The Importance of the Gaming Blog

Emotional Motion

I’m not talking about my gaming blog.  In fact, I feel that out of all the blogs I can think of, mine is one of the least relatable.  I avoid spoilers like the plague, even if it’s within the first 30 minutes of the game.  I always jump in blind.  I even avoid talking about them, and yet here I am trying to talk about games.  I have a ton of seemingly arbitrary rules about how I approach media, making it near impossible for me to talk with other gamers in a manner that isn’t bothersome.

So this is not about my blog.  This is about all the gaming blogs I encounter.  I’ve read so many good ones.  Why are gaming blogs so important?  What if they aren’t articulated well?  What if they don’t know any of the technical game design elements? What if they just play games?

What if they just play games?

Games are a very personal thing.  They’re like eating food.  We are considered “consumers” after all.  It’s like reading a book or watching a movie.  It’s like seeing a beautiful vista, and having your own opinion and experience.  Games are an emotional experience.  And what better way to learn about emotional experience than from emotional people?

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All it takes for someone to be able to be a writer of video games, in the most non-objective sense, is to play games; they just need to have the experience.  I’m not looking for the top critics’ blogs.  I’m not looking for someone who has directed and designed two triple AAA games.  I’m looking for Frostilyte Writes, who recently wrote about their perspective for capturing audiences of all sides in the fighting genre for Street Fighter VI.  It’s a very good and informative piece.  You should read it. Why are people like this important?  Because one line sticks out to me from their article. 

“I’m not who Capcom needs to convince.“

Games are a part of the investments and feelings that we have experienced as people.  Frostilyte has this unique perspective of saying “the people you actually need to convince are people that aren’t already pilled. The people who will buy a fighting game, and never play it online.”  That’s me.  I’m the person who never plays it online!  But this isn’t coming from someone who plays for the casual game.  They play for the PvP.  Someone who plays for the PvP talking about why the PvE matters.  That’s a take I want to find. That is someone’s experience of having played other games in a non-objective way talking about what they think.  This is what I’m looking for.

I want to know why they feel nostalgic about certain elements.  I want to know what makes other people excited.  Is it a technical thing?  Are they excited for a character?  What is it that drives them to be playing games?  Because I’m just one person.  And I want to know.  I don’t just want to know why things are liked or disliked.  I want to know what led them to that.  I want to know what and how the people think.  

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There’s nothing wrong with objective approaches to video games, but they’re are plenty of those.  It’s like a scientific paper.  The objective is to reach a technical point in which we can reproduce it.  In fact, I’m going to use a scientific paper to talk a little more about it. It was a recent and interesting paper called about emotional writing where they state this:

“The idea is that rather than seeing articulations of emotion as detracting from authentic metacognitive knowledge production, such articulations of emotion can and should be seen as a critical part of the metacognitive process…  …We are not claiming that emotion alone can give us a clear picture of the metacognitive process, but without accounting for emotion, we have an incomplete conception of how students understand not only their own writing processes but also themselves as writers…”¹

In the article they’re talking about objective papers, ones written for more professional research.  But I’m going to argue it works just as well for video game writing as well.  Media writing if we really want to talk about this.  Again, “…without accounting for emotion, we have an incomplete conception of how students understand not only their own writing processes but also themselves as writers…” (emphasis added)

There is nothing more important to me in video game writing than realizing there is another being, with different emotions and complexities, experiencing the same thing I am playing.  There is nothing more important to me in writing, than the individual people voicing their opinions.  I’m not saying this in a “power to the people” kind of way.  I’m saying this in “the people are the power of gaming” kind of way.  That this is an empowerment of everyone in the community from the people who have friends who play games, all the way to the developers, and dare I say it, possibly even the corporate side. …Maybe. 

Our individual aspects are what makes media so much more enjoyable.  Video game blogs give us that in a readable, presentable form.  (Except for my website, which is extremely plain and possibly not very presentable.)

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The irony is that valid dislikes are what it is being human.  How far is someone willing to go before technical game design is a problem?  How far before it’s a feature not a bug?  Or how far is it before it’s janky fun to “this is getting annoying?”  I partially regret adding Mass Effect 3 to the ULTRA, because it had some serious bugs.  But I kept it there.  I’ve taken down games from the ULTRA for the same reason.  Why?  Why?!  Because every one of my siblings is familiar with Mass Effect and their characters.  Outside of the actual aspects of the game, the closeness I feel with the lore is different, because for once it’s something we all can talk about and relate to.  I’ve grown close to the janky mess.

What characters or arcs evoke more of the player’s life into the experience?  We can even say, what technical aspects of games evoke a player’s life into the experience?  There’s a reason why A Hat in Time feels like a good old school platformer without actually being an old game.  

How far is this going to stretch?  I want to know, because it tells the story of what it is to be a gamer.  I disagree with some of the things the bloggers write about.  Almost every time, if they’re not writing objectively, they understand the complexity of disliking or liking a game I have opposite feelings for.  We are all individual players, and that’s okay.  I am grateful for the rapport and the kind of camaraderie of it all.

Objective reviews are read by people who have personal and emotional experiences.  Spoken of before, but the comparing and contrasting with others helps to feel what we like and dislike.  The benefit of knowing what the voices of the players think is what these personal blogs do best.  You can get to know this person in a way you can compare your own interests with.

What better way to display all this in mini form than mixed Steam reviews.  These people are almost always connected to the game in some emotional level for good or for bad.  Mixed reviews on Steam are sneaky because a 50% doesn’t sound good, but in hindsight, that is half of the people who play it.  That’s a lot.  And furthermore, they’re usually much more emotionally charged.  But 50%!  That’s a you like it or you don’t, and think of how many things we attribute that to: movies, books, theme park rides, food, dancing.  I’m not saying go play mediocre games, but remember that you are an emotive, real person that has real experiences.  Therefore, what better way than to use these tools and help from other players to guide you in how you can best approach the world of gaming, whether that is living life as a gamer or finding a game that you like.

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I sometimes stare at my blog.  I’m annoyed because I find myself staring and wondering what to write about.  But really it shouldn’t matter too much.  Because the content is an emotional section just like any other writer.  I admit I enjoy more this almost anthropological approach to writing about media than anything else.

I have barely any time to do all the nothing I want to do.  But when I read other peoples blogs like WCRobinson, the previously mentioned Frostilyte, and Later Levels, I remember why I love to read about games.  I remember why I love being a gamer. That’s huge.

Their individual personalities are like bright fires burning on a dark night.  It is a refuge and reminder of how personal and human games can be.

Thanks for reading.  Stay safe, and I’ll see you again.

– Elise

1. Scarantino, A. (2006). [Review of Thinking about Feeling: Contemporary Philosophers on Emotions; Emotion, Evolution, and Rationality, by R. C. Solomon, D. Evans, & P. Cruse]. Mind, 115(459), 812–820. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3840610

Sounds Impressive

Ding!

A few days ago I was walking past my sister and I heard blonking sounds.  I didn’t have to look at the screen.  I didn’t have to look at what console she was holding.  I knew it was a Fire Emblem game.  It’s the sound that most games in the new generation of Fire Emblem have when you choose an option.  

This is wonderful sound design.  It’s unique and you recognize it right away.  Think of the trillion Mario sounds you can recognize.  Or just think of the games of your childhood, very likely they have some unique sounds that you get right away.  Think of any kind of collectible in those platform games: Sonic getting a ring, Mario getting a coin, Donkey Kong getting a banana bunch, or Hat Kid collecting a bauble or whatever that is in A Hat in Time. 

Or maybe you can just get really detailed, like the sound design of Hunt: Showdown.  Here’s a clip from Jackfrags on Youtube showcasing how distance effects sounds from afar.

You can hear the same kinds of details in games like Rainbow Six: Siege or Vermintide II where shots fired in different places like a room next door or several meters away. The muffling and echoes really are impressive in making the game feel immersive.

And sometimes it’s the completely unnecessary thing of adding charm. The little things: picking up an item in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, the little click as you close the touch screen menu in Bravely Default.  The weird bouncy sound of shooting the portal gun in Portal.

I don’t know. I always think about what would gaming be like if I lost an ability. Whether it be a finger or an entire arm. Or if I lost my sense of hearing. I think about these things probably more often than normal, but it helps me to be grateful for every single aspect of gaming. I love hearing every bit of a game. It’s rare I turn on music while I’m playing any game. The only exception is non-story grinding in RPGs or MMOs. Even then I’m probably playing with only the game sound and music. Otherwise I will always listen to the game again.

I’m not saying that you need to do that to “fully appreciate” the game. You do you. I just wanted to take some time to stop and, uhm, hear the roses. I don’t want to take things for granted, so I just wanted to give a shout out to all the fun and good sound design out there. Thanks for making our games fit the mood!

Thanks for reading! Any of the collecting sounds from the Donkey Kong Country series always get me. And of course, the sound of a unique dropping in Path of Exile isn’t too bad on the ears either. Hehe. What are your favorite iconic sounds from games? Or maybe just sounds?

Hope to see you again! Be safe!
– Elise

Why I Love: Kingdom of Loathing

The more you know

When you go to kingdomofloathing.com there are a bunch of stick figures.  You see some stats about some players and some announcements.  Currently there is a banner for their game Shadows Over Loathing.  And that’s it.

But if you make an account and go in, you enter a comical world that shows you how entertaining simple stick figures and the written word can be.  Kingdom of Loathing is a browser, turn-based RPG that has the normal elements of any RPG: six classes, skills for each, a main quest and side quests, and fun secrets.  What sets it apart is the fairly simple illustrations of monsters and the hilarious descriptions of the fights and adventures you partake in.

I mean, this is what it looks like (I’m going through a special Super Mario version run):

The game is filled to the brim with jokes and pop culture references.  Skeletons can “scwipe you with their scimitar and misc.”. And you’ll fight monsters like The Beetles or golems made of chowder.  Everything from the fights to the item descriptions have jokes and it’s an absolute delight reading new material as well.  You can take apart cottage cheese and get a cottage.  That’s the kind of humor I’m talking about.

The world is very well developed at this point and there are tons of places to explore.  Expect to do reading from all the descriptions of the events you run into.  There is a limiting factor though: every day you get 40 adventures and every combat/event encounter consumes one adventure.  Stores and stuff don’t use adventures. You might feel like this is limiting, but it’s just about the right amount to play for every day.  And you can have up to 200 adventures stored up. You can go past that with food and drinks, but the 40 given will only give you up to the 200. But also take care not to drink too much alcohol or you’ll be fallen down drunk and useless for the rest of the day.

The six classes are strange like Accordion Thief, Seal Clubber and Pastamancer.  But the themes that continue in the skills make them feel like legit real classes that have existed forever.  Admittedly they’re based off of normal ones.  Mix that with the thousands upon thousands upon THOUSANDS of items you can find in the game.  Content really does feel endless here.

All of it is free.  There are a few things you can pay money for, but the game is completely fine without them.  And if you finish the game you can ascend and start over with different challenge paths that go from something as simple as being a teetotaler and not being able to drink, to having the whole kingdom turned into a nuclear post apocalypse. Or even like my current run, being a Super Mario-like character.  Every time you ascend you get rewarded and you can start over with new content, which at this point there are SO MANY different cool paths you can take now.  

There are, of course, online components. You can shop the player maintained mall, take part in PvP, or create a clan with your friends to take on a clan dungeon.  But also of course, I do not partake in the online aspects except the mall.  

This game is definitely not everyone’s cup of tea but I highly recommend trying it.  It is available for free at kingdomofloathing.com. If you’re not into browser based mostly text adventures you can get West of Loathing or Shadows of Loathing on Steam.  They are not free though.  

But all I’ve been doing is explaining what the game is. The whole battle system set around things like fighting hippies having elemental effects like “stench damage” gives you a bit of an idea of some of the organized absurdity the game shows you.  The game is most rewarding when you know more about real life and pop culture.  References abound in nearly every description and you’ll find yourself laughing out loud (hopefully, if not I apologize for my taste in humor).  At the very least there are some puns there that you can enjoy.

And that’s the big thing. The more you know about pop culture, the more enjoyable this game gets. Things from random beer quotes (I don’t drink, but I still get some of the jokes from ads and whatnot), to references to other games, to making puns or making fun of grammar. There are so many different kinds of humor all throughout the game. Every time I read something and I get the reference I feel like doing that DiCaprio pointing gif/meme. And sometimes the stuff is just funny without getting it.

So if we get all that pop culture stuff in with an infinitely updated game that I would play forever if it updated forever and I lived forever, and you get this wonderful game. Really, I’ve seen so many mixed responses to this game. …but I just finished my 50th ascension and I still have more things I want to do in this game.

Kingdom of Loathing is #179 on the ULTRA, as of the publishing of this post. What other browser based games do you still really like?

Thanks for reading, and hopefully I will post more darn often. =_= Be safe.
I’ll see you next time.
– Elise

Comparison: The Meta Boss

The Toxic Wasteland

If you’ve read my blog …or whatever this is, you probably already know that I like to play single player games.  I’m not a competitive person.  Or…rather I should say, I hate comparing myself to other people.  It always ends up being a bunch of self-deprecating madness.  But…every time I am playing a game that has stats I open it up and check on it often.  Why do I do that?  Why is that so important?  Am I insecure?  What the world is going on and why, why does this have to be a thing?  Today, I’m going to look into that.  I’m Elise.  This is Game Praisers Deep Dive.

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Instagram is a deadly place.  As an artist, it can be extremely inspiring.  It can also be one of the absolute worst things to look at before heading into a new project.  There have been many times where I just feel totally horrible after just having improved the night before, because I decided it would be a good idea to look at some “inspirational” pictures.  That was not a good idea.

But, these pictures can inspire me.  I know they can because they have.  This is a competition.  And you know what makes it harder?  In games, it’s worse.  In video games I can look at the scoreboard and say, “Wow, I am just bringing my whole team down.”  If I look at the top player on my team, I don’t receive inspiration.  I don’t look at an amazing kill-death ratio / KDR, or as I feel many games see it now, kill-death-assists / KDA and feel inspired.  Maybe I can see inspiration when I watch professional games like ESL or Homestory Cup in Starcraft 2.  Yeah, I can, but never can I look at the people I am directly competing against and feel inspiration.  I have never, unless I personally know that player, ever gained some sort of encouragement by looking at another top player even if they’re on my side.

When we compare ourselves to others, it is usually us on the lower end of the comparison.  We’re the ones who are insufficient.¹  And in the case of video games, it doesn’t matter if they’re on our side or not, these carriers are evidence that we are a weak link.  And although it has happened before, you don’t hear a lot of encouragement from your teammates when you’re not doing well.  Few competitive environments are more toxic than the video game ones.  I once played a game against medium difficulty bots in League of Legends because I wanted to see a character’s animations without going to a blurry Youtube video.  Someone was absolutely furious that someone else was in the same lane as them.  They started feeding the enemy team and then half way through the match they left.  This was a bot game.  It wasn’t even on the hardest difficulty of bots.  This is an example of the kind of people we deal with.

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But I never feel that in Guild Wars 2.  When I see someone with amazing equipment I never think, “Gosh, I wish I was as diligent and focused as that player.”  Maybe to a small extent, but never to an effect.  Nowadays it would be more like I wish I had time, which is a whole different problem.  There they are though, walking around with all their cool gear.   Guild Wars 2 is a social game, and it’s been shown that spending time on social networking things tends to make people more depressed.²  Except… there is a context we’re missing here.  Guild Wars 2 does not place me in competition, especially concerning that most of it is PvE for me.  Social networking does.  By the nature of what I do, what I like, who I choose to hang out with, they all point towards things similar to me.  So of course I’m going to end up with other artists on Instagram.  Of course I will end up with other people who play games on Facebook until I purged it of every acquaintance and false friend.  And of course there is the whole entirety of women, including women characters, that make me feel in competition with being attractive.  I don’t think I need to tell you that it does not help.³  That’s the whole point.  And when it comes down to performing well in the context of others… that’s the whole point of competitive gaming.

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It’s very difficult to pinpoint this because it’s such a specific social thing.  There aren’t that many studies that directly correlate to this.  I found a thesis on it, and while it has some nice insights, it’s just one study.  The writers themselves have noted that it is possible, and needs looking into, that playing PvP/competitive games can detract from the positive social aspects of video games.⁴   Self-determination theory claims that humans need a feeling of competence, autonomy, and relatedness.⁵  These are underlying things that help increase self-esteem and more so, motivation.  Random and unprompted positive feedback helps people feel competent and motivates them to work hard.  Relatedness as well.  Both things that are…lacking in the environment of competitive video gaming.  

Personally, I believe that to combat this we need self control and self esteem.  Self control to understand our needs concerning our games that we play.  Don’t play a competitive game to blow off steam if you know it’s going to make you upset.  Some people can play competitive games to calm down, but be sure that you are one of those people if you’re going to do it.  Think about what games would best fit for however you’re feeling.  My experience with video games has gotten a little better since I’ve tried to adjust myself to playing what would be best in the moment.  Sometimes it’s just whatever I feel like.  Gatekeeping myself from playing something else because I have to finish another game has almost always resulted in a less than optimal experience.  Though admittedly it’s not super bad, it is sometimes significant which affects how I feel about a game.  This is something I do not want just because I made myself more depressed or something.   

Then there is self esteem, which is a difficult thing for me.  I’m still working on this, and will likely be working on this my whole life.  Learning to be okay where we are as we try to improve is a big thing.  Sometimes it’s okay to not perform well some days.  What is important is that we are willing and trying to improve.  We can be happy with where we are now without compromising who we are trying to become.  But…easier said than done, right?

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So why do players still seek it out?  When Battlefield 2042 was released with a limited scoreboard people kept requesting and asking for a full scoreboard it until it finally was added, and it ended up being an announcement on many gaming sites.^{7, 8, 9, 10}  And IGN’s subheader is literally a reference to what I’m talking about, saying, “Finally, proof my K/D ratio is trash.”¹¹  While it is a joke, it is still frustrating to come back at the end of a long work day to play Valorant or something and then get frustrated not only because you feel like you’re letting down your team, but also because they’re yelling at you.  

For me, the extent was that I sought out these games because it could fulfill that feeling of competency and possibly even camaraderie.  It could, and when it did, it felt great.  Of course it felt great when I turned to Battlefield V after a long day and I was one of the top players on my team.  But these methods are reliant on volatile results and variables that may be outside our control.  They depend on whether or not you win, which in a team game, is very dangerous.  It could depend on either side’s attitude.  It depends on your performance, and that alone could be dangerous.  It could feel self-deprecating to see yourself not performing well.  And that one is possibly even more dangerous, because it is applicable to single player games.  And most importantly, it’s applicable to life.  If how we feel about ourselves and whether or not we’re happy with ourselves is dependent on performances, it could be a dreadful life.  

Comparison fulfills something in us, but it’s also something that is very easily out of our control.  Sometimes we just don’t do well.  Sometimes we make mistakes.  That is life.  This is not to say we shouldn’t try at all, or we shouldn’t be happy when we do well, but we cannot tie our intrinsic feeling of self worth because someone else performed well enough not only to destroy us on a bad day, but also teabag us after they did so.

Thanks for reading, stay safe, and I hope to see you again here at Game Praisers.

Elise

Citations:

1. Gerber, J. P., Wheeler, L., & Suls, J. (2018). A social comparison theory meta-analysis 60+ years on. Psychological Bulletin, 144(2), 177–197. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000127
2. Sunkyung Yoon, Mary Kleinman, Jessica Mertz, Michael Brannick, Is social network site usage related to depression? A meta-analysis of Facebook–depression relations, Journal of Affective Disorders, Volume 248, 2019, Pages 65-72, ISSN 0165-0327,  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2019.01.026.(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165032718321700)
3. Jacqueline V. Hogue, Jennifer S. Mills, The effects of active social media engagement with peers on body image in young women, Body Image, Volume 28, 2019, Pages 1-5, ISSN 1740-1445, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2018.11.002.(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S174014451730517X)
4. Zhao, F. (2022). The role of social video game play and relatedness in players’ well-being [Master’s thesis]. University of Oxford.
5. Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2017). Self-determination theory. Basic psychological needs in motivation, development, and wellness.
6. Vallerand, Robert & Reid, Greg. (1984). On the Causal Effects of Perceived Competence on Intrinsic Motivation: A Test of Cognitive Evaluation Theory. Journal of Sport Psychology. 6. 94-102. 10.1123/jsp.6.1.94. 
7. https://www.polygon.com/22891186/battlefield-2042-scoreboard-patch-update
8. https://www.gamespot.com/articles/battlefield-2042-is-finally-adding-new-scoreboard-see-it-here/1100-6499759/
9. https://www.thegamer.com/battlefield-2042-scoreboard-update-live/
10. https://www.pcgamer.com/battlefield-2042-new-scoreboard/
11. https://www.ign.com/articles/battlefield-2042-update-scoreboard

The Apex of the Classroom

“Just” a demo

In a high school classroom, there sits a bunch of students.  This is a computer room.  This is an idle time for some of the students who have finished early.  Some of them start the 3D pinball game that used to be available on Windows back then.  It’s normal.  The teacher doesn’t care.  But then one of them starts a game that is also already on the computer, and the teacher gets up to try and stop them.

It’s the demo for Halo: Combat Evolved.

One of the cool things about radical or restricted parts of society is how it evolves.  Just like in evolutionary biology, isolated groups can result in very interesting cultures.  We can think of how the Hardy-Weinberg Principle of population genetics being broken can affect the way cultures evolve and grow.  I think one of the difficult things about that now is that games take place in the virtual internet and chats.  Although it is far more difficult for this to happen, evolution in the folk tales of gamers can still happen.  It’s just that in a more radical situation like a classroom, it evolves in a crazier way.

These days things can blow up really easily.  We have social media and ease of access to thank for that.  But in an isolated setting, even if temporary like a classroom, new cultures coming in have to adapt.  The culture specifically being boredom in the classroom. We see isolated cultures have pretty big effects such as being in the military, being a monk in a monastery, or in a creepy cult that is practicing suspicious activities.  Sometimes it’s just a matter of speech and slang, but other times it becomes weird actions and hideaways.  That’s what Halo was.  

You’d see people gathering at the computer rooms to play Halo during lunchtime.  I don’t know what it’s like now, but back then most classrooms didn’t have computers in them.  During that time the teachers really didn’t care, because they wanted to eat lunch.  Some of them did, because the game exhibited violence.  Remember this was the 2000s, people were more worried about that back then.  But most of the time the teachers were okay and so there they were.  Sometimes the teacher would play with them.

But here’s the thing, the people playing, they weren’t playing because they were gamers.  No, they were playing because there were only a few other options worth going for.  Minesweeper, which some people didn’t want to learn how to understand, and the 3D pinball game.  So…the third option was Halo.  Yes, I know there was solitaire, freecell, and some others, but only the teachers seemed to play those.  Back then not everyone had phones, and the internet was being watched over so most websites like MySpace were blocked.  

You want to know the best part?  The teacher that came over to turn off the game then tried to find a way to remove it off the computer.  Tried being the keyword.  Computers were still a new concept to people, and they didn’t know how to get rid of it.  And even if they could, it didn’t matter.  The game was a demo, and demos are free.  It would pop up again.  It was unstoppable and insatiable.  It was going to be there whether you liked it or not. In this case, games, uh, find a way.  

I personally don’t feel like it was any harm.  Most of the time the students playing were doing so at lunch or after they were done with their work.  I just find it so interesting that they would eke out this existence every time.  It was consistent.  The computers of classrooms with unrelated subjects had the game on it.  Every. Single. Time.  Like in biology, it was selected for.  The competition was removed.  Other games have tried popping up to no avail.  Finding workarounds to visit flash game websites were uncommon, although I did find a way to do that.  It was just this silly demo of a sci-fi game that was strong and able enough to stay the course.

I think a lot of the evolution in the folklore of video games is usually pretty negative.  I attribute this to the fact that most video game stuff that goes to mainstream news are the ones that involve the outliers and scary people that do horrible things concerning video games.  Either that or video games cause violence…again.  But little bits like this Halo or people donating money for someone to get a stranger a new gaming computer.  I see no rules being broken, just people trying to have some fun.  Stories of the few or the generous, that is like sweet, delicious honey to my soul.  

I hope that the holidays are treating you well, and that we can remember how grateful we are to even be able to play the things we can now.  Thanks video games, and thank you to all of you who read this who are like that sweet honey, bringing joy through video games.

Thanks for reading.  I’ll see you next time.

Elise

More Complicated Than I Could Imagine

It’s all coming together.

Spoilers for: Genshin Impact, moderate, late game.

I think I finally figured it out.  My approach to video games.  “Oh no, Elise, not this again.”  Stop, wait!  For real this time!  I think I got it.  This is going to be a long post, because it’s…well, more complicated than I could imagine.  

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I want to mention something about the beginning of this journey that I’ve been on in video games. Even previously through all of that I could not pinpoint exactly what I meant by all that I said.   I’ve talked about games that I played often, and I’ve talked about some of the political aspects of video games that affected me. 

In a terrible, incorrect, and biased way, I originally thought this was a difference in East vs West mindsets.  But that’s obviously not true. And let’s be honest, that’s a pretty racist way of me to think.  It was wrong.  However, it was not true in an unfortunate way.  The people that I interacted with that had stronger backgrounds from East Asia still had conflicts with the way I view video games.  Conflicts that drove me away.  More importantly, it’s about the way I approach them and how I can interact with other video gamers.  When a perspective you have comes in conflict with the way that you can interact with the general community, do you still feel like a part of it?

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I then thought, it’s the spoilers.  It is me not wanting any spoilers. Studies do show that spoilers don’t really ruin it for most people.¹  For most people.  I am, whether for good or not, one of those people.  It does however, matter where the spoilers are placed.  If they’re in the actual story itself apparently that really does affect it.  But if presented in advance, yeah it doesn’t matter for the majority of people.²

I hate spoilers.  I saw The Lord of the Rings movies last year in January.  But, man, if it wasn’t shrouded by the memes of today, I think it would’ve been even more epic.  Instead, there were some parts that were funny.  I don’t think it detracted from the experience of enjoyment.  I do like a good laugh, but something about it always stings looking back.  Maybe it’s…a feeling of missing out?  Missing out on a feeling I will never have the opportunity for again.

The thing about the feeling of missing out is the time we have to spend on catching up.  We’ve all played that game before whether it’s because of Netflix, a February in gaming, or an influx of new content from a convention’s announcements.  We have to catch up with the neighbor who has that new, cool blender.  If they have that blender it’s not going to change your experience.  In fact, when you watch them use that blender, you know for a fact your experience will be just as awesome and just as smoothie.  …I’m so sorry.

But catching up in media and entertainment is different than catching up to your neighbor’s appliances.  If you watch someone else watch a movie, assuming we’re not looking at the screen, that’s not the same thing as watching the movie itself.  Watching someone play through a game is more accurate to the blender theory, because you and the player are experiencing the game firsthand.  It’s like watching a movie with them.  But having someone tell you the experience is telling the game, film, or book in a way unintended by the creators.  I’m not here to watch the rugby game outside the stadium.  I’m here to watch the rugby game.

And that can be argued against as well.  But the point is from my perspective, it ruins it.  I want the original of what the creators intended or published.  And in the end that doesn’t even matter.  Why?  Because that’s not the problem with my perspective.  That isn’t it.  Although it is a bit because I feel like a nuisance when people can’t talk about what they want around me if they don’t want to spoil it.  Ultimately I don’t think that is what makes it so hard for me to get along with the video gaming community.  Obviously I appreciate when people spoiler tag things, because it means they’re being considerate, but there’s something one step further that I feel like I finally identified as the biggest chasm that separates me from the rest of the others.  It feels like I’m saying, “I’m not like other girls”.  I’m so sorry about that, but don’t worry just because I’m separated doesn’t mean I’m better or anything. 

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I can’t be upset at characters.  At least not in the way I see other gamers do.  The characters are real people. I’m not asking people to think that way.  That’s ridiculous.  Some people find me treating them like real people ridiculous, and in some ways I feel like their perspective is justified.  But I don’t know what these characters are going through behind the scenes.  Literally, behind the cinema scenes.  I can’t be upset because Ayaka wore socks in Genshin Impact while she was standing in the stream in that one scene.  That means developers, real humans, would have to take more time changing the models.  Time that, if spent on something like that even if they wanted to, could be an inefficiency mark for them.  It might make them look like they’re not doing what they’re supposed to be doing.  It really depends on how loose the art director is.  It also depends on what Ayaka was thinking at the time.  Was it spontaneous?  Was she too nervous to think about it?  

If you look on YouTube you’ll find that a lot of people seem appreciative of the dance.  Even if this is a comment that is going to be plastered on the internet for however long, there are a lot of them.  But I’ve never run into someone who feels like this for most games.  In fact, I’ve never run into one in my Genshin community.  I get told that these people exist, and yeah, I see them right here on YouTube, but in every video game group that I join I feel none of that for different games.

Whenever I bring up that scene to the other Genshin players in my group, their first thing to bring up is making fun of her socks because she was wearing them while standing in the water.  But in the context of the story, I think it’s so graceful, genuine, and peaceful.  The dance, I mean.  The dance that she does for you.  The dance that she is apprehensive to show anyone else, but she shows it to you.  I don’t think I can look back on the experience and think, “Ha, she’s wearing socks in the water.”  I always think, “I am so grateful that she was willing to share that with me.”  Too cheesy?  But that’s just the thing.  Why does it sound like they have to make an excuse to recognize that part of the story?  “Oh yeah, I guess so.”  “But I mean…”  “Why didn’t they just…”  It goes on.

I don’t know.  I’m also not Ayaka.  Maybe one day the developers will update it so she takes off her socks one day.  I don’t know.  I’m not the developers.  I do know that in the culmination of all things technical from the developers, and all things ethereal, spiritual, and fantastical even, from Ayaka, I am grateful for that heartfelt moment she gave.

And that’s where the difference lies.  

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When people approach and consume media, it’s a service.  I pay you, you entertain me.  But for me, I’m here to learn to respect this new world.  I’m not here as a VIP to be served, I’m here as a sociologist to learn what I can to understand.  This approach is the same I have for everyone in real life.  In cultures, societies, families, I am the visitor.  I am the guest.  I don’t touch things I shouldn’t touch.  I don’t do things I shouldn’t do.  Sometimes my beliefs may conflict, but in the context of things, I need to be willing to take a step back and realize, this is a different world.  And mayhap you think it silly, but it’s the same for video games.

So yeah, I do feel bad if you think someone in a game is stupid, because to me, they’re someone that’s real.  If a concept of lore is dumb, well, guess what?  Those characters have to live in that world.  And if you’re paying for the game as service, that game has failed you.  And it makes sense.  If you’re playing specific characters  just for the numbers to be bigger than anyone else’s, great.  If the reward isn’t good enough you’re not going to aid the village?  Elise, they’re not real.

Sorry, and in most people’s eyes, yes.  You’re totally, totally right.  The people in the pixels on my screen are not going to come to my aid when I am being mugged or I am in financial need.  My therapist says my approach is just that I’m being extremely considerate.  But does that make everyone else’s approach inconsiderate?

I don’t think so.

Sometimes respect isn’t a single road.  Sometimes it is.  And in this case I’m willing to bet that there is more than one road, I’m just not driving on it.  But when one version is wielded as a way to look down on another, that’s when it is a problem, not the perspective itself.  That’s another big mistake in thought I made. It’s not that other people with this technical or service based mindset are bad.  They’re not.  It’s when it is wielded against me that is the problem.  I am constantly feeling shut down in the communities because I feel they talk harshly about other people, and by people I mean the characters in a game.  But they don’t notice that.  It’s silly for me to think that.

It’s not that these people are rude.  At least I’m going to assume they’re not, unless the reason they don’t like a character is for something severe like racism.  It’s that the boundaries of this bubble of respect that I’ve created have become so inflated that in order to accept this perspective, that boundary is going to be rubbed the wrong way.  And the spoiler thing just feels like an echo of this that exacerbates that.

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The problem with taking perspectives like these is that there are sacrifices to be made.  And even those sacrifices can be seen as problematic to those around you.  They think it facetious, stupid, or pretentious for taking it this far.  And in most cases I don’t blame them.  

People in the gaming community that I’m in are not rude.  They’re not wrong.  They’re not inconsiderate or disrespectful.  It’s just that they have a different view of things, and with the sacrifices I’ve made to have the perspective that I feel best provides the fun and appreciation for games, I have to accept that this is the result of that.  They’re going to be breaking those boundaries, and usually it’s not their fault, it’s mine, because I actually want this.  

I sincerely am grateful if you’ve actually read all of this.  It’s very likely that our perspectives on this differ.  Don’t make yourself feel bad if it’s not the same as mine.  Or don’t make me feel bad because of mine, trust me, I’ve gotten that my whole life.  I just want people to be introspective and realize that, excluding dangerous or inappropriate extremes that can harm other people, your perspective of video gaming is likely not wrong.  It just is, there are aspects of it that are very likely joyous to you, and sometimes it exists because of things within the realms of what is more complicated than we can imagine.  

And that’s okay. We’ll figure it out.

Thanks for reading.  I’ll see you next time.

Elise

1. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797611417007
2. https://www.livescience.com/53126-spoilers-can-ruin-movie-enjoyment.html#:~:text=Johnson%20was%20quick%20to%20add%20that%20the%20study,your%20experience%20with%20the%20story%2C%20the%20researchers%20learned

Backstories of Loved Ones

To know the past and keep the future

I keep getting spread so thin on all the things I could possibly do.  I’ve been spending more time with my family as well, because the older I get the more I realize that time with them is precious.  But something else hit me when I was playing Genshin Impact that made me realize that spending time with them is great, but there’s something else that I lacked that I desperately needed.

It’s something I’ve been thinking about since the article I wrote that included Final Fantasy VIII not too long ago, but it really hit me when I was playing Genshin.  In Genshin if you play with characters doing daily quests, little grindy things called domains, and a few other things you can increase your friendship with them.  Increasing your friendship allows you to learn more of their backstory.  I’ve been so busy and mentally tired lately that although I really wanted to learn more about Collei’s backstory that I had unlocked, I didn’t bother to read it yet.

I was using her in a boss battle and she died, and for some reason I freaked out and I immediately paused the game and went to read her backstory, as if I could lose my chance to do so.  You can easily revive characters through food or statues of the gods strewn throughout the map, but I frantically went and read all of her backstory in one fell swoop.  It got me thinking a lot about my parents.

My parents are older than the average parents in between generations.  And even though I’ve spent and have been spending more time with them, I’m beginning to realize that I don’t know much about their actual childhood and their backstories.  I know them now, and what they act like, and what they like to do, but I don’t know anything about their earlier life.  They never talk about it, and they’re very typically conservative Asians.  They just don’t say anything about it.  I know a handful of stories for both parents, and by handful I mean like…three at most, each.

The more I think about it, the more I really want to preserve those stories.  They’re things that are unique and important and I just have neglected that.  Spending time with them isn’t enough for me and now I want to know more.  If I was so scared of losing the opportunity to get to know a friend that is a character in a game, how much more fearful and defeated would I feel if it were someone as close as my parents?  Unfortunately, I won’t be able to contact them easily until later in the year, but when they return I will definitely spend the time to hear and record their stories.  I will push them to tell me, since I know that they would resist saying it’s not important or there is nothing significant, which is very typical of them.  As long as I’m not crossing any boundaries, I want to hear their stories.

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It’s good, but also worrisome, that it took a character’s life to help me realize that there is more I want out of my family relations, and perhaps even friends as well.  Collei will be alright, but what about my loved ones? I’ll make sure to love my family, friends, and characters as much as I can, and to make sure I get to know them all better.

Thanks for reading, and I hope that you spend time with your loved ones and get to really know them, because we don’t know how long we have with them.

Elise

The Restricted Audience

Ratings for you, not the game

I think it’s easy to forget how restricted rating systems in games work.  In North America we tend to see the Entertainment Software Rating Board / ESRB ratings.  And in Europe you tend to see Pan-European Game Information / PEGI ratings.  In Japan it’s the Computer Entertainment Rating Organization / CERO.  I’m not going to list all of the audience ratings, but those are the three most common ones around me.

And I did say audience ratings.  I think people misunderstand that the ratings are not necessarily about dangerous content.  It’s about content that is dangerous if handled immaturely.  Nearly every single type of restricted content in video games is dangerous if approached incorrectly.  We’re saying rated M for mature audiences, because if you are playing this content you should be mature about it.  

Foul language is something that most people speak, but it’s a matter of when we say it and when it’s appropriate.  If you stub your toe and swear, alright.  But if you’re in a church or in an interview maybe don’t swear outright.  For this one, it’s about reading the context, but that requires some amount of maturity. 

Every time we move further down the list with things like gambling, violence, nudity, and discrimination, each subject must be approached with maturity.  And the truth is that most people who play mature rated or PEGI 18 games aren’t really that mature.  I’ve gotten the response that it’s about whether or not you can “handle” that amount of violence.  I don’t think it’s about “handling” violence.  It’s about how we approach, treat, and respect the events.  People are not mature for watching ultra violence or looking at sexual content, especially if they give the same immature approach to similar situations in real life.  

One thing I found very interesting is that the PEGI ratings have “Discrimination” as one of the factors and it’s noted as a PEGI 18 rating.  I think ethics are something very important in video games.  I mean, we’ve noted how a lot of character development is literally about growth and ethics, and people are not without them in real life.  Some people say that because it’s just a game you can just ignore everything, but that’s not true.  If that were true, trauma wouldn’t happen to people.  Trauma is when unexpected events shatter paradigms and the securities of someone’s life.  You can’t just undo an experience.  Unless there is some sort of brain damage or memory loss involved, what you experience, watch, and play in video games will affect you.  

This is not to deny the studies that people who play violent video games become violent, but it can still affect you if not taken maturely.  Again, it is whether or not you let that become an enabling factor.  Some people use video games as a way to let off steam.  To yell and have a safe place to trash talk and banter.  And that’s okay, because they’re using it as a way to ameliorate the stress and anger.  But I also know people who, when playing video games, become violent.  Most of the time they already are, but enabling them or enticing this kind of temperament is also not okay.

There are mature ways to approach sexual content, and all of them need to be approached maturely.  I don’t want rated M games to be like some sort of light to attract all the bug people who just want to objectify women.  I mean, unfortunately, there are games with that kind of approach in mind, and honestly I don’t find that for mature audiences at all when the whole set of creation is immature.  Perhaps, and this might be sharp to say but, there are some games that shouldn’t be played because the basis of the whole game is not conducive to proper behavior.  I’m not trying to be some sort of policing writer.  I’m just stating the reality that some things will affect people in a negative way and it’s not about being progressive or being “tough”, it’s about teaching people, not just kids, that some things need to be respected.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the same people who sexually harrassed me at school are the same people who play those games that disrespect women.  I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the people who say that video games don’t affect them are the same people bullying others.  We as the players are supposed to be mature about this all.  The people who know that the violence stays in the game.  The people who recognize that war and discrimination are real, terrible things.  The people that recognize that a character is a sex worker not because she is a bad person, but because she is having a hard time in life.  To learn this empathy, to learn this understanding, that’s what maturity is about.  

I’m not saying that we’re stiff and not having fun while shooting enemies and slicing baddies.  Rated M for Mature just means that when it gets down to it, we understand that we must treat these subjects with respect and understanding.

Thanks for reading, I’ll see you again soon.

Elise

A Raft Made of Backlogs

Lost in the dream sea

The backlog list is so big.  I love media, but this is getting ridiculous.   Disney announced a ton of stuff, and now a gigantic swathe of games just popped up for Nintendo, SEGA, and Sony.  There is also that pile of books I should read as well.  But is this…bad?

Sometimes I think back on my teenage years when getting more than one game a year was like a miracle.  If you look back on play time for games in my teens, those games had hundreds of hours in them, mostly because they were the only thing for that year.  There are more games than I could ever play in multiple lifetimes now.  

Moreover, I don’t think I ever would’ve thought I would be able to play through the series that I’ve dreamed of, but that has become a reality.  Since I like playing things in chronological release order, some of these games either never get released in English or fade away to time and become very difficult to obtain.  Now, I’ve been able to play through all the Final Fantasy’s up to VII, and games like Yakuza have been entirely ported to PC.  I’ve been able to go back and go through all the Kirby games and with Return to Dreamland’s remake I can fill that hole that was left behind because that game got real expensive real quick.  

This is…the dream.  I’m so grateful for where gaming has gone right now.  I mean, I can choose to be a strong female character in my games.  I can customize the crap out of them as well.  Free games show up so often I could play those and never worry about it all.  Not only is this a good time to be a gamer, it is a good time to be a gamer who grew up in the 90s and 2000s.  Being able to play the games I thought would be lost to me is very much a dream come true for me.

I know there are still things to hash out with the gaming community and how Nintendo games aren’t well preserved to be played again.  There will always be a few things here and there that go unaccomplished for now, but still.  Things are so wonderful now and I am very happy with the games being released. 

Are there any games that you were able to play that you thought you wouldn’t get to growing up?  Or games you feel like you missed out on due to the passage of time? I’m very content with the idea that I am lost in the sea now, because this raft of games that I’ve made was the dream cruise I was thinking of when I was younger. I am so grateful to be lost at sea on a raft made of backlogged games.

Thanks for reading, I’ll see you again.

Elise

There is No Status Quo

Glow in the dark

There are going to be a fair bit of spoilers for these titles: 
Parks and Recreation, the TV show: major spoilers
Super Mario RPG: Major spoilers
Marvel Cinematic Universe Infinity Saga: Major spoilers
Final Fantasy VIII: First 13 hours spoilers

Although I spoil things, I am still purposely very vague.  This doesn’t mean they aren’t spoilery though, so be warned.

Long article time!

Character development works in the same way that people develop.  Whether you like it or not, that’s how some of the best character development works.  And a more turbulent thing that is also true is that it is almost always cheesy.  It’s the cheesy stuff that are the real lessons in life.  When writing character development, it’s important to recognize how and when paradigm shifts in perspective happen.  And we can also, again, skeletonize it to cheesy things, but we’re going to keep it at a complicated level for the sake of showing the individuality of developments.

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First I’m going to establish the basic point that my title has made.  There is no status quo.  Characters are like glow sticks, they won’t really shine until you break them.  In Parks and Recreation the character Andy has one of the best developments because the events that happen to him actually change and cause him to grow.  It’s very simple and logical stuff.  Most people know that, but actually having that implemented is a different thing.  He actually does change as his love for April grows.  He really does learn from his time at community college.  He really does start finding footing for where he feels comfortable in his place in society.  These things are actually happening to him and the show acts like it.  This doesn’t mean he can’t be the same goofy character, but it means that he will not return to the original goofy character before.  You cannot return to the status quo, else it seems like nothing significant happened at all.

This happens in all sorts of TV shows where things return completely to normal.  I’m not saying that this is bad, because it fits some shows very well that things always return to normal.  Sometimes these kinds of series will do major shifts to show that something has changed.  This can be something that happens at the end of a season or in preparation for a change of casting.  Super Mario RPG’s Mallow has an identity crisis because he thinks he is a frog.  I’m…pretty sure we all can recognize that he is totally not.  Some character developments happen in drastic shifts like this.  This happens in real life as well, so it makes sense.  

What’s interesting about Mallow’s shift is that he doesn’t really change much, except for his self-confidence, which was an issue for a while.  He doesn’t really mind that he thought he was a frog this whole time.  The big shift wasn’t the fact that he was having an identity crisis, but rather that he needed to come to terms with how he feels about himself.  These aren’t huge lines in the story by the way.  Mallow doesn’t always talk about this, but it feels significant enough.  

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Here’s one that I have thought a lot about from the Infinity Saga in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, specifically Thor.  Thor’s development is mostly about who he believes he is and his worthiness.  He goes through a lot of this and it develops on itself multiple times.  In Thor: Ragnarok, he really comes to terms with himself after his father’s “passing”.  Now normally this is it.  But after his failure to kill Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War, he actually returns to what he was previously where he didn’t believe in himself.  This is not a return to the status quo.  This is usually only obtainable through story writing that is extended over time.  I think this is a rare opportunity to recognize how some people struggle to change over time.  He had such a big revelation in Thor: Ragnarok and now he is back to where he was before because of yet another shift.  This new development is no longer about coming to terms with himself, it is about the failure of doing so in a difficult time.  I love the writing of this because sometimes we have big life events happen to us and when it gets hard we do fall back down and we do struggle.

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Lastly, Final Fantasy VIII.  Just to be clear, this isn’t a comprehensive list of all the different kinds of development.  Final Fantasy VIII just happens to be the final one on this list.  I love Final Fantasy to death, so maybe I’m a bit biased.  I haven’t finished VIII yet, so this is just what I know so far from the game.  I’ve played 13-ish hours.

Most of the game’s characters are teenagers, and I think it’s a very good opportunity to talk about the small world of the mind.  There are a lot of times where the main character, Squall, says some really angsty stuff.  Same with Rinoa.  There are tons of times where you could ask why the world they make the choices they make or how something they said was ridiculous or immature, but that’s just it.  They’re teenagers.  I think one of the more difficult parts of writing is not only understanding how much your character’s know, but also how much they can interpret.  When Squall is threatened by death he does the most teenager thing and runs away.  I’m not saying all teeangers do this, but it’s been established that he is an angsty teen, so what he is doing is in line with that.  He is so determined to not be something left in the past because someone he is close with may have died.

Having death hit you at such a young age affects you differently than if you were older.  This whole time Squall has set up a tough exterior, but it really breaks when he just runs.   His paradigm has shifted, and he has to come to terms with it.  This doesn’t fully absolve itself immediately though, which I like.  Rinoa also goes through a series of similar rash actions where she wants to try and suppress the evil Sorceress on her own.  This seems so foolish, but remember that her world consists of living in rebellion.  She has been fighting government oppression her whole life and her relationship with her father is not great.  This is what her world consists of: fighting back, no matter how small you feel.  When she fails to suppress the Sorceress, she nearly dies.  

Squall and Rinoa both argue over how serious these missions are taken.  This back and forth starts pretty early on.  Both Squall and Rinoa’s growth intertwine when Rinoa realizes just how dangerous all of this is and Squall feels what the fear of death is like in someone else as Rinoa literally clings to him.  This is further emphasized when he sees how scared Irvine is moments later.  Their small worlds grow larger with every shift.  He is changing how he feels about death, his mission, and what to do.  You see this in how he tells Irvine that it’s going to be okay, no matter the results.

Remember when I said Squall hated that idea of death?  Well, at this point some time later, he fights the Sorceress for the sake of the people and …dies.  Now hold on, this is where I’m at in the story.  So, very likely he’s not actually dead, but the action of this is significant, because now his paradigm has completely shifted.  He has voluntarily given his life for the sake of the people.  The world of his mind has grown.  He is no longer Squall as he was…however many hours ago in the game.  Unfortunately, for the sake of story he is likely still alive, so that status quo is probably still here.  I…I can’t say for sure.  I’m excited to see what happens next.

Not all teenagers and people will develop like this.  That’s fine.  But each has their own views and shifts.  Squall’s tough exterior has been well established by this point, but it is so fluid in his change over time.  His is not an immediate change, and that’s why I really like his development so far.  His “death” could also be just his desire to fulfill objectives for his organization, but he ran away last time.  He literally ran, and now he died.

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Maybe I’m getting this all totally wrong.  I could totally, totally be getting all of this wrong.  But I’m still very happy with how they show the perspective of the small worlds Squall and Rinoa both live in.  It’s easiest to see these kinds of things in the main character who starts in humble beginnings, except it’s usually more literal in that the world they fight for gets bigger and bigger as you explore more places.  But for what I can see in Squall and Rinoa right now, is the change in the mind, and I really, really like that.  

Why is this so important to me?  I mean, other than good character development, this helps me recognize people’s perspectives and how they see the world.  To be less at conflict with others, I need to be more understanding of their perspectives and what their mind-world’s look like.  What I look like in their world.  

Things are not always black and white, and seeing character growth like this is a good way to better understand how some people might make bad decisions when they’re just trying to be good people.

Thanks for reading, I’ll see you next time.
Elise