New Games Journalism

This week we looked at New Games Journalism and how it differs from Old Games Journalism. New Games Journalism (here out referred to as NCJ) is essentially reviews and opinion based conclusion upon games, in my opinion this segregation if flawed as it is nigh impossible to keep all personal thoughts on a game locked up in any type of review (saying the world is beautifully made IS an opinion, not a fact (it's subjective)).

One article that especially stood out from the rest was Ian Shanahan's 'Bow, Nigger'. This article delved into the players emotional and immersive journey through a game of JK2: Jedi Outcast. He starts off in a more 'professional' old games journalism type role, but quickly descends into the depths of feelings and the experience. The problem with this story is that he contradicts himself; he starts off saying he won't stoop to the level of the other player but quickly descends into the common profanity and abuse that he has sworn to 'rise above'. He speaks of some common courtesy and refers to it like its law. He forgets that it is a players choice to how they act, and while he may choose to be an honorable Jedi, some people only wish to watch the world burn as a dishonorable Sith. I also found that what started as his epic journey, soon became his quest for a lust of greater acknowledgement; to become unto a Jedi, to be a hero. The problem I have with this is he is prior to this quite opposing in his views; he points out that it is just a game, that he doesn't really care and that while it's important to some, it is not to him. Then we reach the point where he refers to himself in all the manners of the Jedi, personally I found him to contradictive to enjoy.

Following on from this we began to look at Old Games Journalism, we observed reviewing sites and their approach to referring to things more technically; summing things up in short technical points and giving a rather standard specification for a review. However I found the attitude these methods used to be flawed; they're still opinionated just like NGJ, whether we like it or not; 'professional' reviewers in the end are still simply giving their opinions.

I personally prefer NGJ; because it tells you a lot more. Finding technical specs and details on a game can be interesting, but its rather easy, the real challenge is finding a good opinionated review that takes you on a journey. A review that defines an experience that you can understand and enjoy is much better than finding out a game has a 'great UI'

Remediation

In New Digital Media, remediation is a identified as a key defining characteristic. New and old media is categorised and identified by a spectrum ranging from Hypermediacy, to Immediacy.

Hypermediacy can be defined as the awareness of the audience to the medium. These are forms that are obvious and overt; they do not try to mask what they really are, instead they aim to remind the audience of what they really are.

A perfect example of this is HUD's; we know that the game is a game with them constantly there, in most cases they're an essentially crucial component of the game. But at the same time they really do a lot to remind us it is just a game.

Immediacy is quite the opposite; it tries to make itself less obvious to the consumer, the aim of immediacy is to immerse the consumer. However, many forms of media fail to achieve this and media does not make itself, and humans are always present in the creation.

A perfect example of immediacy's use within the games industry is 'Myst'. There are many games now that focus on a graphical journey, aiming to immerse you in the beautiful and seamless world that surrounds you.

Remediation on the other hand refers to the combination of different medias to create new and different forms of media. A perfect example of this can be Television shows and how they tapped into key components of plays, films and radio.

Remediation is more important in the world and occurs more than we give it credit for; widescreen TV's inspired by wide painting canvas's, the wheel as a use of mobility where it originated as a potters tool.

Narrative and Games

Important Story Elements:

Protagonists - The leading character or a major character in a drama, movie, novel, or other fictional text

Why is a protagonist important? Well it is quite simply in the definition; it's the lead character! No matter how vaguely a game focuses around a character, or how many characters it focuses around, it will always have one main character that is the primary force behind pushing the story forward.

Conflict - An incompatibility between two or more opinions, principles, or interests

This description of conflict is quite vague, it's quite a hard word to sum up. But in simplistic terms it is the situation that arises when two opposing forces/variables meet. It's crucial in a story because every story requires one, because anything in a story will be a conflict; 'Jim had to walk to the kitchen to get his potato chips'. The conflict there was probably getting up off his arse and walking to the kitchen.

In short; Every story has conflict, sometimes direct, and sometimes indirect.

Direct conflict is between obvious "enemies" such as Batman and The Joker, or France and Germany.

Indirect conflict is harder to see just by scratching the surface. A perfect example that we see a lot now'a days is the conflict between man and machine (technology).

Resolution of the Conflict - The ending of the conflict that results in the victory of one force over the other.

This is required, it basically has to happen for the story to work. If this doesn't occur; the story never progresses. How boring would it be if Jim Raynor in Starcraft never encountered the Zerg and just sat in his office all day doing nothing? Without pushing the story towards a resolution of some sort of conflict, you can never hope to achieve any sense of immersion or dramatic build.

Moral - A lesson, esp. one concerning what is right or prudent, that can be derived from a story, a piece of information, or an experience

No matter what your story is, no matter what it does it will always have a moral. A moral to a story will basically create itself once everything else is in place. Most moral's are planned and for good reason; it gives you something to shape the story around. the moral in Jim and his journey to the kitchen would be 'if you get off your ass; you get to eat those tasty potato chips'.

Another important thing to note about stories is that people are the crucial factor, objects have no relevance. Objects are simply an excuse to involve characters, the characters themselves are what make the story interesting. Take for example Lord of the Rings; they could have been chasing after/protecting a golden cabbage that needed to be destroyed for all we know, the stories impact wouldn't have been affected much due to the strong and impressionable characters that breathed life into the adventure.

Puzzles in Story
Puzzles aren't a requirement within a story but can be a useful tool; as long as they press the story forward, a dead end puzzle that does nothing to push the story forward is likely to frustrate players and achieve nothing else.

Spacial Thinking
No one wants to see every single part of the adventure, you need to zoom in and focus on the important aspects of the story. You should always avoid including things that the audience can simply assume themselves. It would have been pointless to have shown every toilet break of every main character in Star wars, or to show us every piece of the walking in Lord of the Rings. While players can indeed be stupid, at least give them some credit!

Gender and games

For this weeks lesson we were presented with information regarding gender and its effects in the game design industry, a fair amount of this was demographical and thus factual (it was more about the way we perceived the statistics). To be successful as a games designer it is important to understand the needs, wants and desires of your target audience. For example; releasing a game in which you dress your barbie doll up in various clothing is unlikely to succeed if your marketing targets the over 30's audience. With insight into your target audience you can begin to understand what they really want in a game.

The first text we received was Segregation in a Male-Dominated industry: Women Working in the Computer Games Industry. This was based on how gender can effect the games design industry and the products from them. We are shown thought that a game which is developed with the audience of equal gender, both male and female, that the game will predominantly played by the male gender.

Segregation in a Male-Dominated industry: Women Working in the Computer Games Industry 
This first text focused mainly on the segregation of occupations in respect to gender internally to the Game industry. It was helpless to try to stay impartial on the reasoning for these segregation's as in our minds we knowingly realise the likely reasons for these segregation's in job roles

Now obviously it is well known that the games industry isn't the only sector that has clear bias and gender split workforces. But at the same time it could be one for concern. It could also be argued that due to the age of this industry and the way it began means it's simply to be expected for the industry to lie in this very uneven balance at its current age.

Women in the games industry (like many other industries) tend to suffer more taxing situations such as; less pay for the same load, fewer opportunities and less authority. Women also tend to encounter many more 'glass ceilings' than men do. Glass celings are basically the high point of reach for someone on the career ladder, and the reasons behind this can be many, but in most cases they come down to gender, class or ethnicity. More than most though it tends to be gender.

The games design industry is built up of a number of different specialties including development, production, design, level design, audio design, art and testing. Developmental roles with the industry are those roles that are involved in the creative and developmental aspect of game development. These roles create everything within the games from the content, the style of play, the reward systems and ultimately influence who the target audience of the game will be, and most of these roles are controlled by men (see the chart below)

Table Above: The percentage of men and women in each job description within the gaming industry.

As can clearly be seen from the table; women have little strength of numbers in the core elements of the games industry. Many theories can be suggested for the reasoning behind this. Personally I find the recent changes in trends and stigma to gaming to be a massively crucial factor; video games are a fairly recent aspect of gaming and play, and it wasn't so long ago that it was frowned upon by most and viewed as a geeky, anti-social aspect of deviants of society day to day life. In more recent times the market has become more glorified; popular kids and the general everyday person plays games. Another large factor could be tied into this; due to the short life of the video game industry, most veteran and experienced developers originate from the time of video games birth. Back in the early days of its creation most games were hard coded by the players themselves which in turn led to a thriving potential workforce in more recent days, a workforce that started off as the fan base which originally was comprised of primarily males.

The last things we looked at showed us different age groups and their genders and how they reflected upon each other. Most people wouldn't expect it but male and females were fairly similar in numbers in most areas. However this data is deceiving; it doesn't explain the type of playing that is done, (this explained why minors under the age of 10 made up such a high % of the population) once you get into the specifics and look a the different forms of media/games that are being engaged with, it becomes apparent where these figures differentiated.

La Decima Vittima

La Decima Vittima is a film based around a fictional reality in which killing is the game and anyone could be playing. The game focuses around a world that treats killing like a competition, a gracious sport to reward the victors in. The game bares similarities to more recent films such as 'The Hunger Games' and I also felt there were fair similarities to an Asian movie called 'Battle Royale'. The winner of the event becomes some what of a hero amongst the world; a glorified celebrity. The film clearly aims to raise questions amongst society and force generations to question how different this reality is from our own. While we may not condone killing, it soon becomes clear that the underlying message of this film is in relation to the way in which we compete with each other in every day life, sometimes to the point of near death. The costs are obviously higher in this movie and the human nature is bewildering in some cases. I thought about it from a historical point of view though, and what I came to realise is that this was simply a modernised version of the Roman coliseum battles. 

The game sparked a lot of controversy around its time; it not only aggroed certain groups of people, but it also inspired others. While some people shunned the film as condoning violence, others chose to perceive the game as a bible for a world in which to immerse themselves; and thus was born 'Assassin' a game in which the 'players' enact themselves within the real world to eliminate their opponent in a mock assassination of one kind or another. Everyone is assigned a target and everyone is a target, it's defined as a pervasive game; games that take place across several media; also known sometimes as transmedia or alternate reality games. Simply put; it's a game played in real life. The essential ideology behind the game is that all humans are out to win, and that games are an instinctive part of life, and in some cases are life.

Trip to the British Museum

On the 22nd of November (2012) we began an arduous journey to London, to the British Museum to indulge our curiosity of all games ancient.

There were many a fascinating exhibits demanding my curiosity, but knowing my task; to study ancient games, I pushed on to see what I had come to see.

The Royal Game of Ur

Before arriving, I knew what the main thing I needed to study was. It was this! The Royal Game of Ur; a game of old, very old infact. The board seems to have held very well given its age, and although uncertain, I am sure the pieces provided with it are all genuine also.

The rules of this game had been found on a clay tablet dating from 177BC. This tablet is not only a crucial part of gaming history, it's also infact the oldest set of rules known to gamers.


Senet

This game has always interested me and I always meant to look more into it, the game is called Senet. It is an Egyptian variant of the Ur, at least that is what some think. The games rules itself have been lost to time, and there are many debates on how the game is infact played.

Okay Maybe I lied a little; most of us couldn't wait to go exploring London, so perhaps we could have spent more time surveying and studying the ancient artifacts on display.

Games Britannia - Part 2 & 3

Games Britannia Part 2

In this episode of Games Britannia Woolley traces the surprising political and social impact that board games have had in Britain over the last 200 years. Britain was the first nation to come up with the concept of board games as a means of education, these ideas later found themselves exported to America where it saw thriving success economically. 

This episode also looks deeply into Monopoly and its incredible success, it also takes a jab at the game by revealing its roots are actually tied to Communism, the irony is quite entertaining when you discover it was in fact based on a Communist game but focuses itself on a Capitalist overview of the world. It also shows how games like this, while distasteful in the eyes of some, are still incredibly popular to this day. Monopoly is not alone in this either; games such as Scrabble, Connect-4 and Cluedo have somehow lasted a surprisingly long time and still exist in the modern family home to this day.

Wooley also surveys the way board games have evolved, how they can move beyond the tangible pieces and into the realms of fantasy and imagination. A perfect example of this is Dungeons and Dragons or Dragon Age. These games have become just as popular thanks to their ability to free the player of the physical shackles and many constraints presented by a board game.


Games Britannia Part 3

Part 3 focused mainly on video games and how they've progressed over the years.

The first game of note that is covered is Elite; Elite is an old retro space exploration-trading game in which the player uses a ship to try and reach elite status through either trade or combat. It's quite interesting to watch when you come to realise just how pivotal such old games have been in paving the direction for modern games; many mechanics present then are still used thoroughly and efficiently to this day. Even though the game hasn't survived the test of time, the ideals, features and mechanics it introduced have.

Lara Croft also featured in the documentary; she was described as a really revolutionary point in game characters; finally we were starting to focus on the character and the importance of their story. Games were beginning to structure them self around the character, not the adventure. This was the beginning of the change. Some people opposed to Lara's appearance however. She had the body of a supermodel and was simply thought of as a 'Pamela Anderson solving problems'. Some people disagree with the statement, feeling she has moved beyond this and become something more.

Another big point for the documentary was moral choices and the impact they have on the overall experience. Black and White is talked about deeply here, it's unique take on gaming at the time; allowing players to indirectly or directly influence and mess with anything they choose, meant the players own judgement was responsible for whether something was right or wrong to do, and how they would act was decided by them. It was a matter of choice in intricately high amounts. Grand Theft Auto done something similar; it allowed players the free will and choice to perform whatever actions they desired, how they wanted to. Decisions in games such as these become policed by the players; instead of forcing them into something that the developer defines as morally correct, the player is challenged to decide for themselves. More and more games now do this, you could even argue games with restrictive mechanics and rule sets still give the moral choice; for example in an mmo, 'trainer killing (TK)' is when a pvper attacks and kills other players who are training. In many mmo's this is frowned upon and will usually result in the player being named and shamed, and as a result; hunted! This is the players choice; they don't have to hunt him, but they've made the moral choice, the moral obligation that it is the right thing to do.