be excessive enough even if it were the case that those making such statements had all played the games in question in any particular case. I probably don’t need to tell you that this is rarely the case, however. A great deal of this kind of vitriol often comes before a game has even been released, with those angered professing a certainty about how series/developer-destroying a new aspect of the story or gameplay will be that betrays a great deal of hubris on their part, a hubris divorced of any experiential basis. This has grown to the extent we now find games being judged on their graphical quality in advance of release, in spite of the fact that graphics are one of the last things finished in the development of any video game.

Even once games have come out and are deservedly open to full critique born of playing them, it is often the case that those condemning them haven’t even played the titles in question still. Many who claim they have are curiously absent the kind of specific, detail-oriented knowledge one would expect anyone who has first-hand experience to be able to provide. Others will admit they haven’t but claim they are informed enough because of seeing the reviews and various critiques on social media that they “know” it’s quality in essentially the same way as anyone else who has played it. Any equivocation between experiencing a thing for itself and experiencing someone else’s opinion of a thing as essentially the same thing is a false equivocation, especially when someone else’s opinion isn’t even based on actual experience of a thing, as is so often found to be the case right now with the gaming content in question.

I hardly need point you to specific examples of this, because if you are interested enough in gaming to be reading this post, then you know the sort to which I’m referring. There are any number of YouTube “content creators” - and I use that in the loosest conceivable sense of the label - who have clearly made their entire approach to content based around promoting and fanning the flames further of any current trend of toxicity within the gaming community. A facade of “concern about the creation of better games and better practices by game studios” scarcely hides the interest in drawing the sheer number of hits negative content is liable to incur for them, a likelihood which I’m not naive enough to believe isn’t something they aren’t aware of in advance and actively working to solicit. One has to wonder, at a certain point, how many of these creators even believe in the viewpoint they draw attention to, or how much they truly care about games in general, for that matter. I’ll not be naming any such “content creators” here, as I feel no obligation to draw the curious toward giving their content more attention when it has already garnered more than it deserves, but as I said, if you’re reading this...you know the kind I’m talking about.

As a snowball starts an avalanche, so too has it become the case that these specific instances of toxicity create a greater issue than what to me seems really called for in most situations as well, as in recent time I’ve noticed a new trend in more offical gaming publications online picking up on these cases and reporting it as a newsworthy story, rather than such controversies staying on the forums they used to be relegated to. Forum users’ message board comments and their online handles are now even being quoted in stories about such controversies in a manner not dissimilar in tone from what one might expect of the eyewitness of a car accident, though I have genuinely seen such stories about the latter published with less somber an overtone than stories about the unfair cost of some DLC.

This state of affairs is so ridiculous to my perception as to be laughable, but for the fact that its ever-growing and tangible impact on the gaming community is so corrosive. For a community centered around a medium we seek out and take part in to feel delighted and entertained, we have a preoccupation now with relishing in feeling hate toward various aspects of it, or at least in watching others do so, which is hardly better as it is encouraging such behavior by gifting it the dignity of attention. Look at the number of views and comments any given negative article or video on a controversy has, and compare that to the aggregate of those on anything related to more positive content concerning the same game, or simply news about the game in general which is neutral in judgement, and the difference will tell you the tale in where we currently sell our time and attention.

I’ve said before in this blog and I will say it again: my goal here is to promote positive content in relation to being a gamer. However, considering my interest in promoting a healthy positivity in the gaming community - one not irrationally positive but not irrationally negative, either - and looking forward to the next decade and what changes it will bring to gaming, I felt compelled to speak up and pass my indictment on the current toxic culture of the gaming community. We should be ashamed things are in this state, and we should all do what we can to put a stop to it. Again, not a stop to any criticism - that is needed, and vital at that - but the excessive, unproductive and profiteering-oriented hate-mongering that is so prolific.

A simple way to start is to abstain from watching videos of that nature and checking out other kinds of content which are clear from the surface to be promoting that kind of toxicity. Beyond that and more simply, even, we can also just discuss what we love about games more. It’s not that we don’t still talk this way about them, but we certainly could stand to do it more. The more we vote on the tone of content we would like to see with what we are all choosing to talk about, the more we discourage the toxicity that divides and corrodes this community.

Further, I would encourage more people to depend less on reviews and try out titles for themselves. Borrow from friends or check out titles through one of the various subscription services available these days if you are wary of paying the full cost for a title you may not enjoy; there are plenty of options that minimize the cost to you as a gamer to get the most accurate assessment of how quality a game is to you: first-hand experience. I. The end, no reviewer is ever going to have their finger on thhe pulse of how you would feel about a game as much as you will have yourself playing it, so don’t let these people decide for you how good something is to you.

In the end, I’m essentially just asking that we try to be a more happy and thankful community around this medium that gives us so much reason to feel that way toward it. I hope you’ll do your own part, and together that we can make the next decade of gaming an even brighter one for all of us. Let’s make it so when we look back at the end of the 20’s and what gamers were like during it, we can say unequivocally that we’re a gamer and proud of it, not just out of love of games, but knowing what that represents in the quality of tthe people who play them. I look forward to being there with all of you through it.

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[dysphoric-affect]

A Hero In Most Worlds, A Survivor In All

I’ve made it through the boring scenery where I live to arrive at my dead-end job. It’s time for the daily routine of repetitive, meaningless work, which I’ll still try my hardest to excel at out of an arguably misplaced sense of pride in my work. This is the little reward that I can hope for, as I watch most of the rest of the crew given breaks, raises and promotions I’m never privy to for some reason. There’s no sense of accomplishment and no sense of respect for what I’ve done to be found here...

I, the Dragonborn, have made it through the expansive and breathtaking vistas of the western plains of Whiterun hold in the province of Skyrim to arrive at the scene of a dragon assaulting a giant’s camp. It’s time to go to work: both of these powerful beings have great rewards if I’m successful. My focus is the dragon though, my sworn enemy; I’m generally content to leave the giants be and am in no hurry to piss it off and bring its large club to bear on my skull. My first arrows find their mark, but the next I try while the giant is lunging for a temporarily groundward dragon ends up finding the giant’s side. Right about this moment the dragon takes to the sky again and the giant turns toward me. Uh-oh. I’m not ready to spar with it up close, so I temporarily beat a retreat. The dragon’s next attack ends up scorching the giant’s mammoth, bringing it to charge out of the giant’s camp and wade into the fray. There’s no avoiding striking the mammoth as well while it and the giant are teaming up on the dragon the next time it lands, so now it’s a four-way clash with loud, defiant roars from the three massive denizens. I seem small in comparison...but my Shout is louder still and my own strength is not to be trifled with. One by one, the dragon falls, then the giant, and finally the mammoth. I loot the giant’s camp and their bodies, the dragon disintegrating and its soul absorbed into mine as I pass it. I stand triumphant on the crest of the hill where we fought. A couple passerby including one of the hold’s guards run up and remark at the feat. “By the gods...the legends are true” one says. There’s much I’ve accomplished here, and much respect it has earned, but I know there is much more I’m capable of still...

Another planned date falls through, and once again I don’t understand. Our conversation had been going great. We had a time worked out to finally meet up and knew where we wanted to go. Everything was fine. Then, a few hours before it’s set to happen, I’m ghosted. I look back on our conversation for clues. Where did I go wrong? But, of course, it’s a fruitless endeavor. Short of talking to them, which isn’t going to happen, it’s impossible to decipher where I went wrong, or if I even really did. It stings more than I feel like it should, but in my defense, this keeps happening. Combined with the times I do meet, but their interest isn’t in more than temporary fun, I find myself left feeling hollow. I know I have good qualities...don’t I? I’m just tired of this...

After my latest successful mission, I, Commander Shepard, have to make an obligatory stop to check on my crew...which certainly includes a particular squadmate I’ve had my eye on for some time now. They’re great in a fight, but I also really dig their personality and I’ve grown to care about them over time as I’ve come to see more of that personality and know what they went through in their past. We’ve exchanged some tense, heated moments up to this point, but things are at a fever pitch now. With some reflection on our time together and how much they trust me, they can’t resist any more. We kiss. They tell me to meet up with them before we head out on our final mission to assault the Collector base. So I do, and they are where they said they’d be, when they said they would. We share a romantic evening together. Even after that evening is over though, we still are standing by each other’s side. To be there for each other emotionally, as well as through any battles that lay ahead. They can count on me to be there, and I can count on them...

It’s another all time low and I can’t take it any more. Nobody cares I’m here, nobody shares my interests, nobody looks up to me, I’m nobody’s priority and nobody will really notice or care when I’m gone. I feel like hanging is the way to go. I don’t like the idea of it being messy. Not that death is ever pretty, but still. I feel like I have more conviction this time because the low isn’t going away. It should have by now, but it won’t. I’ve even tested out what I would use a little. Seems dependable and as far as my feelings go about it, I’m surprisingly at ease with the sensations. Seems just like passing out and I’ve done that before, with the added bonus of never waking up to feeling worthless again. I don’t have a set day in mind or anything, but I’m very close. There’s no hope left, after all. I’ll play a game while I work myself up to it in the meantime...

I am Master Chief. Marines who’ve hunkered down just inside a building front are pinned down by Covenant forces assaulting from the outside. The Marines are as desperate as you can get in their situation. There’s no hope left, after all...but there is. I feel like a sniper rifle is the way to go. I don’t like the idea of it being messy, at least not at this early stage in the fight. I pick off nearly half a dozen before the Covenant knows what hit them. I rain down a couple grenades from my vantage point, killing more and causing those agile or tough enough to survive to scatter. I use this moment to drop down from my vantage point and land with a low thunder, iridescent green armor glinting in the afternoon sunlight. The Marines call out in enthusiasm upon the sight of me. They care I’m here and look up to me. Helping me is now their priority and they will absolutely miss my presence when I’m gone. And they and I share a common interest, in protecting any innocent human life. Their hope restored, they emerge more and lend supporting fire as I bare down on those who would take the hope of others, who would lead to innocent lives ending for no reason. Alien bodies fall from headshots and melee blows and grenade blasts until only I am standing. Me, the consumate survivor. I know it’s not over. There are more battles ahead, more battles than I care to think of that make up this war. But I know that I can survive and I can win, just taking it one battle at a time like this. Maybe I can win the war in the end after all, somehow.

I put the controller up, and go back to another shift at work.

I put the controller up, and start talking to someone new I think is cute and seems nice.

I put the controller up, and I decide to go on living.

Life is often disappointing. One of the great virtues of gaming that so often goes underappreciated is just how much they can help us cope through the forms of escape they provide when real life becomes too much. This isn’t to say that it should replace trying to make a genuine effort to solve those problems in real life, but I think it’s certainly healthy at times for us to be able to get away in the way video games uniquely allow when the solutions to those problems aren’t there at the moment. Maybe solving the problems in a game’s world is a more vicarious satisfaction on the surface, but more deeply it can help us to emotionally find our way forward outside of it, through our own power to manifest our problems into that world’s problems and to see our ability to deal with those problems as a parable for our ability to deal with the real thing. Whatever helps get us to that better place eventually when we are struggling right now is escapism well worth indulging in.

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[dysphoric-affect]

Actually, The Sequel Was Better

          Often times, not just in gaming but with entertainment in any medium, there can be a tendency to look upon the first in a series as the definitive, superior entry, with all others to follow damned to never be able to measure up. The original titles gain an almost religious reverence and deference shown to them, with them continuing to be pointed to as the standard bearer for later titles to attempt to measure up to. Sometimes the original may indeed be the superior entry, but often it seems to me this consideration being shown to it truly stems from its place chronologically in the series rather than any objective consideration of its merits compared to the sequels, with the reasons for why being manufactured after the opinion is formed, rather than serving as the basis for it.

          I dispute this whole notion. The original games in a series tend to excite because it is our first time being exposed to its various elements: the characters, big picture story of those characters’ world, the core gameplay mechanics, the set of weapons and abilities available, and so on. However, while these elements may be good, often the excitement that’s felt for them has more to do with the sensation of freshness from not having seen these things before compounding on their solid quality, rather than being as purely based on their quality as such “original is the best” devotees would lead you to believe. Essentially, when an original game in a series is good, we all will tend to enjoy a sort of “honeymoon” phase with it where we’re caught up by all its good qualities. Some simply remain in that phase, hence the loyalty to the original.

          The problem with such unquestioning loyalty to the originals is that it misses the shortcomings they can and do often have, encouraging a stagnation that never fixes them. The thing about the first iteration of game series is that the ideas are just being tested out for the first time in the wild as it were, and things that overly complicate and slow down character progression, make the pacing of the narrative feel off, don’t satisfy in their depth on customization and so on can be missed during a studios internal testing and never discovered until the trial by fire that is being opened up to gamers to explore. Some of these mistakes could go to misjudgments arising from the studio, whether general bad calls or simply learning the nature of their new IP and what does and doesn’t work in how they should handle it. Other things aren’t mistakes at all in the short term necessarily, but with time giving greater perspective, namely from sequels coming around and improving on the formula, come to feel like mistakes, or it at least feeling like certain elements feel dated because of the various quality-of-life improvements and greater refinement those elements have been able to be shown with time.

          On this other end, besides sequels being able to cut those bad or unnecessary elements and refine those solid but imperfect elements, they are also able to benefit from hindsight in having what new elements are introduced to excite players being based off that understanding and more likely to be more consistently well-executed, satisfying and exciting than the new elements in the original, which are inescapably a mix.

          Undoubtedly some examples would make this whole case better than exposition, so let’s get into it.

          Rock Band 2 is one of the simpler examples of the case I’ve been making. The original felt perfectly fine for its time, but RB2 expanded the base song list in the game natively as well as providing much greater support for expanding on that content with regular new DLC song packs to download, smartly making these available to buy in smaller doses rather than forcing you to buy an entire album or album’s worth of material, undoubtedly making them greater sales from fans more willing to part with a little spare cash for a song they love regularly while also satisfying fans with that formatting so they never felt obligated to have to spend money on unwanted content. This was a clever encouragement for replay value as well: checking back to see what new songs were added, seeing a handful you really enjoyed and getting excited about whacking out the drumbeats of one of these new options or watching your friend and “bandmate” attempt to do its vocals knowing he’d fail hilariously got you excited to play all over again. Speaking of your bandmates, the greatly improved customization system for the look of your characters and your instruments while performing and being able to use that in collaboration with your friends to come up with a look and feel for the in-game band you created together that you all loved was a really simply but greatly satisfying improvement.

          Now, Rock Band isn’t a series that I do see the original being revered over the sequels with, but I wanted to bring it up to illustrate the point I was making more clearly about how sequels can benefit from the understanding of how the basics of a game concept have been received.

          Now we can turn to a couple case that do more fully deal with the issue I’m talking about. One would be Pokémon. The Red and Blue Versions and the first generation roster of Pokémon are often held up as highlights of the series, not just by fans, but even in practice by those making the newer games, with new pre-evolutions or evolutions or forms for that generation’s Pokémon being implemented in the sequels that have occurred since in far greater numbers and with far greater regularity than any other generation. Yet...those games and that roster actually represent some of the weakest the series has had to offer. With the games more generally, the region design wasn’t particularly interesting in retrospect, there wasn’t much of a story to speak of, the battle mechanics - while not bad for their time - have been greatly outclassed by the later changes made to it, the representation of types was poorly handled in some cases - the one Ghost type line seeming weak to the Psychic types they were on paper supposed to be strong against or Dragon types seeming weaker to Ice than they were because of their only lines final form being extra weak to it, for example, and an extremely limited post-game involving one small new area to explore and one new Legendary Pokémon to catch. The biggest problem with that roster I already mentioned in the mishandling of the type distribution across the different lines in the games, but beyond that is just the simpler facts that subsequent generations have had more interesting designs, better typings and more interesting evolutions methods to attain them.

          With almost every single specific element of those original games, putting aside the new features not introduced until later, we can find a sequel generation in that series which did it better: every generation except the fourth has had better region design, third and fifth had excellent world stories while the new eighth generation tells an excellent Gym Challenge-related story, second through fourth - with arguments to be made for others - made needed improvements on the core battle mechanics, basically every subsequent generation has had better type distributions across the new roster, and the second and third generations especially had excellent postgame content with revisiting Kanto for the former and the Battle Frontier for the latter greatly expanding the time you wanted to play beyond the Championship.

          All of this, understand, isn’t to say the first generation of games or their roster of new Pokémon were bad, just that in comparison to what has come since, they are far from the pinnacle of what the series stands to offer you and certainly not deserving the infallible status some ascribe to them.

          Now, let’s turn from Nintendo’s flagship franchise to Microsoft’s. With Halo it is considered considerably more contentious than with Pokémon to challenge the original’s superiority. To be fair, Combat Evolved stands the test of time better than Red and Blue versions do for Pokémon. The story’s tone of desperation juxtaposed with Master Chief’s badass capabilities and heroism is a great dynamic, which along with the sense of awe looking around the environments and the sense of exploration and decision on which objectives to approach and how all serve to be strong benchmarks for the series to make it a point to reach, either directly or in some equivalent sense. However, the reuse of multiple levels along with the general monotony of the Library level’s design, overly frail allies with questionable decision making hurting their survivability, often confused multiplayer map design that can complicate efforts to strategize with a team, and the overly centralizing Pistol and Scorpion making use of most other weapons and vehicles moot are all rough points to it.

          Much was made of Halo 2′s more linear level design and cliffhanger ending, and to some extent not having more time to play as the Chief (though this has died for the most part over time) and it has some of its own unique problems, but what we do have makes it my overall favorite in the series: characters in general are more developed, new characters are interesting, the development of the backstory to your enemies is fantastic and remains relatively unique among all games I’ve played, the level variety is great and your objectives often feel more epic and important. The music within the Campaign is some of the best in the series, arguably its overall best, which does matter given its ties for setting the tone to accompany the narrative. With gameplay, the change to destructible vehicles and the ability to board them both looks cool and provides needed balance to their power while boost added onto Covenant vehicles helps differentiate the feel of them from the human vehicles better. Of course, there was also the addition of dual-wielding to note as well. As I’m a more competitive player, this isn’t something I made much use of personally, but it was aesthetically a really cool thing to be able to do and for my less competitive friends who enjoy the series is something they really loved and have missed since it was cut as a staple element from the series’ gameplay, so it certainly secured its place as a beloved element, too. Last, but certainly not least, is easily the best multiplayer map design the series has ever had. Taken together, this made for Halo 2 to be more satisfying overall - and certainly more satisfying long-term - than its predecessor. Other games in the series have also done various elements better than it, or even better than Halo 2 in some cases as well.

          Ditto again on this kind of case when it comes to Sony’s flagship franchise in God of War as well, which notably goes out of its way more than any of the other series I’ve mentioned to not be beholden to the original as anything sacred and a baseline off which to model itself. The results here are telling: with greater character development and a more emotionally-driven story than anyone ever would have expected, a simultaneously more complex and more refined combat system, a satisfying upgrade system, revamped mission structure and much more, it has all the perfect ingredients to not just make it an excellent entry in that series, but the best yet, in spite of being the fifth. If a mentality of “the original is the best” had been held and it had been developed from that perspective, fans of the series and those the newest just drew in all would be devoid of this gem as it is, however.

          There are of course other series - many more - to which illustrate my case, but I’ll consider these flagship franchises by the Big Three sufficient to make my case as is. Undoubtedly, you can think of other examples yourself. What all of these go to show is in actuality a relatively simple truth: sequels are often, if we are objective about their qualities, better than the originals and deserve to be respected as such. Being the first doesn’t inherently make something the best; that is only a status we’ve arbitrarily applied to how we approach thinking of games, or perhaps entertainment more broadly. Failing to take an honest look at how well sequels do on these different elements and the impact that has on their overall quality not only negatively impacts the individual gamer, who is preventing themselves from enjoying their games more, but also negatively impacts gaming culture, as it sends the message to developers that stagnation in the further work they do is not only acceptable, but to be encouraged.

          When they aren’t encouraged to try bold new ideas they think could improve the formula for what a series stands to offer and instead play it safe, we are denied who knows how many exciting gaming moments we could have otherwise enjoyed, instead left with something akin to the original, but feeling more like a cheap imitation than a true sequel. In this way, that “original is best’ mentality becomes self-fulfilling prophesy, as we inadvertently encourage the very kind of lackluster experiences with sequels that can make the original seem like the best an IP can give us. I think we have a duty as gamers to take a step back more and instead of just being critical of games, also consider being critical of our thought process for how we approach looking at them for this kind of behavior and to rectify that when we find it within ourselves, for the sake of our own happiness and that of the gaming community.

          So, the next time you find yourself thinking “the original is best,” look deeper. Maybe it really is. But maybe, just maybe, you’ll be surprised what you find.

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          Thanks for reading! If you enjoy my content, please consider liking, commenting, following and especially reblogging so it can reach more people. Any support you show is greatly appreciated.

[dysphoric-affect]

How RPG’s Are Permeating The Industry, And Why That’s Great For Gamers

          These days, it feels like RPG’s are everywhere. While they’ve always been popular, it seems their presence is more pervasive than it’s ever been, that they’ve ”gotten bigger.” Yet it seems to me that it isn’t that the popularity of the genre has grown necessarily, because that affection has always been there by gamers. As gaming has become more popular as an entertainment medium for people the world over, the count of people has naturally grown, but I’d say proportionately is roughly the same. Even this greater player count doesn’t quite account for the sense of how far it feels like the genre has reached, though, does it?

          Social media is another factor to account for. Each person who plays in the modern day is able to be connected, both in-game and out, with the millions of others who enjoy gaming in a way undreamt of not so long ago. That greater awareness now possible of the entirety of the gaming community has better illuminated the full reach of gaming in general and the appeal of the specific genres within it. Yet even with this greater awareness of and communication about the shared love for RPG’s, it still doesn’t feel like that scope the genre currently seems to possess has been properly accounted for, does it?

          I believe this is because of one final element, and practically speaking the most important: the expansion of RPG systems into other genres. Their inclusion has come slowly and subtly, but with time has grown to where they can now be found almost anywhere one cares to look, across multiple other genres and from independent material to AAA franchises.

          What are these RPG elements? To properly talk about that and ensure we’re on the best page to understand each other, it seems fitting first to me to define what makes an RPG. The key here is that any element we assert as intrinsic to what makes RPG’s what they are must be elements that are present in every RPG; elements that without which, such games wouldn’t be classified to belong to that genre. With that understanding in mind, it seems to me that there are some elements that are commonly considered to be necessary that are more superfluous and enhance their depth but aren’t crucial to an identification as an RPG. Most prominent of these would be visual customization, relationship customization and moral choice. In reality, it seems to my deduction there are only two systems that make an RPG: gameplay customization and progression choice.

          When I say gameplay customization, I’m referring to having a system where player character capabilities are strongly influenced by the player themselves from among a range of possibilities, rather than dictated by the designers. Even if the character gains new capabilities beyond just weapons rather than having their general capabilities remain the same throughout the experience, because the growth is designer orchestrated it wouldn’t be an RPG. So while on the one hand an experience like Halo isn’t an RPG because what the Master Chief can do remains consistent throughout the experience, something like Metroid also isn’t, because even though the character’s survival capabilities and others grow throughout, these are predetermined to occur by the designers in a certain order and at a certain rate. Most commonly this player-controlled growth is experienced through a leveling system, though the more important fact is the opportunity for growth and player customization of what they can do as this occurs rather than the specific form it takes.

          As for the other key system, when I say progression choice, I mean control over what objectives one pursues to move forward from among multiple, and in what order. Where other genres will set a singular specific objective you have to focus on, followed by another single one in a predetermined chronology, player dictation comes to the fore with RPG’s over what this sequence shall be. This goes for general story objectives, of course, but can include accessing any of the various game systems as well; for example, weapon upgrade tables in The Last Of Us are encountered at set points in level progression and have to be utilized when that opportunity arises, while in the Pokémon titles, outside of Trainer battles the player can access the various stores as well as on-character TM’s and so forth to upgrade and customize their abilities at any time they see fit. Going hand in hand with this tends to be a larger world at accommodate this greater selection of objectives available at one time for players to pursue. I personally consider this as so inextricable from the progression choice system that there’s no need to consider expansive worlds as an independent element when determining what defines RPG’s and whether or not to include it: by virtue of progression choice being part of that definition, expansive worlds are a part of that definition by default.

          When we consider these two elements side by side, we can see what they have in common, the general rule which we can say overall defines what makes an RPG: putting control over the nature of the experience in the hands of players rather than curating that nature for them by the designers. None of this is to say anything against such curated experiences, as there are things they can do with storytelling and art and so on that are predicated on exerting some constraint over players macro freedoms. That in mind, though, the prevalence of RPG’s and their components serves to show that greater player freedom holds a definite lasting charm for gamers.

          Having narrowed our definition of what makes games RPG’s helps us to better understand the otherwise seeming disconnect on some level there would seem to be on the surface between a series like Pokémon and one like Elder Scrolls. Pokémon for a long time featured no character customization system and has never featured any kind of element of moral choices in the actions the player is able to take, nor will it ever given the nature of what that series is. Yet both feature extensive gameplay customization, in Pokémon through the team you build and in Elder Scrolls through your hero themselves, and both feature progression choice, with the ability - to greater or lesser extents - to further the main story when players see fit and at any given time, especially in later stages of the game, have a myriad of places they could have good reason to want to go and things they want to do which are self-orchestrated, with no clear dictate offered by the game for engaging with them in the sense of a stated objective, yet feeling like choices of real substance all the same, made more powerful in a way given their player-based impetus.

          Now, while systems like visual customization, relationship customization and moral choice may not be strictly necessary to meet the definition of being an RPG, it can be forgiven that they often are conflated with being requisite elements, because their fundamental nature is aligned with what I noted is the fundamental nature of those two systems that do make a game an RPG: player-based control of the experiences had in the game. Changing your character’s look to suit your taste, choosing which NPC’s you’ll befriend and focus on and which you’ll ignore or be nasty toward, and being able to make choices in story with moral content that then impact the world and characters are all things that suit an experience intended to emphasize player agency as paramount perfectly. My point here is that while these kind of elements aren’t technically essential to making a game an RPG, they so compliment the goal of such experiences that we have historically featured them almost exclusively within that genre, such that rather than seeing them as having any independent kind of identity we do practically regard them as RPG systems.

          I draw this distinction between those systems that are RPG-related by custom and those that are essential to its identity as a genre for a reason, because as we look out at the gaming landscape of recent times and the present day a strange phenomenon can be seen to have occurred and be occurring: these elements have begun to bleed over into other genres, and to a greater and greater extent all the time.

          At first this could be seen mostly with those non-identity essential elements. Visual customization occurring in games started going well beyond the old status quo of a few options; an example of this would be the customization options in Halo: Reach, with the new elements that could be gained being earned through an experience earning and level up system not entirely dissimilar from that of a classic RPG leveling system, though the number of games that have worked in their own extensive customization systems in the modern day obviously extends well beyond this.

          A myriad of games have also begun to work in optional story beats that put control over the development of the relationships between the player character and NPC’s into the hands of the player in various ways; The Last Of Us for example has a set overarching way that Joel and Ellie’s relationship develops, and even the optional conversations have a set way that they go and develop out their relationship, but placing control over participation in them into the hands of players is a clever way that Naughty Dog works in some of that RPG sense of player freedom and ownership of what takes place; TellTale’s games also exemplified this, as player-controlled development of relationships is literally the main hook of the experience that invests players into playing it, whether their Batman or The Walking Dead titles.

          Then, of course, there’s a greater inclusion of moral choices in games; one that strongly comes to mind is in Insomniac’s Spider-Man, where the desire to keep working on the main story objective while out roaming in the world can be easily offset by the well-executed organic presentation of the street crimes that pop up, forcing the player in a very subtle way to pause and take: stock: can they in good conscience go on to a birthday party when somebody has been kidnapped and they know they could stop it? What about how fair it is to Peter’s loved ones to deny them shows of love and support by being there when he said he would in favor of people he doesn’t have a relationship with? Working this kind of moral deliberation naturally into the flow of the game’s proceedings is a masterstroke that places control over the sense of ownership of Peter’s personal quandaries into players’ hands in a way that forcing the player to participate in these side objectives in a set order could never have accomplished.

          As time has gone on, though, we’ve started to see those two elements that as we have discussed are fundamentally associated with RPG’s even being incorporated into non-RPG games. Assassin’s Creed has as a series long-since strayed from what could be considered the usual fare for customization of the player character’s gameplay in an adventure game to one clearly drawing from RPG roots in scope, I should note alongside fairly extensive systems of visual customization as well, typically. More recently, Gears 5′s campaign features an upgrade system for one of the characters highly reminiscent of that found in any RPG, while its Horde mode as in the previous entry has you earning new skills to upgrade your character with as you level up with that character, or class in the case of Gears of War 4, with the ability to equip more skills at once and acquire more powerful skills, which can themselves be upgraded, as you level up; this is quintessential RPG gameplay dynamics at its core. Both these series may also be cited in the case of that other defining pillar of RPG’s, as both feature expansive worlds with a number of optional objectives which can be pursued as the player sees fit in their latest entries, with in Assassin’s Creed’s case that having been the case for some time now in various ways.

          I cite specific examples here, and from more prominent AAA franchises, but the examples extend well beyond the AAA space and in general includes a plethora of games within and without that space that have incorporated these RPG elements themselves. I hardly need to mention this: undoubtedly even as you’ve read you’ve thought of other contemporary titles you’ve played that have featured these RPG elements to a greater or lesser extent. That extensive presence is telling of the growing dominance of RPG’s in the video game world to which I alluded at the top...and this bodes very well for gamers.

          People play games in large part to get away from reality for a while, a reality where what you’re capable of doing, how you go about doing things, where you go, what you wear, how you can behave toward others and the kinds of moral choices you can make are in many ways - all too often, in most ways - controlled absolutely or at least heavily by others, with the help of rules we weren’t a part of making. This makes so much of our human experience a thing that is out of our hands. It is an uncomfortable truth, but a truth nonetheless.

          While the extent to which that control is excessive is a thing that should be addressed and combated in reality, to the extent we can’t change some of that or that it takes time in other cases to change what we can for the better, it remains one of the great virtues of gaming that it can provide us a sense of that control we lack, and the sheer freedom offered by RPG’s is most conducive to giving us that chance. Those who enjoy sports or racing may enjoy titles in that genre, those who enjoy the precision and cool factor of guns from the regular to fantastical may enjoy shooters, and so on and so forth, but the appeal of this liberating nature RPG’s provide is something that is universal in nature, transcending any specific interests various gamers may have. To see the RPG genre itself be popular because of that fact then is hardly surprising, but what might surprise some, though to my mind was only a matter of time, is to see these components to those experiences taking root elsewhere.

          This is something that should be encouraged so that we see this trend continue, at least in what places and ways it makes sense to do so. If we can give a greater feeling of control and power to gamers regardless of the genre they are playing, then we will elevate the quality of this medium of entertainment to another level entirely. This is something that would be a great service to those already playing, but that universal appeal I mentioned means there would also be a greater enticement for those who hadn’t played games before - or not that much - to reconsider their merits and, should they be won over, grow this global community further still. Gaming has always been something that has great power to bring people together over something positive, and the world is in as much need as ever it has for that to occur, so I look forward to this trend continuing and can’t wait to see what new innovations result from it.

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          Thanks for taking the time to read my post! If you enjoyed it, please consider leaving a like, commenting, following me and reblogging. Your support goes a long way.

[dysphoric-affect]

A Quick Apology For Lack Of Content

          I wanted to take a moment to let those of you following me know I’m sorry about the dry spell on new posts recently. I’ve been dealing with a lot of issues in my personal life and with my work schedule that has made it hard for me to find the time and will to sit down and post more on here.

          I’ve tried to make it a point from the start to never write anything short or rushed just for the sake of adding something new and to only sit down and write when I have an idea worth exploring in some detail and have the time and focus to write about it in that detail that it deserves. I haven’t felt I’ve been able to do so, which is why I’ve refrained for a bit. Even so, I’ve also made it a goal from the start to let nothing personal interfere with producing content here and I have failed in that regard. Things are coming together for me in the former case, and I’m getting myself together in the latter case, so you can expect content with greater regularity going forward.

          Thank for your patience, and once again I appreciate the support you’ve shown.

[dysphoric-affect]

The Tricky Art Of Character Investment VS Gameplay Benefits

          I’ve been a fan of Gears of War since the series inception and as with any such person, am naturally looking forward to the fifth installment’s release two weeks from now. Among the various new elements to look forward to in the newest title, one that sticks out to me is the newfound implementation of Ultimate abilities for each character you can play as in the games waves survival-based Horde mode. Ultimate abilities are certainly not an innovation in a broader sense within video games, just specifically for the series. However, beneath the surface of what is superficially a cool-looking and tactically satisfying thing to do in Gears 5 is something rather profound.

          This comes from the fact that characters you can play as in Gears of War aren’t passive entities whose beauty is literally skin deep, with their avatars being interesting and awesome to look at, but with nothing further to draw you to them beyond that. These are characters who express themselves and often, with very distinct personalities and accordingly unique tones and pitches of voice, levels of bravado and reserve and various quirks in their word choice in how they present themselves, both generally and in reaction to specific situations. This has already presented players with a more difficult choice in which character to play as in the first instance in prior entries in the series, as the characters who look the most awesome or appeal on whatever other level visually might not necessarily be that interesting to a given player personality-wise, while others who are badass or hilarious might not be the most badass or hilarious in their visual representation. This puts players in the quandary of deciding, essentially, between the quality of writing and acting on one hand and the quality of art design on another. Where the ostensible goal for most gamers in any game with different choices for appearance is to acquire and use the most awesome appearance visually, this actually presents a fairly dynamic - and at times rather difficult - choice to contend with.

          That is an interesting dilemma of its own accord, but what is interesting with the Ultimate abilities in Gears 5 is that it presents a further layer of complexity into character choice, given the specific nuance that each of the various Ultimate abilities is unique to one of the various characters. If you like a given Ultimate ability, you’ll only ever enjoy it while playing as the one character that has it. This presents an updated and even more difficult quandary than before, because now even if one settles on the various characters they like best in all forms of their presentation, they may not prefer the specific advantages those characters possess with their Ultimates over others. Greater thought, inevitably, will now have to go into character choice than before where not enough overlap of satisfaction is found between both the presentation and gameplay of the characters. Do you go with the character or two that has your favorite Ultimates and learn to love them more personality and appearance-wise in the process? Or do you stick with which characters endear themselves most to you in their personality and just learn how to make the best use of what they bring to the table with their Ultimate? Or does the choice lie somewhere in between?

          I say this is a profound thing because when all these aspects are done well in general in video games, players can be made to have difficulty in choosing because of adoration for a character’s personality, or more directly the writing for that character. At the end of the day, it is a video game you are playing. Those two words matter a great deal in what should seem to be important to the experience. With the “video” part comes that natural desire for the most visually compelling thing, while with the fact it is a “game,” plenty of precedence being given to what the characters can actually do as part of the gameplay experience is going to be given. There is something I think that is inherently intriguing when the narrative aspects of a game rise up and are strong enough standing next to the other aspects of the game that you, whether you intend to or not, give them as much consideration as appearance or gameplay in what you choose to proceed focusing on.

          Narrative is a deceptively complex element that can be present within games, and while the reflexive tendency can be to associate the term with the events and themes of a story mode, the characters you play as also represent a facet of the overall gem that is the whole of the narrative elements in a game and characters aren’t necessarily bound to inclusion exclusively in the context of a story being told, given the unique nature of video games and their alternate modes allowing possibilities for representation elsewhere. What is occurring with Gears 5 present a very current and salient example of this. Even where it is exclusive to a story-mode in theory with other games, though, this concept of pitting preference for the narratives of characters over gameplay benefits tied to characters is a dynamic one worth greater and more extensive exploration. in the future.

          We’ve seen various forms of this before. BioShock for me stood out by forcing the choice between characters in the narrative and more immediate gameplay benefits, though the choice in these characters’ case - the Little Sisters - didn’t have so much to do with an affection born from investing in the characters’ personalities as it did with the sense of moral content to what either choice represented. That kind of depth was powerful in its own way, and I would certainly invite more such choice based on morality elements in the narrative too, but I would also enjoy seeing more choice worked into gaming experiences that revolve around characters who I’ve invested in as fleshed out personalities against the benefits I could derive from each.

          Speaking of BioShock, the director for that game narratively, Ken Levine, touched on this very subject in a talk he did discussing the macro-concepts him and his team are wanting to explore in their next project, something I’ve mentioned before as it happens. More specifically, he presented the idea that in a game with multiple narrative-driven NPC’s who also yield gameplay benefits and where the player has to make choices between who to favor given the mutually exclusive nature of the benefits derived from doing so, the possibility would exist of running into the very dilemma we’ve been considering: maybe the gameplay rewards from certain characters would be more generally desirable or at least more specifically desirable given the player’s goals or the class of character they are playing, yet with strong enough narrative presentation the player doesn’t find it easy to dismiss other characters who they simply like talking to and being around more, characters they end up actually choosing instead. It will be exciting to see what form exploring that takes for their team, but in general I’d be excited to see others take on the challenge of doing their own take on this concept.

          The question that remains, however, is how to balance these two concepts against each other. That is, creating a situation in gaming where the player has to miss out on either compelling characters or satisfying gameplay elements without feeling frustrated at the game - and developers by extension - for forcing them to do so. The answer, at the risk of grossly oversimplifying the matter, is simply to do the job on both these aspects of a given game well. If the characters are engaging but the gameplay perks tied to them are negligible, uninteresting or poorly executed, then narrative will always win the day. If the gameplay perks are dynamic, fascinating and well executed but the characters are bland, annoying or feel inauthentic, then gameplay will always be preferred. If both are done well, though, then the conflict in making a choice between these two elements arises.

          And is this difficulty in what choice players should make a desirable state to put them in? Yes, I believe. Because the only way to resolve this conflict for any given player is to expose themselves to more of the game, to play more different characters and get the sense of them narratively, as well as play around at length with those gameplay benefits and after reflection on both, come to a conclusion. What on the surface conceptually could seem to potentially be a frustrating conundrum can in practice incentivize greater exploration of the whole breadth of a game’s content and deepen the replay value, all of which are things gamers enjoy. Even if the fact that this is what is occurring isn’t consciously identified as such, the sense of satisfaction derived from it will be there nonetheless, and I think can always serve to not only offset any frustration, but actually make such choices a valued part of a game’s experience that features them.

          So while the Ultimates in Gears 5 might be a fun, bombastic but simple thing in one sense, there’s a principle at work with its inclusion which can serve to make games more enjoyable that the larger video game industry will hopefully incorporate more in the other work coming out of it. I should note again that I’m not claiming Gears 5 invented the wheel on this dynamic: other games have featured it or elements of it, such as Overwatch. I’m thinking about the concept in association with Gears simply because the imminent release of Gears with this new feature is giving more contemporary relevance to the subject and bringing it to my mind. To those other games who’ve already pioneered work in regard to this concept, kudos to all of you. Hopefully the collective of all of them and Gears only represent the infancy of what this concept can achieve in the future as more games take notice of the importance narrative elements can have toward creating a more compelling and satisfying video game experience.

[dysphoric-affect]

The Fallacy Of Blaming Mass Shootings On Video Games

          I’ll be frank with you, I don’t want to write the article I’m writing here. Every word I’m typing bothers me to have to say, every key I press bothers me to have to push, but it is also vitally necessary. Because instead of discussing the positive aspects of the future of the games industry today, I find myself, given recent news, forced to address the subject of violence in video games. More specifically, the question of their culpability in inciting violent behavior, namely the mass shootings that have occurred with greater and greater frequency in recent times.

          This, of course, originates from people in the United States government and other positions of influence having again invoked video games as an influencing factor motivating the killers in these mass shootings toward the actions they’ve taken. The argument remains fundamentally unchanged from when it was first invoked: games allowing you to commit violence with guns and presenting it as a form of fun without negative consequences encourages an association that engaging in the same behavior in real life is acceptable. The appeal of this argument which is the key to its seeming refusal to die is, I believe, in its simplicity: encouraging violence surely encourages violence, no? If it’s understood to be socially acceptable one way, it can be extrapolated into feeling it’s okay in every way, no?

          Actually, in fact, NO.

          The ease with which one can find flaws with that “logic” and with that argument when making any attempt at critical consideration of this issue makes readily apparent the bias against and lack of understanding of video games and gaming culture by all proponents of such, enough so as to warrant dismissal of any need for considering the objective validity of that point of view. However, as the view has persisted in spite of this fact, let’s run down those various problems for clarification’s sake.

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1.       No study has ever successfully linked violent video games to inciting violent behavior. Such studies have been done a number of times by several entities after games have been accused in the past in the same manner they are now, but the findings have never ended up supporting these theories. The only thing any of them have shown which could be construed as a negative result is a player’s level of aggressiveness in terms of brain chemistry can be a little higher immediately following playing a violent game. The effect is so miniscule and short term, however, it can’t account for the willingness to kill someone or the longer period of aggressive thought that would go into planning out an attack. One doesn’t have to be a psychologist or sociologist to figure this out even, as a number of facts are readily evident by simply observing the world and using common sense, such as...

2.       Violent real life behavior is not endemic to the gaming community. Millions of people around the world play video games every day, yet the vast majority do nothing violent in real life to emulate the behaviors of the characters they play in games. In fact, for many gaming is a way to get a break from the stresses of life and possibly vent frustration into. Further, gaming has also led to the development of new friendships and communities between people which wouldn’t otherwise exist, as well as has been used as a means toward charitable efforts for various causes. Interestingly, these positive social aspects don’t seem to be brought into the discussion when the aforementioned accusations come up, just reference to the nonexistent greater proportion of people who game who commit violence out of the total number who enjoy it compared to those who commit such acts and enjoy other forms of entertainment.

3.       Many countries consume video games at a comparable rate to the United States, but don’t have comparable levels of mass shooting violence. As proponents against video games seem to enjoy simple logic given the view they ascribe to, I’ll here dispense some logic simple enough they should be able to appreciate it: if something causes something else to happen, then wherever the thing that causes something else to happen is, the thing that is caused should also be found. In this case, games are the cause in question and real life violence is the effect. Yet, while games are found worldwide and in great numbers in other places as well, there are not a proportionate number of incidences we see occurring in these other countries with gun violence to coincide the proportions in our country, in spite of the fact that if games are the major or one of the major causes for such violence to occur, then we should see such violence proportionately occurring wherever they are found. This “common denominator” argument ignores that lack of equivalency in the results found to occur with these other countries, however. Whether that is simple ignorance or deliberate avoidance of these facts - and let us be clear, the lack of results I just mentioned isn’t an opinion, that is a statistical fact - is something I’ll not here venture to speculate on, but suffice it to say this is something that isn’t addressed by these critics.

4.       Games never directly or indirectly encourage the specific forms of violence seen occurring in instances of real life mass shootings. The most relevant genre to consider here when considering whether games instigate such real world behavior would be first and third-person shooters, naturally, given the similarity in weapon usage. When we look at such games, however, there are a few common traits shared amongst them which make clear no encouragement for such immoral behavior is actually provided within the violence occurring in the games themselves.

          For one, the motives of the characters played as are typically good. We are playing as a soldier or agent of some sort whose job is to protect innocent lives and whose enemies wish to take innocent lives, making what killing with guns occurs possessing a specific context: an act which serves the ultimate goal of protecting innocent people, in decided contrast with mass shootings which have an ultimate goal of achieving precisely the opposite of this. For another, those presented as targets to be killed in shooters are clearly identified as not being innocent civilians. Often, they are not human at all, being monsters, aliens, robots, zombies or other kinds of supernatural threats. When they are human in species, though, then they are tradtionally overtly identified as not being innocent, with their association with ostensibly evil figures, organizations and belief systems expressed openly and repeatedly. These figures and organizations are typically fictional even, but when pulled from our reality for sake of the story the game is telling, it is figures and organizations - most often the latter - that are widely considered to have an evil association, such as the Nazis or various terror groups. While we’re bringing up the fictional nature of the presentation to be found in such games, it is worth noting that often it is the case that a good deal of the weaponry players can even use is fictional in nature, making the fact of the game’s fictional nature and not something representative or emulative of real world conditions all the more indirectly enforced for the minds of players.

          Even where more morally dubious actions may occur, a common factor still remains in that at no point is a player ever encouraged to act out such behaviors as what players can do within these games in real life. To anyone who would say that they don’t specifically warn against it, I would say only this: if an individual needs to be told not to murder others by the games they play in order to know it isn’t okay to do so, there is an issue with the mental health of that individual for seeing lack of warning against doing so as license of its permissibility, an issue with those who’ve raised them and the culture they’ve grown in for not properly indicating such behavior is immoral and never acceptable, or perhaps a mixture of the two. The one thing that isn’t culpable in such cases where it were to occur is with the games themselves. 

5.       Those accusing video games of inciting violence typically have no actual experience with them personally which informs their view. This isn’t a problem with the argument itself, but a flaw with the people purporting it as valid that enables them to justify its validity, so more accurately a flaw surrounding the argument. It would be a rather different matter when it comes to refuting this view on violence in video games if the various politicians and other figures speaking out against them actually played any and could firsthand attest to the negative psychological impact they instill from being played; arguments could obviously still be presented against them if they claimed feeling pulled to kill people in real life from their gaming experience, but I digress. However, these individuals make it readily apparent this is not the case. Many have freely admitted to having no experience directly playing them, taking it as a point of pride, both in reference to the issue at hand and in general conveying a clear disdain of video games as a waste of time that is beneath their station in life somehow. Those who’ve made some effort to learn about them, though, still present a clear awkwardness in mentioning the titles of various games or describing details about them that make apparent their actual unfamiliarity with the medium. This is something difficult even to describe, but something anyone who is a gamer can clearly feel when hearing these people speak in interviews about this issue where they are condemning games; everything about how they invoke the name of games and their details resonates with both their disapproval and bias against the medium that betrays the “educated” front they present, a measure it feels clearly was taken to strengthen their presentation and add a false legitimacy to their claims.

          Let their be no mistake here: everyone is entitled to live their life as they see fit and for all that I do love games, I don’t believe there’s anything wrong with someone not enjoying them. Games are entertainment and that is always largely a matter of subjective taste, so I understand why they’re not for everyone. However, what is a problem is those who don’t like them taking their private views and speaking out against them publicly in hopes of denying others access to them, or more bluntly, denying others the right to be entertained as they see fit when they wouldn’t wish such a right to be denied to themselves undoubtedly.

          This is critically important, because given the lack of actual evidence that violent video games encourage real violence, the only thing that remains which can stand to cause change in access to them is people in positions of influence speaking out in such a way. When you bring your private bias into the public sphere and attempt to use your status in the world to deny others their rights, you can and should be rightfully critiqued, especially where only subjective disdain and no concrete facts support your effort to deny others their rights. A demonstrable harm should have to be shown before any measure that influences others lives and rights and happiness is made, but the influence of such people can circumvent this, so their ignorance and bias and lack of valid support must be spoken out against with fervency to counteract the strength of the influence they possess. The strength of the gaming community collectively raising their voices and pointing out the facts on this matter can stand to rightfully drown out these critics if we so wish it. Only effort there will win the day, though.

6.        Innocent, non-violent gamers become undeservedly stigmatized while real solutions to the problem of mass shootings are avoided. Again this isn’t a flaw directly with the argument itself. It is a flaw in the sense of the consequences it incites, before any laws or other change in policies regarding violent games are made. The first is that it encourages an outlook of seeing gamers as not only potentially more violent, but as more likely to be murderers, simply because of that hobby. This is incredibly disrespectful and insulting to the millions of gamers who every day aren’t in the news because they are living out their lives peacefully with gaming happening to be one of their pastimes. To the contrary - and as I referenced before - gaming has enabled individuals to connect with others and build friendships in places that wouldn’t have existed otherwise, fostering a greater sense of community with and affection toward others. Never mind the number of different charities raised up associated with gaming directly or in part to aid in a variety of great causes and which have raised a substantial amount of money for them.

          It doesn’t mean gamers are perfect. There can be a great deal of toxicity that occurs in the gaming community over ultimately trivial matters of opinion, far more than is ever warranted in the depths of personal attacks on others it can sink to. That I freely admit, because it is a fact and it should be discouraged. However, their is a solid line between the worst of those such peoples’ behavior and a willingness to murder others. What I mention isn’t something exclusive to gaming, either. Fans of all manner of things - sports, politics, whatever - get into spirited debate about their passion, and some take that to an extreme it shouldn’t. In all of these cases, one fact remains the same: the vast majority of people, even the most negative among a particular group, are still rational and moral enough to never murder other human beings in the first place, or to do so on the basis of feelings given to them by their passion of choice for that matter. That takes a mindset and beliefs wholly removed from anything created or encouraged within these various communities.

          In the process of scapegoating gaming, the harm doesn’t just extend to impacting the reputation of gaming in an undeserved way. It also by default means an avoidance of seeking out real sources of motivation for when these tragedies occur, as well as ideas for real solutions to how to prevent such events from occurring that can only begin with identifying those actual sources first, with the solutions naturally building off having identified them. So, in essence, those casting gamers into this negative light aren’t purely disrespecting gamers, something I doubt they care much about anyway: they are also disrespecting the victims and survivors and everyone else impacted by such mass shootings themselves, those who they do claim they care about, as they are fostering an outlook on the issue and resultant process for dealing with it that by avoiding dealing with things the right way, only leaves in tact an environment where things are just as able to occur again. I’m not saying they are responsible for further events that occur - the foremost blame goes to those who commit them, of course - but they certainly are liable in not helping prevent them.

---

          I had thought, or maybe just wishfully thought, that as a culture we had moved past this strawman argument blaming games for real violence. When gaming was somewhat more of a niche pastime, it was easy to vilify it because what it involved was more foreign to the masses, and in absence of firsthand knowledge it was therefore easier to accept negative claims made against it. But then as time moved on, gaming became more culturally accepted. Halo, Call of Duty, Assassin’s Creed, Pokemon GO, Minecraft, Fortnite and many others have grown gaming from something only “nerds” and the “socially awkward” enjoy to something people in general enjoy. With that broader acceptance the interest in blaming games for mass shootings seemed to have gone away...but then, these events didn’t use to occur with such frequency. Now that it seems they are a near daily occurrence, this argument has again reared its head where once it might have been thought lopped off.

          It unfortunately only gains more traction and weight when people so prominent in the public eye and capable of generating influence promote such views. Currently, this now extends so far as our current president Donald Trump and others in significant positions of influence in the government, such as House Minority leader Kevin McCarthy. When individuals who hold the power these do promote these false claims and stall the discussion it becomes all the more difficult to move on to a more substantive discussion and toward finding real solutions. Let me be clear: this isn’t a political blog so this isn’t about singling out one party or another as a villain. I am against anyone who supports and encourages these attacks on video games. It happens that the bulk of these within the political spectrum are found on the Republican side, but wherever a Democrat were to be found promoting the same I would condemn that as well. I consider myself an independent in any event, for those who wish to know, so I have no vested interest in promoting or condemning either party here. My interest is only in condemning evidence-less beliefs that encourage the demonization of innocent people and activities and by extension deny the world better solutions to the issues at hand, and in promoting truth and real solutions.

          What are the sources of the motivations for these mass shootings? How do we prevent them the best we can? Whatever the answers to these questions, the one thing it most decidedly doesn’t have to do with is the one thing that is currently getting the lion’s share of the blame. I promise you this, though: take away all the violent video games in the world, and these events would still be occurring, unfortunately. So quit wasting blame where it doesn’t belong and focus on finding real answers.

          I think I’ll end here and go get some headshots in Halo, which has never once tempted me to do the same to strangers in real life. Then go work as a productive member of society, check up on my family I love, talk to the friends I care about and so on. The same type of everyday, normal, decent things every other gamer does, because we aren’t any worse than you who condemn us. Though there’s an argument to be made for the opposite, I suppose.

[dysphoric-affect]

The End Of The Console Wars And The Dawn Of Unity

          Earlier this year, I watched in awe during the Video Game Awards as leaders from Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo took the stage at the same time and delivered a joint address to those attending and watching at home. The platitudes were what you would expect and not in themselves groundbreaking - about what a great time it is to be a gamer and how exciting the future is right now - though not unwelcome and undoubtedly true. What was more meaningful in my mind is who the presenters were, what they represented individually and what their cooperating together - considering their background - to make that address symbolically represented: that the age of console wars is coming to an end and something else, something better for gamers and for the industry, is taking its place.

          The awe I felt stems from the fact that this is a far cry from the state of the industry not so long ago, when E3 press conferences, especially those of Microsoft and Sony, were not entirely dissimilar to war rooms. References to each other at that time were avoided at all cost, as if avoiding saying a vulgar word, with the competition only being invoked to point out how inferior what they offered was to the vastly superior console they had to offer. Hostility toward the competition was not only rife on their part, but felt encouraged to be had on the part of consumers loyal to their brand. And we took the bait.

          I’m embarrassed now to admit that I fell for this trap myself. I was an Xbox loyalist primarily, though because I grew up with Nintendo originally I had a soft spot for them as well. This made Sony the source of my own derision. With the original price tag on the PS3 and the eventually redacted “boomerang” controller design that console was initially slated to have, there was no shortage of fodder I felt given by Sony at the time to condemn their console. The trick is, criticism of those aspects of the console did have some objective validity, but there’s a fine line between making well-founded criticism based on rational thinking and deliberation from essentially accidentally supporting a valid negative position, but based purely from irrational, emotion-based brand loyalty which would have demanded I see what Sony offered as inferior regardless of the specific facts surrounding it.

          I feel especially embarrassed to have felt that way, because in life I have traditionally prided myself on being a rational thinker, but in that case, given my passion for the games industry I was easily led away from it. Thankfully that was as far as such sentiment ever got with me, but the capability was always there for that to spill over into applying such irrationality and emotion-based decision making in other areas of consideration about institutions in society. This was the great unspoken, and perhaps unidentified, insidious nature of what was going on at that time in the games industry: irrational hostility was being fostered, and once that’s been justified in one area of our life, it’s not difficult for such thinking to be applied and justified in other areas of our life, which in the longer term stands to have damaging repercussions for the society we impact. It wasn’t until I matured into an adult as well as gained a personal interest in philosophy that I became able to look back and realize the significance of the implications this toxic atmosphere stood to have.

          Real change in the industry in relation to these attitudes only truly started to occur however once those in the industry matured and changed their approach, as was probably always destined to be the case. As the negative culture in the past was brought out by those within the game industry in the first place, for better or worse it means the responsibility in turn had to fall on them to undue that kind of thinking and replace it with new, more positive vision. Thankfully, the effort to do so now seems to be in full motion.

          The advent of this finally began to occur with the advent of the concept of cross-play. We have taken if for granted for a long time that while we may be part of a fan base for game or series much larger than the player count of just those experiencing it on the same console we own, we can’t share in enjoyment of it with that larger community. Imagine, it was presented to us, those arbitrary barriers were now gone. Each fan could play with every single other fan of something they love, with community surrounding a game or series being built more within the actual games rather than without. It’s an extremely seductive concept, the seduction not due to any particular way the idea is presented, but simply intrinsic to the nature of the idea itself.

          Making the prospect all the more tantalizing was it being pointed out that it wasn’t a goal that needed to be worked for...the opportunity is already here. The backend networking for multiplayer or co-op between different hardware presents its challenges and necessary effort, but is entirely doable. Developers can make it happen and want to. Gamers, in one of the few cases of near universal agreement they’ve had, want it to happen, too. It remains only for those behind the different console brands to want to. The deciding factor preventing us from having a more connected and happier gaming community is no technical challenge: it is a simple act of will.

          Unfortunately, immediate consensus wasn’t to be, as Sony showed initial reluctance to the idea. The reasoning presented only served to exacerbate the general frustration at not making universal cross-play a reality: Sony was concerned about maintaining the integrity of the online experience of their brand. This explanation rang hollow to most, however. Microsoft has long been lauded for having the most solid and consistent online experience, though Sony has certainly improved dramatically in relation to their own, so the idea that connection to their service would be a liability rather than at least a non-concern and at most an asset even came across as fundamentally nonsensical.

          This being an issue was also compounded by a series of well-publicized hacks of the PlayStation Network that have occurred in the past; while Xbox Live has seen its on issues, the number and severity of the attacks in Playstation’s case create greater alarm. With this being the case, it would seem if anyone had cause to be concerned about connecting themselves to another, it would be on the part of Microsoft and Nintendo toward Sony, not the other way around. For it to be the other way around in spite of this felt like petty standoffishness stemming from the old days of the console wars rather than having any basis in reality or the interests of gamers...including PlayStation fans.

          That is one final point that rested against Sony’s philosophy of resistance, perhaps the strongest and arguably the only point that mattered: Sony’s own fans supported the change. It stands to reason there’s an impetus to make fans of the brand satisfied, so when the majority themselves are calling for that change, is it not worth considering its merits seriously rather than dismissing it out of hand? Add in the incident of the temporary cross-play enabling for Destiny, and the intensity of seeing that feature become a new norm in the industry became all the stronger.

          While Sony was making their decision, we saw the beginning of a broader change toward cross-play support anyway. Fortnite, Minecraft and Rocket League presented three of the more noteworthy examples of the cross-play concept manifesting as a reality, given the runaway popularity of those titles, but numerous other examples sprang up as well. Minecraft’s case was a particularly interesting one in that it saw the achievement of a different milestone, with Nintendo and Microsoft co-backing the production of an ad about their two consoles being able to work together. I’m not ashamed to admit watching that ad made me a bit emotional. I don’t even play Minecraft myself, but what it represented - about the gaming community coming together more - is really powerful to my mind and extremely encouraging as a gamer who always wants to see the industry get better not just in what it makes for us to play, but in the ideals it represents and promotes.

          Flash forward a bit, and we have the VGA’s mentioned at the start and a welcome change of tune from Sony, symbolically represented in the VGA presentation but more literally represented in a number of stories about them getting on board with the idea and even being in direct talks with Microsoft in relation to future ventures. Meanwhile, Microsoft has expressed an interest in expanding access to games that have traditionally been an Xbox experience beyond that console itself. They have candidly expressed their interest in making all future games of theirs available for PC simultaneously, which is certainly well within the realm of theoretical possibility given Microsoft’s ownership of the Windows OS most computers run on. And yet...even this isn’t the limit of where they’ve expressed interest in having their titles reach. Just recently, they’ve elaborated on this philosophy of expansion by emphasizing there is a more vested interest in people playing their games than in playing on the Xbox console specifically. For example, that interest goes so far as that they’ve expressed interest in bringing Halo: The Master Chief Collection to PlayStation.

          This is, in many ways, the best example of this industry-wide change in philosophy I’ve been discussing. I’ll admit, in the spirit of full disclosure, to being a long-time and avid Halo fan, but when I make that statement it isn’t about complimenting that franchise or Microsoft. What I am directing attention to is the fact that Halo, which has always been Microsoft’s flagship franchise for Xbox and closely associated with its success, is something they are willing to pass access to to players on their competitors’ console. This idea was so beyond inconceivable during that period not long ago I alluded to, that if you had presented the idea as a serious possibility, you’d have been considered an idiot, or insane. But now, it’s an idea that’s had interest expressed by Microsoft at the executive level.

          Those players on PlayStation are the key factor of note here, though. It isn’t about Microsoft and Sony becoming best friends, though they seem to be getting along better all the time, which is sure to be a boon for gamers in the future in as yet unknown ways. It is about simply letting players play the games they want. Gaming, like so many pastimes, can be an expensive one, and locking gamers out of access to numerous quality experiences deserving of being explored by all because they can’t reasonably justify - or literally can’t afford - the price tag of another console needed to access those experiences is a shame, and antithetical to the spirit of connectedness and community the gaming culture, at its best, strives to be about.

          Destroying these arbitrary and artificial barriers and instead working collaboratively on ways to bring the global gaming community ever closer together, as a family, is the rightful course toward which the industry should be directing itself. And, who knows...maybe in the process of fostering this spirit of inclusion, the game industry can get some of that positive spirit to rub off on those who play games and get them in turn to be more inclusive of others in the world outside of the games. And the world beyond gaming isn’t so different from the world of gaming in that one respect: both are much richer for getting others in on our fun. 

          So keep it up, video game industry. We all came to play after all, so let’s ALL play. Cheers.

[dysphoric-affect]

The Art Of Companionship

          As Booker Dewitt in BioShock: Infinite, you look on as an idling Elizabeth stops over a dead body, clasps her hands to her mouth and stares, eyes wide with remorse, and it seems like to you an increasingly - and tragically - sense of innocence lost. It’s just a dead body, and you’re playing a first-person shooter. You’ve seen this sight hundreds of times. Under other circumstances, you’d think almost nothing of it, so familiar are you with the sight. Yet suddenly, in a way you never have before, you appreciate the gravity of it. That inert form is a dead human being. They had a life and feelings. People that cared. Elizabeth’s reaction forces you to think of this, even if only on some small level. Still, it is more than what you would ever think normally, which makes such a quite, small moment able to feel so profound.

          As Joel in The Last Of Us, you listen to an enthusiastic Ellie express her optimism about your survival chances, or confusion about what could lead people to commit the horrors of something you’re witnessing. Joel, annoyed, tells her off with a harsh rebuke of how naïve she is and how grim human nature is, sometimes more subtle in manner and sometimes as overt as can be. Given Joel’s past, you understand there’s another reason why he’s so hostile that makes him less of an asshole than he seems: these moments of Ellie’s remind him of the innocence of who he lost, a reminder of a pain he wants to forget and isn’t allowed to because of those circumstances. Underlying his terseness is something more than annoyance as well, you understand coming from this past of his: a sort of paternalism. He doesn’t want to see this person meet the same fate. He wants her to learn so she can survive where someone else didn’t, even if it takes tough love...but love, understated.

          As Kratos in God Of War, your son asks a question about his mother - your wife - whose death drives you both forward. Being so gruff of a person, at times these questions are met with anger and annoyance and a demand to quit prying and focus. At times they are met with quiet, with an eventual answer being short and elusive, avoiding greater detail; perhaps it is in his nature to not talk at length, but an understanding is there that it’s also because feelings are involved in the subject at hand for the love lost, feelings being one thing the character, for all his power, has almost no skill in dealing with well. And at times, Kratos’ voice goes unusually soft for him, and a heartfelt admission about who his wife was as a person and what she liked is made, in part for the boy’s sake, to give him a larger piece of her to have in the absence of her living, as well as in part, you realize, for Kratos himself, a reminder of the peace he had and that violence isn’t all there is to life, a reminder that there are other forms of strength in the world than his own, kinds of strength that he needs to find now in himself in her absence in order to honor her memory as well as to fully give the boy the love he was intended to have. The hard exterior of this man, you realize, belies a great depth of emotion and thought...even if something his enemies will never see.

          What do all these moments have in common? They all demonstrate a potent element games can possess that we’ve seen emerge more and more in recent years: that of the singular, constant companion. While certainly credit must be given to the writers and others behind creating these characters that makes the specific examples referenced so well executed, I do think that there is something inherently special about this type of element that makes any game that incorporates it with purpose and puts thought into it a game that is much more liable to be well received, or even celebrated. Why is this so?

          The key here I think is the inherently limited nature of perspective you get from the player character: on events, on the world, on themselves and even any broader moral or philosophical themes that might be a part of the larger narrative. Our world and any fictional one includes a host of people with differing perspectives about it, yet we often only get to perceive these fictional worlds through the very limited scope of the player character’s viewpoint, or with no perspective at all in the case of the many silent FPS protagonists. Having a critical companion throughout the story of a game ensures a layer of depth unattainable for the narrative otherwise.

          This can be in reacting to events, offering opinions and sharing lore we otherwise wouldn’t know, but it also provides the chance to create more depth for the player character as well: when the companion reacts to what they do, it creates more of sense of that protagonist’s existence in that world, fleshing them out, as well as providing something for the player character to react to, directly revealing more of their personality and opinions in the process where they otherwise simply wouldn’t have a chance to do so. In the course of all this, there is an understated but powerful sense of connection to the player character that players can come to have from this relationship which bolsters a sense of ownership of and care for what’s happening in the game. This occurs because the player character and players themselves both develop a sense of attachment for these companions in tandem. When this connection has been established, everything going on with the experience takes on a greater significance, and since the ostensible goal with narrative-based games is to have players care about the story, about the world and these characters and what happens to them all, then fostering this kind of regard from players is certainly an important step toward achieving that goal of creating a meaningful experience.

          The trick, of course, is that while being a game provides a sense of being there with these companion characters that makes moments with them potentially so profound, that same format poses a unique challenge: how to incorporate them into the gameplay mechanics of the experience. When we look at the examples given at the start of this piece and comparing them, given they all succeeded extraordinarily well with their companion elements, certain patterns emerge on how best to do this effectively.

          One, which I think overall is most important, is to not have game progression failure tied to their actions. Part of this is ensuring no actions that deviate from player intentionality in a scenario. In other words, they don’t take an action that can cause something undesired to happen, particularly as concerns enemies where the player is attempting to strategize in their approach. The most salient example of this would be in stealth scenarios, where the companion taking more overt action or just being scene would cause a break from the stealth mechanics of the game against the players will, frustrating them in their lack of culpability in that having occurred.

The Last Of Us presents a great example of this, where Ellie is literally incapable of alerting enemies to her presence when moving in stealth. While her pathfinding is pretty strong about positioning her to where she gets into cover with realistic timing, at times she doesn’t. I remember watching a design talk done by Naughty Dog where it was explained this was deliberate, because it was seen as worth it to potentially have the odd immersion-breaking moment where an enemy doesn’t see Ellie when she’s clearly in view in order to guarantee she could never trigger enemies’ alert status and garner negative feedback from the player for her actions. I personally experienced a few of these moments playing the game and have to admit it was the right call: more than I was put off by any sense of “Really? You idiots didn’t see her right in front of you?” I was just relieved to not have an alert status triggered, leaving me free to keep attempting the checkpoint rather than initiate a manual restart of it because the element of surprise was gone against my will. This made it clear that having your companion unable to cause any failure of your attempted approach as a smart way to design their performance, as the suspension of disbelief for it to occur is outweighed by the benefits in progression.

          Another means to avoid progression failure is simply ensuring they can’t die. It is always critical in good game design when it comes to the difficulty aspects to ensure that player action is the determining factor in successful progression, not that of an external party beyond their control. Since these companions by definition have a great deal of their own agency, then if they could die there is always a chance that event would occur due to factors that weren’t necessarily the player’s fault. That just leads to player frustration that puts them off the gameplay experience, as well as weakening the companion’s narrative strength by having such player frustration be directed toward them, which is of course counterproductive to the empathy and love for them players are intended to have. As far as why they always escape a grim fate, this can be explained away easily enough with them being stealthy or nimble enough to avoid efforts to hurt them, seen manifested in their gameplay behavior, or simply with the “bigger target” philosophy: the enemies focus far more on you because you are the bigger threat offensively. This leads nicely into the next point...

          Two, have the player character be the star offensively. Players want who they are in the story to be the dominant offensive force, so having the companion dwarf you be killing more effectively than you do would only generate resentment on the player’s part. In gameplay terms, this doesn’t mean that they can’t be capable of killing, just that the ceiling for their potential kill rate can never surpass what the average killing rate for the player character is. So that they don’t feel like an escort that steals a few kills, however, the crucial dynamic for those companions is to have them be useful in other ways, such as using their size or other skills to bypass obstacles and deal with puzzles. Having them find useful items or indicate points of interest can also serve this purpose really well. In the examples mentioned before, Elizabeth, Ellie and Atreus all have their focus as companions be in these areas, to great effect.

          Third and finally, have their useful capabilities grow as you progress, right along with you. Your character will always have to deal with increasingly more difficult enemies and obstacles over the course of the game, so having the companion’s own abilities increase accordingly sustains their sense of viability as you deal with those greater challenges. In the noted examples, Elizabeth progresses to opening extremely useful tears, Ellie starts getting kills of her own that minimize the threat to you (noteworthy because of how high the sense of vulnerability is for you throughout the game) and Atreus can better weaken and kill enemies of his own. This plays back into the last point I made, which is to ensure that they only get better offensively in a way that makes them more supportive, but never deadly on the scale the player character is.

          With these criteria met, from there it is simply up to the writers to make them strong characters in the emotion they express and story they create as they interplay with the player character. Done right, this type of companion relationship stands to be one of the most satisfying experiences you can have in modern games. Fortunately, the special quality these have is something that’s been noticed, as we can see it in more games all the times in modern gaming. Sony in particular has been seemingly focused on producing these narrative-focused experiences with companion interactions.

          It’s worth noting that while the singular, main companion experience is generally which seems to have the greatest potential, there’s something to be said for deviations that at least have interactions with a core set of companions as the key, or a more dynamic narrative relationship with what companions one has. Speaking of Sony titles, the recent Spider-Man game is a strong example of this: while you don’t have gameplay companions generally, you do have constant interactions with a few key allies remotely, who you understand to be conceptually driving the narrative forward and also providing a chance to see more layers of Peter Parker’s personality.

          In other cases, we can see where embracing more dimensions of the critical companion dynamic has occurred. Halo, for instance, had Cortana as a beloved character for its’ entire history as a franchise with her useful intel on the world and events, comic relief and the conceptual help she provided in opening doors and enabling you to pursue certain objectives. With Halo 4, though, that dynamic evolved in a great way as the Master Chief started talking back to Cortana, with her talk now being used to draw out and show an emotional depth to the Master Chief that made an already loved character even deeper and more worth loving, which was a victory for fans of the franchise and for fans of deeper storytelling in games; in fact, their dynamic was I believe that title’s standout element over all others.

          All these cases go to show that while there may be a place for the titular solo hero in games, there is certainly a place for the hero who gets by with a little help from his or her friends, or at least, a friend. As the potential has grown for realism in games, the capability has grown to tell more meaningful stories through the presentation of more believable characters, and with that capability I believe there is an impetus that should be felt by more developers to create more games with these kind of dynamic critical companions. They can immerse us more in the worlds of games and create opportunities for fresh new gameplay elements in the process, making their continued and ever broader incorporation into new games we have yet to experience be something that will be a boon to all who are entertained by the medium.

          And Ellie, we’ll see you soon. ;)

[dysphoric-affect]

The Unrecognized Potential Of Voice Recognition In Games

          Imagine, for a moment, you are playing an RPG - perhaps the next Elder Scrolls, for example - and you go into a weapons shop. Inside, you approach the shopkeeper. The usual prompt to press “A” or “X” to interact pops up on the screen...but there’s another way. Your headset is on, microphone at the ready, and instead you say “Hello.” The game recognizes you are targeting that NPC and recognizes the word you said as an expression of greeting. “Hey there. Welcome to the Broken Shield, home of the finest weapons in the city. What can I interest you in?” You are interested in getting a new weapon, but, as is often the case with characters in RPG’s, there is a specific focus to your character’s playstyle: in this case, let’s say they only use axes. “Show me your axes,” you speak into the mic. The game recognizes you are wanting to buy from saying “show me,” then recognizes “axes” as a specific search interest, such that you are taken to a screen showing the shops available wares to buy, but pre-filtered to only show you the axes they have in stock, eliminating the visual clutter of searching through every other item they have. You spot an “Axe of the Tempest” which does some solid lightning damage with every hit. You have enough coin and decide to buy it, so you tell the shopkeeper “I’ll take the Axe of the Tempest.” “Take” is recognized as meaning you want to purchase something, and “Axe of the Tempest” clarifies the object of interest. With the game understanding this, the screen clears to a confirmation screen with just the Axe of the Tempest displayed and to the sound of jingling coin as you pay the shopkeeper replies, “Alright, here you are. Spill some worthy blood with it, eh?”

          Intrigued yet?

          Voice recognition to me has the greatest untapped potential of all the existing forms of immersion tech, yet confusingly has been largely disregarded in favor of motion controls and virtual reality. If you find my supporting immersion tech like this seemingly contradictory after my last article, allow me to clarify here: I do support the development of immersion tech and their implementation, I only caution developers and gamers against unrealistic expectations of what they can accomplish and in the case of developers specifically, ask that they show restraint in spite of whatever hype surrounds a technology and implement it intelligently.

          As long as expectations are grounded and immersion tech is integrated intelligently where it can truly enhance the experience, however, I strongly support development in immersion tech. There is one addendum I should add to that, though, which is I also feel too much stock has been put into motion controls and virtual reality at the expense of ignoring voice recognition, which has more to recommend it as an area for focus when it comes to immersion tech in gaming. That is the point I’m here to make today.

          There are three different costs imposed on gamers when it comes to any form of immersion tech which create barriers to such forms of immersion being embraced. The first is the “acquisition cost.” This is the literal cost to buy whatever hardware it is necessary to have in order to be able to use the tech in the first place. The second is the “effort cost.” This is the sacrifice that is imposed on the gamer in the process of using the tech, from the energy needed to use it, to the limitations on what they can do while using it. The last cost is the “training cost.” This is the time that has to be spent using the tech before using it becomes second nature, at which point the first two costs become more justified in the minds of players. In each of these, voice recognition is in a superior position to motion controls and VR.

          The acquisition cost for voice recognition is the cost of a gaming headset, or a more basic set of headphones that has a built in mic. While there are more expensive gaming headsets one can get, that is just an option among many more cost-effective ones. This is a sharp contrast to motion controls and VR - the latter especially - where the hardware cost is in the hundreds and for a singular option. Notably, headsets and headphones are typically hardware agnostic as well, so a set acquired could be used across all the various gaming consoles, giving them a more diverse utility that makes their cost of acquisition a better deal. Further, while headsets may be used for voice recognition, this isn’t the only or even the primary function they stand to be useful for, as they are an indispensable tool for voice communication between gaming friends and for coordination while engaged in online multiplayer gaming. This connects directly to the last and most significant point: cost is relative, because many gamers already possess the hardware anyway. That means for a gamer considering playing a game using voice recognition, the perceived cost will often be that it is free, as they are simply repurposing something they already owned and used for something else in a different way; this is a stark contrast to the other forms of immersion tech for which you most certainly won’t have the hardware you need laying around, making for an unavoidable perceived cost to engage with them.

          While more open to debate than the other two types of cost, I believe the effort cost is most agreeable with voice recognition over the other forms of immersion tech. With motion controls, the demand for physical action from players to engage with it can be a turn-off for those who are looking to game after an exhaustive day and looking to physically relax; this isn’t purely speculative, as we’ve seen precisely that be born out in the past with the Wii and PlayStation Move and Kinect. Virtual reality presents a different kind of problem but a problem nonetheless: the sense of constraint. When engaged in VR, because of its fundamental nature you are visually locked in and unable to do anything else unless you disengage from the experience entirely. This is what makes it so dynamic, to be sure, though it does also present a level of necessary disconnection from everything else around them that players don’t always want to have.

          Voice recognition imposes no such constraint and the physical effort is merely using your voice, which isn’t perceived as demanding in the first place to the extent the other forms are. Some of this is the inherent amount of effort required in speaking, but part of the equation is familiarity those playing games have with the process involved. Most are used to using headsets in their online play already, as many are also now familiar with using smart devices that utilize voice recognition as well, whether as simple as using the speech recognition option of the Google app on their phone or something more comprehensive, such as an Amazon Echo; there is some cross-over between the two things already even, as Xbox has some capability for voice control built in with the Cortana digital assistant and more recently the addition of support for Amazon’s Alexa. Collectively, these facts mean there is a sense of ease of approachability to using this tech that creates a solid foundation of support to be able to build integration into gameplay mechanics off of and be confident they will be embraced, if designed properly.

          All that remains to consider is the training cost as it applies to voice recognition and we hardly need to consider it long, because as alluded to in examining both the acquisition and effort costs, the majority of gamers have both already adopted the hardware necessary and are well versed in using it, which even in the first instance is never a very difficult thing to learn to make use of. With that being the case, there is no training cost at all for most, but in what few cases there are those interested in using such tech in gaming who don’t already make use of a headset, the training cost that they stand to face is so minimal as to be an irrelevant factor in speculation on the adoption rate of games which were to make use of voice recognition.

          What I’ve presented should make it evident, if it wasn’t self-evident enough already, that the costs of voice recognition as an immersion tech are low where they can be said to exist at all, and therefore that there is strong reason to consider focusing on integrating this kind of immersion tech into our gaming experiences more as far as consideration for how likely it would be to be supported is concerned.

          What I’ve addressed thus far only addresses the question of whether the tech can be justifiably supported for development. The question remains, I grant, “What can we do with it in gaming?” I’ve given an example at the beginning, but let’s take a deeper look at the potential now.

          As I see it, there are three different levels of sophistication voice recognition in gaming stands to achieve. The first would be what I call the scripted level. At this tier, player interaction would consist of reciting predetermined words, phrases and statements. For example, if multiple dialogue options were available, you could read off the one you wished to say and the game would register it; the option would still remain to press a button to select a highlighted option traditionally, though. This would further the feeling of roleplaying as the player character, with players being free to “act out” the delivery of the lines as they read them, though that wouldn’t be necessary and wouldn’t affect the nature of responses given by the NPC’s spoken to. Options like mentioned in the example at the start would be possible at this level, though in more simplified form than that. For instance, saying “filter” while shopping would trigger the filter option among the items, then saying a category to filter for among the limited pool of potential options in the game would narrow it down further still. Though this level could greatly increase a sense of immersion and ease of access to game features, it is also conceptually the most limited.

          Next, there would be the dynamic level. At this level, there would be a large pool of keywords in the game’s voice recognition library and it would be able to pick these specific words out of any larger statements the player made to understand their intent and respond appropriately. Words of greeting would be known to be used to start dialogue, names of specific characters, places and items would be understood to initiate quest-associated dialogue and in bartering scenarios, words expressing intent to buy or sell would engage the appropriate transaction type and further descriptions would quickly engage transacting on the appropriate specific items. They key concept to understand with this level is that players would be free to improvise their own lines of dialogue. This level is the kind referenced in the beginning example.

          In the case of quest-associated dialogue, which isn’t discussed in that example, let’s suppose you are given a quest by an NPC to kill a troll outside the city for a sum of gold and are told you can meet with their friend, an elf named Tolund, before doing so and he’ll aid you in the task. At this point there are many questions you could ask. The critical aspect here is that the game is only going to focus on key words and phrases, not everything you say, so you’re free to express yourself how you like in terms of the specific wording. So if you are wanting an exact location of Tolund or the troll, it will look for “where” being in your question, then look for one of those two subjects being said. If you say “where and “troll” in whatever statement you make, it will understand the player is wanting an exact location of the troll, and the NPC will respond appropriately in conversation as well as give you a quest marker on your map; similar results will occur if you named Tolund. If you want to know what the reward will be exactly, saying “how much” along with another word like ”gold” or “worth” will confer your intention to the game, and the NPC will respond by giving you an exact answer.

          Let’s say you then go and meet Tolund. He’ll otherwise treat you as a regular passerby, but if you mention the quest-giver’s specific name, the game will recognize you are wanting to trigger the quest-associated behavior from him and he’ll greet you accordingly, which will trigger new dialogue options with him and will trigger his following behavior in turn when you conclude the conversation with him. The possibilities beyond this are many, but would all use the same basic key terms framework to understand player intent. This is where the potential of the tech becomes much more fully realized and very immersive, as it takes away constraints on dialogue performance and allows players to speak more naturally.

          There would remain one limitation in the dynamic system, however: word choice would be recognized, but tone would not. This is where the emotive level would be different. At this level, not only would key terms be understood to trigger responses organically, how you spoke to someone would matter. This would coincide undoubtedly with a greater pool of words that would be recognized, including derogatory terms and names or terms of endearment. The simplest example of where this would make a difference would be in expression of sarcasm. Anything said sarcastically would be misunderstood if interpreted only based on the words in the statement. For example, if you told a guard “Thanks for everything you do” and only the words were understood, he’d have a positive reaction every time. In a dynamic system, it’s the only kind of response he would know how to have. In an emotive system, though, the intonation of the statement would be interpreted as well. If spoken sincerely, there you’d get the aforementioned positive reaction, maybe a “Thanks, hero” if your deeds were well known. If the game understood you meant the statement sarcastically, however, the guard would react negatively, maybe saying something like “The people may love you, but that doesn’t mean I do. I’ve got my eye on you.”

          Volume of tone is something else that would be interpreted and accounted for in this highest level system. If you were moving through a market and called “out of the way” normally, the first person in front of you might respond, but if you shouted it urgently or aggressively a whole swatch of people in front of you would turn to take notice and then part way for you. In a scenario dealing with an enemy encampment of some kind, you could lie in wait past the perimeter tree-line and call out to get a patrol’s curiosity up and lead him away to your position where you could take him out secretly. Or, if out wandering and not looking to have any surprises attack you without their approach being noticed, you could call out and instigate anything in the area to come attack. The possibilities for more realistic NPC interactions and new organic sound-based gameplay elements are only as limited as developers’ imaginations. Combined with the existing and improved upon elements of a dynamic system, these elements stand to collectively deepen immersion in a truly profound way well worth the effort to develop and support such systems.

          It should be noted, for the record, that though I only mention RPG’s as the backdrop for imagining the execution of these concepts, they certainly aren’t only applicable there; I mention that genre just because that’s where the greatest variety and depth achievable with such systems is possible in my estimation. There is great potential elsewhere, however. Imagine playing a future God of War, for those familiar with the latest entry in that series, and being able to issue a command to your son yourself, capped with your own grisly enunciation of “...BOY” and seeing that command be followed, furthering the sense of being Kratos. Any game with a strong component of interaction, whether with an ally in combat gameplay or NPC’s in “society” gameplay could benefit from its inclusion. It’s also not difficult to see the potential for stealth games with this, particularly where the volume of voice element is concerned. That alone could provide entirely new ways of approaching encounters that wouldn’t exist otherwise, or even in cases where they could, making them feel far more engaging and intense.

          With everything I’ve mentioned considered, I think the merits are readily apparent to why voice recognition is a form of immersion tech that deserves further development. What I’ve mentioned as examples above scarcely scratch the surface of what is surely possible if explored deeper. I say it’s time we start digging.

[dysphoric-affect]

On Immersion Tech Hype And The Need To Temper Expectations

          Nearly 15 years ago now, the air was buzzing with the promise of something that was going to make immersion in gaming transcend to the next level: motion controls. With the Nintendo Wii as it’s vanguard, the concept promised to deliver a sense of being there that simply pressing a button never could. Swing your arm and see your sword swung in the game, twist your hand and turn the doorknob in the game to enter the next area in it and so on and so forth. The possibilities, it seemed, were endless.

          There was an immediate capturing of the imagination that came with the advent of this concept, and not without reason. Indeed, doing these things were in many ways extremely satisfying and immersive. Besides the general freshness of such input as well as the deeper immersion promised by such tech to gamers, there was also the largely underestimated appeal that such a thing could hold for non-gamers, who would forever be too intimidated to learn a modern gaming control scheme but certainly intuited how to swing their arm like they were swinging a tennis racket in order to play a tennis game.

          As a gamer who wants to see the medium he adores reach an ever wider audience, that potential, which could quickly be seen being born out with the Wii, was extremely gratifying. The industry took notice as well, and it wasn’t long before we had the Kinect for Xbox and the Move for PlayStation as well. The future of gaming, it seemed, had arrived.

          Now, Nintendo has abandoned any comprehensive motion controls for their console, save basic tilt-sensing, Microsoft has abandoned the Kinect and any interest in a successor and the Move for PlayStation, initially abandoned before all the rest, has at least found some fresh life as a complement to the newest immersion tech trend, VR, being paired with Sony’s offering in that space. I’m looking at a set of those Move controllers in my own home right now, where they sit primarily collecting dust the majority of the time, a state of affairs common I know for other owners of the devices as well. It’s an odd and sad state to see “the future of gaming” in. So, where did it all go wrong?

          The fault, it seems to my perception, lies with both those who created games using such controls and those who played them alike, and for the same general reason: unrealistic expectations. On the developers side, there was a clear push made to make games either based around the tech or that incorporated it in some way, placing a great deal of faith in its promise. In practice, what this ended up amounting to however was poor utilization of it negatively affecting players’ experiences.

          One of the simplest but most prolific of such mistakes was overestimating how much players would be invested in simulating the physicality of game actions themselves, such as the aforementioned example of swinging a sword. While there was always an initial novelty to such things, at the end of the day many people getting on to play a game after a day of being busy are looking to relax more than the demand of such an input format allows, and as in many cases such motion input was the only option provided, the only recourse was to simply play something else which didn’t; in other words, turning interest away toward more traditional games.

          This particular issue was also exacerbated by the tendency many games made to integrate motion controls into mechanics wherever they could in a way that felt like it was without regard to whether it truly made sense. Whether this was the basic annoyance of having to use motion control for something simple enough that a traditional input would have been preferred, or it was a case where the effort to saturated the game with motion inputs led to usages that didn’t feel refined and were unsatisfying as a result, the end result was the same: rather than feeling invited to something more immersive, they felt forced to do something more complicated and put off of such experiences accordingly.

          This, of course, didn’t have to be a foregone conclusion of how the experience of playing games using that tech would play out. Metroid Prime 3 was an excellent example of what it could be capable of, done right. Motion controls for that game were utilized for a limited set of gameplay mechanics, the feel of each was smartly designed, intuitive and satisfying to perform and there were none that felt overly physically taxing for a player who wanted to relax and play at the same time. This went to show the problem wasn’t inherent in the nature of the tech, but instead was an issue with the manner of implementation

          All of that granted, as I noted earlier a fair share of fault lies with the gaming community. Many modern gamers - rather often, to my chagrin - tend to be fickle creatures and seem to have a mentality of “if at first you don’t succeed, don’t try again” and tend to give up interest on newer concepts that don’t give them the instant and consistent gratification they had imagined and hoped it would have in their mind. Whether in tech or in entertainment, areas which video games lie at the crossroads between, failure will be part of the equation as new ideas are explored. Presuming because of some failure that a concept has no merit and is perpetually destined to fail is to my thinking incredibly naïve, and keeps the industry from being able to move forward as it hesitates and fails to take risks accordingly, which only serves to stagnate the creative potential of the industry. Gamers do have some clear ownership of such failures in the industry in that respect.

           It seems that these lessons were lost - or rather, never learned in the first place - as right after motion controls fell from grace, modern VR emerged. Gaming journalists hailed it as “the future of gaming,” high-profile industry figures left long-standing positions for others where they could work on development with it and the gaming community became aquiver with excitement for this new tech’s potential for greater immersion.

          Right beside the PlayStation Move controls I mentioned earlier, there is a PlayStation VR headset, collecting dust in kind. I have an Oculus Go headset as well, though I never use it for gaming specifically. You already know where this is going, I’d wager.

          Of course, VR isn’t obsolete in the way motion controls have become, but the revolution so many assured would come, I think it is safe to say, hasn’t arrived. The tech has brought some unique and quality gaming experiences, but as with motion controls before, it hasn’t been able to live up to the lofty expectations set for it. Part of this is simply the fact that as with physical gestures, gamers don’t want to strap something to their head every time they play. There is a subtle freedom to not being bound to a piece of tech and essentially stuck where you are you get to enjoy with more traditional gaming which you come to notice once you’ve tried VR at some length. This serves to make this new tech like motion control tech before it: immersive, yes, but best in more limited doses, and I think not meant to replace a more traditional format as the new de facto means of experiencing games.

          There are other more nuanced issues as well. The most noteworthy of these to me is the mutual exclusivity of immersion elements when it comes to first-person experiences with VR. For those who don’t know, earlier efforts to do first-person experiences were a failure, inducing extreme nausea in participants. The problem causing that, it turned out, was specifically with moving around normally in first-person. Because of the way the human mind works, the disconnection of feeling your body sitting or standing in one spot but perceiving visually as though you are moving around is something we just aren’t built to be able to do, hence the negative reaction we physically feel. First-person is the format within which VR stands to be most immersive conceptually, however, and so a solution was reached: automatic or player-based teleporting to different locations to move within VR game worlds.

          This creates the mutual exclusivity I alluded to in respect to the fact that the immersion VR offers requires the sacrifice of normal movement, the lack of which takes away a simple but important element of realism to the first-person experience. To put it more plainly, you can have the realism of normal movement or you can have the realism of full visual immersion, but you can’t have both. As much as such visual immersion can be profound, the sacrifice of realistic movement it demands puts a permanent restraint upon it that prevents it from becoming the norm of first-person experiences.

          With these things being the case, we find ourselves in the state of the industry in relation to VR that we now do, which is not dissimilar to what was the case for motion controls in their heyday: a handful of really solid experiences, but a majority of middling experiences and less successful experimentation as well as a general tendency by gamers at large to spend the majority of their time playing in a more traditional format. This isn’t to say that VR is facing the same fate imminently as its predecessor in immersion trends, as it seems to continue to enjoy some solid support. Nonetheless, the unbridled optimism it did enjoy has clearly become more tempered as the realities of trying to develop games utilizing it have become apparent.

          A few facts clearly emerge from the stories of both these trends. One is that regardless of what new developments are made in immersion, at the end of the day there will always not only be a place for a more traditional gaming experience, but a dominant place at that. Any presumption made that a new immersion tech will supplant the traditional experience is one ignorant of history and bound for disappointment. It is fine to pursue such developments for their own sake - I think they are critically important, in fact - but setting that kind of expectation is overly optimistic, and for that matter setting any specific expectation on how these things will perform is a mistake. However promising the new tech may be, I would caution those developing such tech to not assume they’ve reinvented the wheel, or that the wheel needs to be in the first place.

          The second fact is that developers need to exercise more restraint and think critically about the proper applications of immersion tech if they see the potential and want it to be able to succeed. Don’t build experiences around it because the concept is getting a lot of attention, build one because the idea you have for the experience is great for its own sake and you have the resources to deliver on the quality within that idea. Further, with the specific applications of a given tech, take care in how it’s applied. Apply it where it makes a meaningful difference, and take care to finally tune the quality of the interactions that use it to where it is consistently satisfying. Applying it arbitrarily and in haphazard fashion because you hope to cash in on the hype surrounding it only leads to a poor quality product that’s disrespectful to the potential players and frankly increases the likelihood of the tech’s eventual failure, or at least decline. Any new, exciting tech, essentially, should in practice be treated just like any other more ordinary tool and used where appropriate and handled with reservation. This will be the key to real success with it in the long run.

          The final fact - and here I’m wary that I may be wasting my time, but the point should be made regardless - is that gamers need to lower their expectations and practice a more cautious optimism, and along with that practice having greater patience. Brand new things are rarely perfect in their first iterations and what they represent shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand because they didn’t confer the immediate gratification that was desired. Too often in modern culture such instant gratification tends to be the expectation, and when you place such high hopes you are at least as much complicit in the resulting disappointment as those who created the games in question, because you own the mindset that enabled such disappointment to take place in the first place.

          Further, once such things have fallen short, we should continue to support work being done with the tech so that we can get better experiences that more fulfill the potential with time. Constructive feedback should be given on what works and is liked and what didn’t and that we disliked. This will allow the later efforts to have a needed maturity to them and bring to the table ever closer achievements to what we imagined could be done in the first place. That means NOT moving on and forgetting about them. Our perspective needs to change toward investing in the future rather than expecting to win the lottery right now. If we do that, eventually we will see the payoff. However...

          There’s that old saying that those who don’t learn from history are destined to repeat it, and that saying is certainly a salient one to invoke when it comes to the question of immersion trends in the video game industry, as we’ve already seen born out. I feel there’s still considerable cause to be concerned that the video game industry and global gaming community are liable to repeat these same aforementioned mistakes going forward as new possibilities emerge, not even just for immersion elements, but across the whole spectrum of gaming-related developments. The purpose of this article is to make my own small contribution toward curbing that occurrence, but it will take more voices than my own, so if you care about this subject yourself, use your own voice in whatever capacity you can, however simple the form that takes.

          One final thought about such immersion tech: whatever form this takes in a way that can be experienced in the home going forward, I think they will always full short of the their full potential in that format, short of a more comprehensive experience, both in their individual sophistication and in their combination with other kinds of such tech. To that end, I think the real future of immersion technology lies outside of our homes. That’s why I here would like to call for the eventual return of the arcade as a more common institution, but modernized to make the new focus integrating all of these various forms of immersion tech into the experiences provided with the games in them.

          Unlike in our homes where we have to make such tech work with the space we have available, in a modern arcade the reverse could be true, with the space designed to accommodate the tech. A gaming station with the ideal dimensions and hardware to operate with and integrating all the various immersion tech together could provide a wholly unique and satisfying experience separate from the traditional gaming experience found at home, in the process providing an avenue for gamers to be able to meet in real life rather than exclusively online and bond together more directly. Just picture it: discovering local gamers who share your tastes and forging new friendships as you take on experiences that integrate virtual reality, motion control, voice recognition and possibly more sophisticated tech like temperature and other atmospheric simulation. This would give great new opportunities for the two things I believe all gamers are seeking: great entertainment and great community.

          There’d be difficulties in getting that sort of thing underway, naturally, and it would require a great deal of support, but I’m confident those who tried to create such neo-arcades would find more than enough support from the broader community to be successful. Here’s hoping this will be a new part of the gaming landscape in the near future.

[dysphoric-affect]

A Reflection On Narrative Power vs. Player Agency In Games

          As a lifelong gamer, my history playing them has of course been filled with amazing moments, or else I wouldn't be as passionate about them as I am. However, there are few moments that I would say have had a deep impact on me, that have transcended the everyday experience we'd expect from them and given me a whole new respect for the medium and what it's capable of. One of the greatest of these for me came from BioShock, which along with a litany of other things that title did right serves to make it one of my favorite games of all time, and one of the personal greater influences on me as an aspiring game designer myself.

          That moment came in the form of my first couple encounters with Little Sisters in the game. Traditionally, in RPG's I've favored the evil choices my first play-through, I suppose mostly to enjoy a contrast from the demand to be a moral rule-abider in real life and the necessity of playing the good hero in all other games that don't provide such choices; in other words, as a way to more fully embrace the escapist potential within games taking such a form. However, when I encountered the narrative display of a little girl in terror struggling pathetically to get away from me, that predilection of mine I mentioned was given pause. Whatever subtle alien features that character had because of the presence of the parasite within her, she was still first and foremost in my mind an innocent and helpless child, and by extension a being deserving of moral consideration.

          It seemed such a strange notion: the real world was for having moral pause and giving moral consideration, and games were for a freer expression of free will and choice than reality permits us to take, whether because of our own personal moral convictions or simply an awareness of and fear of repercussions were we to act more freely, from social stigma to outright punishment. Yet there I was with a feeling in some ways more alien to me than the fictional ailment afflicting the girl.

          While I didn't fully comprehend and contemplate the significance of what was occurring to me in that moment until later reflection, the end result was the same: I saved the Little Sister. I never felt so validated from making the morally upright choice in a game as I did following that, when the newly healed child thanked me, the observing doctor did the same, voice full of a subtle but palpable undertone of emotion, and the girl scampered up to the safety of the vent in the wall, struggling in her efforts still, but now purely out of the physical difficulty of doing so as a child rather than having anything to do with fear of me. I understood, and I felt, that she knew I was her protector and that she was safe with me. As she struggled I approached, looking for a way I could help, and even when it was clear there was nothing I could do and that she would automatically make it up on her own, I still liked to imagine as my view tracked her progress that her finding her footing and getting up the rest of the way was because I had caught her and given her the gentle boost she needed, whether or not my arms actually appeared to do those things. I felt a rare kind of power in games, and it had nothing to do with leveling up, perks, skill trees, loot or upgrades. Understand, though, this isn't the profound impact I referenced at the start: this is just one of the layers to it.

          Not long after this, I ran into my second Little Sister. This time, however - my previous experience notwithstanding - my traditional nature got the better of me. I had none of the playful malevolent intent that would accompany my making evil choices in other RPG's typically. I simply knew the general rewards for harvesting were supposed to be greater than for saving, which had its basic appeal of course from the gameplay perspective, and beyond that was intellectual curiosity as to what exactly would happen when I made that choice. So choose to harvest I did.

          It's strange...I've long considered not displaying dead children or having the killing of children be depicted in games as a lamentable restriction on artistic expression within the medium, keeping things too sterile instead of having honest representation of the dark reality of something that can occur or even has occurred within the game's world. In spite of that, I found BioShock's solution to be more unnerving in a way: the girl just disappeared completely. I knew what had actually occurred, but there was no sign that she had existed. This had an arguably stronger impact, because in the aftermath I had my previous experience from saving one to contrast it with, which meant I was readily aware that there should be a face there, innocence there, hope there...and I had deleted all of that. My reward? The number of something that would improve my character progression was higher. In any other scenario in an RPG, that numerical boost would count for a lot. In that moment, though, it felt so arbitrary and meaningless.

          I remember that I paused the game to come to grips with the situation. I wasn't emotional in the sense that I wanted to cry, but I felt extremely unsettled. I scrambled mentally to figure out what to do, though there was little that could be done. Progress got saved automatically. There was no taking it back. Perhaps I should move on? But I didn't want to. I felt like the specter of that decision would weigh on me the remainder of my time playing. Even if I only ever saved the Little Sisters from then on, I knew there would be that one stain on my record, and just as you notice the one stain on an otherwise white sheet first rather than how pure the rest of it is, so too did I know that would be the only choice that mattered to me, in a way. I hesitated a moment longer, and then decided to do something I'd never done before in a new game I'd just started playing: I quit, I deleted my save, and I started over. I saved the first Little Sister, I - with satisfaction - corrected my previous mistake and saved the second, and for the rest of that play-through and every play-through that came after that, I only ever saved each and every Little Sister.

          When I reflected on it later - something I've done a number of times since then, actually - I fully processed and appreciated what had occurred. I had been offered freedom of choice, but the power of what was presented in narrative to me made me willfully reject that choice. That is an incredibly profound accomplishment, when you think about it. That freedom of choice, that agency, is the one thing that separates the stories of games from any other medium. While the macro events of the story may be predetermined, the moment to moment experience is left to the player. At the least this encompasses the specifics of the actions that occur within the enemy encounters, but at most this can include choices that influence the look of the world and the fate of its characters, as we find within RPG's. Whatever their particulars from game to game, this is one aspect that all storytelling games include as a hook that separates them from movies, television shows, and books: you can have influence. To then convince a participant to deny themselves that privilege because they've connected personally to a character, or to the moral nature of the situation they find themselves in...in no truer sense I think can the narrative of a game be said to transcend the medium than in a moment such as this.

          Recently, I was re-watching Ken Levine's "Narrative Legos" GDC talk where he outlined the vision for what the studio hopes to accomplish with their next project after moving on from the BioShock franchise, and something stuck out to me that hadn't as much the first time. Near the very end of the presentation, after outlining how these dynamic and emergent narrative elements could be integrated into the gameplay loop of player progression and rewards, he mentions how once the general mechanics for such a system are in place, one of the challenges from there from a narrative perspective is creating narrative around characters powerful enough that when it comes to picking who you ally yourself with, while certain characters would yield more beneficial gameplay rewards, the player would feel temptation to side with someone else simply because they like them better. This directly harkens back to the dynamics used in BioShock I've been talking about in the general sense - pitting powerful narrative impetus against player agency - and that it was not only mentioned, but mentioned as a final subject within that talk tells me that this is still a concept that's of pivotal interest to their studio. This gets me very excited, not just for what the creators of BioShock will create next, but more broadly for the future of narrative-driven games in general.

          For a long time, achieving realism and immersion in gaming has revolved around the basic sensory experiences of it, such as graphics and sound. When there was such a large discrepancy between what they presented us and what we would expect to see in reality, this was a sensible focus to place effort into. Now, however, the lines separating games from photorealism and so forth are thin, where they are possible to even see, and so the focus has started to shift elsewhere. Motion controls and virtual reality have taken the stage in more recent time as where the next focus ought to be to attain that next level of realism and immersion, and perhaps this is rightly so...to an extent. When all is said and done, however, I believe the final horizon of achieving realism and immersion lies beyond any such sensory experiences and rests finally in the power of the narratives crafted for our games. Whether in the strength of the characters within the stories, or the impact of the themes and moral issues throughout them that we're confronted with, the narrative will ultimately be the true final threshold on the way toward connecting players deeply to the experience in the case of any game where a story is being told.

          Does this mean every game needs a story, or that every one that does has to say something meaningful about the human condition or wax philosophical? No. But I do mean that there is certainly a place for this, and to my mind it is a largely untapped place, both within the industry's creative capabilities on the one hand and within the hearts of fans of the medium on the other. My hope is that between this article and the general sentiment and efforts of others, more of this kind of risk-taking narrative ingenuity will be encouraged, because there is still so much more of it yet to be had and enjoyed. And so, to those who created BioShock, I say thank you...and I'm paying attention. My question to other developers in turn out there is...are you?

-

[dysphoric-affect]

Ode To Smash, Part 2: The Needed Resurrection Of Couch Multiplayer

          With the release of the newest Super Smash Bros. game, a person can find no shortage of content to keep them busy playing by themselves, even considering only the replay value inherent in the game's design, never mind everything there is to be unlocked beyond that. Yet, as I recently had a friend sit down with me for a session of matches together, I found myself affirmed of something I had already anticipated about what the game would offer, something so simple, yet increasingly rarely found in the world of gaming these days: the fun of couch multiplayer.

          This, of course, isn't a groundbreaking feature in the world of gaming, nor in this series in particular especially, as each entry has offered it. Sharing a screen for co-op or multiplayer goes back as far as home console gaming goes, back to when a green plumber took over after a red one took an unceremonious plummet to his death. Here again, in the same sense I referred to in my last post, we run into the promise and pitfalls of modern online gaming. With the interconnectedness modern online gaming through our consoles has brought us, in many ways gamers have been brought closer together. Certainly, fans of the same game have been granted a unique opportunity to team up or square off who never would have had the chance otherwise, and that is an amazing thing. Anything that can bring the gaming community closer is generally to be lauded in my opinion.

          However, this is more true in the macrocosmic sense. We are more enabled to play with those beyond the scope of where we live in the world, and that is the true power online inter-connectedness brings. With this, however, has come an unfortunate tendency to lean on that convenience like a crutch, to the point that with time more and more people have come to use that capability in the more microscopic sense that it was never wholly suited for: as a way to play with friends. There is some useful potential there, of course, whether in the case of younger friends who aren't able to travel to visit each other because of their dependency on rides, or older friends for whom one is having to stay home to look after their children and can't manage having company over directly because of it. In those kind of situations, online multiplayer can be a positive force. What I'm specifically critiquing are those situations where people easily could meet up, but can't. Too often friends who could spend time together are agreeing to meet online instead, and that's the point that concerns me.

          I've said before that the criticism long made of gaming by the uninitiated in the culture at large of not being sociable and needing to get out and  interact with people ignores the actual power gaming can have to literally bring people together, and that defense of mine is still true...though it doesn't get the reinforcement it should these days. As people depend on digital connection more and more, that old trope by the culture gains weight. Of course, gaming is a bigger phenomenon now, to the point that we don't even see those criticisms of it offered as much. While that is a welcome change, there is something of a trade off in that we seem to be living down to that old critique as we've become more insulated from outside attack as a community.

          Indeed, with social media and smart device, interest in general in connecting with others directly seems to be at an all-time low in human history. I'll not get into the broader subject of the implications this has philosophically for humanity - though there is much there I could talk about - and keep the focus here on gaming, though my conclusion for focusing on this aspect is much the same as it is about that broader trend: it's a negative one, one we should be encouraging ourselves away from.

          Why meet up in-person to play when we can so much more easily online? I feel the best argument for the former isn't an argument at all or anything that takes the form of words: simply do it. The experience itself is the argument. It justifies what I'm advocating for better than any eloquent paragraphs of mine ever will. There is a very unique magical component to the experience that is gaming as a whole that can only be found in being together in the same room with others, playing the same game, at the same time, together. You feel it more than you can describe it. Once you've had it, you understand and can't deny its' power. In my opinion, those who've enjoyed it before who have come to depend more on online connection don't actually take much prompting to want to have that kind of experience again, provided a decent opportunity.

          Unfortunately, this is an opportunity denied too often anymore on the side of the game developers and that is the main point of my critique here today. I've seen many catering to this trend, as though every instinctive impulse gamers have should be accommodated to ensure their attention, but I feel that is excessive and pointless: if your game is well-designed, they will come and they will stay. The convenience of online play is hardly necessary to make players want to play: for many years that wasn't even a concept to us, yet we played all the same. Sometimes lack of shared screen support isn't offered from the ground-up, but even more disappointing is seeing existing franchises change toward not supporting it where they once did.

          Halo 5 is a stand-out example here, and for all I may love that franchise I have to make a well-deserved critique here. With it, the decision was made to focus on enhancing the experience for a single player on a given console as best as possible, and cut local split-screen support for story co-op or multiplayer as the trade-off. In doing so, though, we saw an interesting thing happen: a passionate outcry against it, one my friends and I share in on and have lamented on our rare get-togethers, favoring playing the older entries because of the inability to play the newest that way. Split-screen multiplayer has been in that series blood since its' inception, which is quickly approaching 20 years ago, and to strip it away wasn't the best-calculated decision for the series. Online connectedness is surely the main thing that counts in modern gaming, though...right?

          No. That outcry emphasizes the point I'm here to make. There is still a desire out there for couch multiplayer. It's a desire that goes beyond that concept being a staple feature in a long-running series, too. It's a desire inherent in the gaming experience, and developers forget that and exclude it at their peril. To 343's case where Halo is concerned, they've at least recognized their error as such and have very publicly emphasized every entry in the series from now on will offer split-screen multiplayer support. While this is great news, I'm hopeful there will be less need to correct these mistakes and more of simply seeing that functionality be provided in the first place. With the release of the newest Smash, we now have as current an example as possible that a desire for couch multiplayer is perfectly alive and well. It will never be as strong as it was when it was the only option, but nor is it, or will it ever be weak, either.

          I would challenge more developers to keep this in mind, where a cooperative story mode or multiplayer in general in their games are concerned and include this feature in their titles to come. Include it and as best they can, encourage it. Online gaming is great in many ways, but couch gaming has a special ingredient it never will: the human element. No trends in gaming will take away the appeal of it. It deserves its' chance to shine, for all our sakes. My hope is to be blinded by that shine more in the future.

[dysphoric-affect]

Ode To Smash, Part 1: A Lament For Lack Of Content-Rich Games

          As we sit on the verge of the release of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, I find myself still doing a figurative double-take at the sheer amount of content in store along with it. Over 70 fighters, 100 stages and 1,000 collectibles...this isn't just a figure that's impressive for Smash. It's a figure that's impressive for gaming, period. No fighter is comparable in this amount of content. Hell, no game is comparable in this amount of content, at least with respect to their multiplayer side and the character and map counts to be found. The particularly profound point to me though is that this is comparing Ultimate at-launch to other games on the market post-release of all their DLC. Of course, the vast majority of that content in Smash isn't immediately accessible. It'll have to be unlocked. But, it can be unlocked in-game, for free, simply by playing it. This is a thing nowadays nearly unheard of, never mind on the scale of what Smash is doing, and this is the point I want to draw attention to today.

          The advent of DLC in the modern age of gaming can and has been a boon in many ways. The ability to inject fresh life into games post-launch with new stories for single-player titles or new maps and modes for more multiplayer-centric titles is a great way to keep player investment strong in a particular game, or a larger franchise as a whole where applicable. Not having to wait for the next major release in a series for new content associated with it is a great way to render some fan service and keep fans dedicated. Frankly, on the developer side it can be a boon as well, as content-cutting to ensure a game's timely release is a reality - and undoubtedly an all-too-common one - for so many developers, and post-launch DLC can provide an avenue to still include wanted features in a title that can't quite make the base game's deadline. All these respects present strong positives for the potential of the concept.

          There is a substantial downside, though, which any of us who have been gaming for some time can see. It's been precipitous, but as more and more time has gone by with access to post-launch DLC as a tool, developers have started to include less and less content in-game as unlockable, trading player investment in a title for player cash to receive such content automatically. I'm not here today to go into a nuanced critique of paid DLC, micro- transactions and loot boxes - that will be the topic of another day - but simply to address the point that things don't have to be this way. The prevailing notion seems to be that we are getting a much greater deal of content for games now to expand them beyond what's offered at-launch, and that paid DLC is the only way developers can offer all this content in the first place and is therefore the way things must be. This common misconception belies the reality that we did get a great deal of content before in many older titles, showing developers clearly could handle offering it: it's just the form of delivery has changed, from play-based in-game unlocks to pay-based out-game unlocks.

          As I already said, however, this new form has many merits, so my critique here isn't that it shouldn't be used at all. It's a question of degree. It seems to me that use of this new form has been pursued to excess in many cases and developers have ignored that the old system of play-based in-game unlocks hasn't lost its merits. That merit isn't one of nostalgia, because if it were purely based on longing for a feel of gaming's yesteryear, we wouldn't have enjoyed that content acquisition dynamic when that yesteryear was our present. We enjoyed it then because it's simply a good system. There's a strong incentive on replay value and an excitement that gets created as a gamer knowing that there's content there to be explored that you have to play to get to. This connects to something fundamental and intrinsic about the gaming mentality we all have who play, so isn't something that's subject to change, and therefore retains its appeal now and will continue to retain it going into the future. Getting older won't make those of who've played games for a long time lose interest in that dynamic, and being younger won't make those newer to gaming immune to the charm of it.

          In essence, this post is an appeal to the developers out there to keep these facts in mind and create more natively content-rich games like Smash. If you want to use DLC to enhance the experience post-launch, fine - even the newest Smash is doing that, its' starting content amount notwithstanding - just don't forget the virtue of including lots of content in your games from the start, too. It should go without saying, but each game is different, so I don't think there's a golden ratio on launch content to post-launch content here that the industry should aspire to, or even one that should apply to all games within a given genre; to use the example of the day, what works for the newest Smash isn't what will make sense or work for every other fighting game. At least take the extra time to consider what that balance should be for your game, though, and where it does stand to fit, give us more of the play-based in-game content unlocks, whatever that content may be. When you give us more content from the start, you earn yourself more love and respect for what you made, and assure all the more that we'll be coming back for what you offer later as well. Give that more of a chance, and we'll all win in the end.

[dysphoric-affect]

Where I Am, And Where We're Going

          Video games are one of the greatest passions of my life - and the passion I plan to make a career out of - so when the thought crossed my mind of starting a blog on the subject I was immediately excited about the potential. There's so much to contemplate and talk about, from the games we have now and the state of the industry as it is, to the games that will or could be and what the future has in store as the industry marches forward, evolving constantly as it does so. A multitude of ideas came to mind for what to write about first as soon as I had this idea, so narrowing down which to focus on first was something of a daunting task. I finally realized that before I got into anything more specific, it'd be best for me to simply share my personal story when it comes to games: how I got to where I am now in my passion for them, why I am so passionate about them and the future I'm pursuing with them. Hopefully, this will provide some context as I discuss them in greater depth later.

          I got into games at a very young age; in fact, I honestly can't remember ever having not had them as part of my life in some capacity. My earliest memories include them and they've been a constant factor in my life since, though the gravity of their importance and the weight of their presence has naturally grown since them. I feel I'm fortunate in the timing of my coming in to the world in relation to them, as I first became capable of playing them at the zenith of the NES and original Super Mario Bros popularity, which was undeniably one of the formative combinations of hardware and software that gained games a broad appeal and allows the industry to exist on the scale it does today.To put it a different way, I became aware of and involved with them at the moment the rest of the world did. Obviously, there was history for the industry prior to that point, but it was a crucial turning point and to have been exactly in time for its occurrence is one of the greater strokes of fortune I've had in my life when it comes to that passion.

          The first console I had was a Gameboy Pocket, and even now I remember the sense of wonder that came from first coming to possess such a thing. There was a special sense of magic that came from turning it on each time, from that sense of limitless promise it had to produce stories and happiness from nowhere at all. In the midst of all the critical analysis we make now that the industry is so robust as to what stories and gameplay are quality, of the appropriate valuation of DLC and the proper usage of microtransactions and countless other facets that compose the landscape of what gaming now is, I feel it would behoove us every now and then to stop and try to remember that sense of wonder, because I find if you look for it, it's still there to be found.

          There are many flaws in different individual games and many flaws in the industry in general that stand to be improved upon, and those should be noted and discussed - I intend to do that myself here - but the magic games can produce isn't gone, however hard that might be to see through the haze of what I call the "critical culture." That magic is not only still there, it's grown immeasurably and stands to grow further still and dwarf what we now have, even. When we don't see that forest for the trees, we only lose as gamers. I don't always succeed at keeping this in mind the way I should myself, but I have made a commitment to do my best to throughout the rest of my gaming life and thinking back on that initial wonder now inspires that commitment once more, the same as it should for us all in our own way.

          While all games in general inspired my affection, there were of course those that had greater impact. The first that really made me fall in love with them in a deeper way - perhaps you see this coming because of the first console I said I owned - were the original Pokémon games. I knew games could be fun, but with them I had my first experience of truly getting lost in another world and in the process, I came to appreciate the power of player choice in gaming and the amount of time games can elicit thought about them even when you aren't playing them.

          With more time, I also came to have my first sense of the power games can have to create community, as I saw many classmates also get into Pokémon. That ability for games to serve as a nexus around which relationships can be formed is such a powerful thing to my mind and its significance can't be overstated. Indeed, most of the close friendships I've developed in my life can have their origins traced to discussion about a specific game or gaming in general. The potential for that sort of thing to occur has grown exponentially since the birth of online gaming, but the real advent of that aspect of gaming in my life came from those particular titles.

          The original Super Smash Bros was the next to have a large impact. While the Pokémon games had their ability to interact even at their earliest stage, it was with Smash that I got my first taste of truly competitive multiplayer gaming: that special magic unique to being there playing a single game with other people, trying to react the quickest and be the best among them and doling out no small share of friendly trash talk in the process. It's become harder to arrange such an event as the years have gone by, but on the occasion I've been able to arrange such a thing here and there, I've always been struck by the fact that this particular bit of gaming related magic has never lost its luster.

          Any time I've heard the erroneous critique of gaming as being some king of fundamentally antisocial activity, I think to these times, the laughs and good-natured insults and sheer fun I've personally shared with others and I find all the evidence I need to know those making such claims have never attempted to explore gaming themselves or given it a fair chance at least, because - and this is only more true now than ever - you can't delve far into gaming without finding yourself among a crowd. This ability gaming has to bring people together is a special virtue that doesn't get brought up or lauded as much as it should, because it's something truly special.

          And then, there was the first Halo. It reaffirmed the magic of multiplayer with your friends in so many ways for me, of course, but the really special aspect for me was in the story, especially delivered from its first-person perspective. I had played games with stories and games in first-person, but Halo executed on the mix of the two to perfection. It marked the first time I came to fully process and appreciate what makes games so unique a form of storytelling: the participatory element. Unlike stories in movies or television or books, the necessity of participation in games' stories to have their events move forward conveys the sense that the story is happening to you and that you in turn are causing the story to happen in that other world, rather than being a mere witness. This isn't to chastise other forms of storytelling, it should go without saying, but it does give a special kind of immersion unique to the medium of games. Those critical of gaming in general, or at least of its ability to tell stories effectively, miss this particularlsalient fact about them.

          Experiencing narrative from a first-person perspective, as with Halo, provides another layer of immersion beyond that. Even books, for all the details they can capture of the protagonist's thoughts and sensations that are unique to that medium, can't replicate the sensation of having the other characters in the story seem to look you in the eye by extension of looking the protagonist in theirs. The sense of personal connection to that world's characters derived from this and connection to the protagonist themselves through whom you have these vicarious experiences is a powerful thing. There are any number of other little details that make up a story that take on an entirely different character and have a sense of significance you would otherwise never feel when a story is experienced this way. In general, that commonality of the character's visual perspective being analogous to your own in real life creates a sense of placement in the game's story that is hard to describe completely, but very much felt for those doing so.

          My grandfather was fond of the saying, "Find out what you love to do and find a way to make money doing it, and you'll never work a day of your life." Of course, even pursuing a loved passion, you can't avoid days it is more toil than triumph to be sure, but the saying was never meant to be so literal. The general point still stands: since work is such a big part of most of our lives, if you want to make your life feel fulfilling, make your work fulfilling and it will go a long way toward that. This was something that started to come to mind for me more as I began my high school years, maybe not consciously per-say, but somewhere under the surface. I knew I was at a turning point with the near-future prospect of graduating and going on to do something meaningful with my life, and with that came a recognition that I either needed to dial it back on the gaming focus and figure out what I could make a future out of, or I needed to figure out how to make that passion into a career, but how that could come about eluded me.

          It seems ridiculous in a way to me now, but the idea of getting into game design never occurred to me for some time. For whatever reason, I had this notion almost like video games just appeared from the ether. I knew this wasn't the case practically speaking, but it wasn't a field you heard discussed like so many other career options so there was no sense of what a career path into that industry would entail, or what the first step would be, even. Then, one day, I went to an event hosted by a specialty college with a technology focus through the gifted program I was in, and one of the degree programs they presented that they offered was in game design. The proverbial light went on upstairs and I fully realized and accepted the possibility of my passion for games being something I could make a future out of after all.

          With time, I abandoned interest in going the college route and decided it would be best for me and my sensibilities to follow in the footsteps of the veterans I respected in the industry and teach myself. A long period went by where I didn't give my career goals the attention they deserved, however. Then came a longer period where poor life choices I made ensured making most practical forms of progress toward that were impossible, but in the midst of that I regained my focus on what I hoped to achieve and made immense strides in developing my concepts for future projects. By the time I was again in a position to make more practical steps on my career path, Epic Games had released Unreal Engine 4 to the public to develop in freely, so this is where I chose to focus my self-education.

          For some time I had assumed I would just learn Unity as the de facto beginner's engine of choice for most, but the draw of Unreal was and remains two-fold. The first is the fact that it is an industry-standard engine for game creation, including the creation of AAA-scale titles. I felt and continue to feel it's important I be developing skills that are immediately transferable to that scale of development environment, because I know the projects I ultimately want to create will demand such an environment to be attainable. Besides the immediate transferability for its own sake, frankly that idea also has large appeal because the aforementioned poor choices I made have guaranteed I'm not as far along my path as I'd like to be at this point in my life, so any leaps I can take to stepping stones further down that path which I can make without sacrificing the acquisition of knowledge I'll need to succeed are naturally the most preferable methods for me.

          The other big draw of UE4 is the inherent challenge of learning such a complex engine as a novice to game development. That challenge is daunting, but unlike others I've seen who found that challenge too daunting to attempt, I saw the chance for a trial by fire, to have my limits pushed in a way that could make me a better developer in the long run. Besides the practical utility of learning an industry-standard engine faster, I saw the promise of preparing me mentally and emotionally for the challenges that would inevitably come whenever I am working on AAA-scale titles, especially in the process of actualizing my own concepts. While I don't expect familiarizing myself with such challenges to fully prepare me for that time or to eliminate those stresses later on - I don't imagine anything can entirely prepare me for that - I do expect it can serve to harden me and give me the resolve I need to push through and ultimately finish the projects in question. That tempering of my will I expect in many ways will prove as valuable as the practical skills of learning a game engine itself.

          Looking back, I'm grateful for what the period I wasn't able to make practical progress gave me, because besides the general return of focus on my goals, it taught me a couple important things about myself I needed to learn. One was to really trust in the potential of my ideas and explore them fully to see where they lead. I found when I put the seeds of those ideas in the soil and tilled it, figuratively speaking, I was amazed to see how much was able to grow out of them I didn't know I had within myself.

          The other development was a refining of my understanding of where my specific passions within game design lay: for me, narrative direction and systems design. I've loved games where there was no story to speak of and enjoyed them merely on the merits of the gameplay they had, or even in games with stories found a love all its own for the multiplayer side and its gameplay-driven focus. I know for certain, however, that gameplay alone isn't where my particular interests are. What intrigues me about games enough to want to make them myself is the ability to tell stories within them because of their unique immersive potential, so tapping into that potential is a major driving force for me.

          This isn't to make light of the gameplay aspects, however, which is where the interest in systems design comes in. As I've played games over the years, I feel I've not only gotten adept at understanding what gameplay systems have and haven't worked in a nuanced way, but beyond that have gotten a sense of what ideas existing series should tap into that they haven't yet. Further still, I feel I can see the potential for ideas that bend or break the conventions of traditional game design that, as I look around at what's been offered both past and present, I can't find standing examples of. These merit exploration, and the possibility of being first or among the first to explore that uncharted territory and offer gamers new experiences is one that excites me greatly.

          New experiences that offer excitement for gamers...that is one final motivation driving me. Perhaps it is a more subtle one, but it underscores everything else. I've long been on the receiving end of the excitement gaming offers. There's the satisfaction that comes from playing them, of course, but I'm thinking beyond that. The thrill of hearing a new IP or the next game in a beloved series announced, the anticipation leading up to a game's launch and feasting on every scrap of information released about it until then to hold me over, the delightful tension of waiting the day before release for that stroke of midnight to hit, perhaps in the company of like minds at a midnight launch event, sharing thoughts and stories and making new friends...all of these feelings, gaming has given to me again and again.

          I love the idea of giving thanks for all this by giving what has always been given to me: creating something for others to get excited for, to line up to get, to make new friends over, to have a blast playing. If I can make people feel the way I've felt in my history as a gamer, that is a very tangible joy that I'll have put into the world and an assurance I've accomplished something well worthwhile with my life. Few things are more worthwhile than making others happy, after all.

          This isn't to say what I want to create will be a figurative walk in the park. I want to explore themes and issues that will challenge the player, and I want to break conventions in gameplay mechanics that will require them to rethink how they handle themselves in a way they won't find anywhere else. In short, what I intend to create will test those willing to take it on in various ways, but I'm confident the rewards for doing so will be more than worth it. And, with any luck, dealing with such tougher subject matter, more complex concepts and unconventional gameplay mechanics will encourage more of the same from the industry and further its' evolution into an ever more complex and rewarding industry to be entertained by.

          All of this leads to why I am here. I want to use this space to address all I've mentioned above in various ways. I don't want to get into my game concepts I'm working on specifically, but I do want to talk about themes and issues that games should investigate. I want to explore ideas that can expand immersion in their storytelling beyond how we know it to be. I want to look critically at great games and series and understand what does and doesn't work in them and propose what they should do going forward. I want to look at the practices of the games industry in general and find the merits of those worth keeping and the mistakes of those worth deviating away from. In other words, if it's gaming-related and worth some depth of thought, then that's what Ill be talking about here. I hope you'll join me on that journey.