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A few months ago, I wrote a post called “We’re never too old to play games!” It was about my wonderful dad, his loss against a boss fight with frontotemporal dementia, and how games helped him/could have helped him more. We played games together always, from my earliest childhood memories until very close to the end of his life. He would have turned 70 on December 15, and I still miss him (and playing games with him) every day.

So when I was asked to read the following article for a health science reading group I’m in, I read it even though I couldn’t make it to the meeting:

Millington, B. (2011). Use it or lose it: Ageing and the politics of brain training. Leisure Studies, 31(4), 429-446.

Abstract:

This paper reports findings from a qualitative study of promotional websites for three prominent ‘brain games’ – that is, consumer technologies designed to train and improve the brain through challenging cognitive exercises. The study was specifically designed to critically examine how brain training is promoted as a viable endeavour and how brain games are made to intervene in cognitive functioning. The analysis of online promotion revealed three overlapping themes: (1) the deployment of expertise in game marketing to make brain training intelligible; (2) the deployment of risk metrics in game software to ‘screen and intervene’ in cognitive health; and (3) the deployment of ‘third party’ sources to corroborate brain training’s value, especially for older adults. These findings are used as a basis to contend that brain training technologies are simultaneously enabling and constraining. Against the historical practice of seeing ageing and cognitive ‘decline’ as biopolitical threats, brain games imagine seniors as empowered and capable of sustaining their identity work into retirement. At the same time, these products invoke common anxieties surrounding later life and, in keeping with the politics of neoliberalism, exacerbate the pressure on older persons to demonstrate an obvious ‘will to health’ through ongoing consumerism.

If you can’t read that Academicese, don’t worry about it. I’m fluent in it, and although I don’t want to use that language in this post, the study made me think about a lot of things that exist outside the university. The message I took from this article is as follows: getting old can be awesome, but maybe only if you buy these games. A phrase at the end of the article summarized it well:

[W]hen it comes to questions of cognitive health, growing older is a matter of personal risks, to be addressed via choices made in the marketplace.

(subliminal message: buy these specific games.)

And no other games will help you, apparently. That’s the ridiculous part of it. The websites of the “brain games” the author studied – Nintendo’s Brain Age, Vivity Lab’s Fit Brains, and HAPPYneuron – all suggest that their products will help you train your brain to work better, remember more, and avoid the cognitive decline that we all could be at risk for. As watching the effects of my brilliant dad’s disease taught me, cognitive decline associated with the dementias is perhaps one of the most tragic ways to die. But is it really necessary to buy one of these games to fight it?

Research does support the argument for the health benefits of older people playing games. I’ve heard about the Wii being used for bowling in nursing homes. I read a study in which the researchers designed a “music creation” tool using a touch screen for people with dementia, and dementia patients benefited from using it. So I’m not completely dismissing or trashing the makers of these “brain games” at all, I’m just saying that there are a lot of games people could play to help their brain health. Honestly, I believe playing ANY game can benefit our cognitive functioning at any age, from Brain Age to Guild Wars 2 to playing keep-away with a dog.

Millington noted that the marketing of these brain games “exacerbate the pressures on older persons to demonstrate an obvious ‘will to health’ through ongoing consumerism.” Marketing by fear. Also, the ongoing message that “health is work” is wearing me out already, and I’m not a senior yet. It is strange how our society has taken to heart the message that you have to put in a lot of good ol’ fashioned hard work if you want to stay healthy. We could also blame the marketers for this. After all, they sell the idea that indulging in junk food, alcohol, cigarettes, and whatever else is somehow “rewarding yourself” when in fact it’s damaging you. (That’s not to say I don’t enjoy the occasional glass of wine or ice cream – but I’ll be ok since all the games I play will keep me healthy.) But seriously, given all the pressures and constraints on our lives, is it realistic to believe we can *make* ourselves healthy, and that our brains can only remain healthy into old age by buying these games?

It’s unfortunate that we’re not always able to enjoy a healthy lifestyle that will lead us into a fun and relaxing retirement. Too frequently, our lifestyle choices (and, sometimes, genetic predispositions) cause our lives to be filled with chronic disease and too many colds each winter and the need for too many pill bottles when we get old. I live with a chronic illness caused by an autoimmune issue, but I’m taking every step I can to avoid living as a sick person; this means I’m subjected to the “work” of staying healthy. But I wonder if John Lennon could have imagined a society in which we all enjoyed taking care of ourselves – and we all played games, whatever games were fun to us, without worry about how much time they take out of our schedules or whether this is only something boys living in their parents’ basements should do or whether we’d chosen the “right” game to keep our brain active. Enjoyment and happiness are keys to a healthy life. So make sure you enjoy the games you play… every day.

tl-dr

I don’t feel well. I’m gonna go level something. And I’m gonna enjoy myself, dammit!!!

Ding! You’ve leveled up! Please see your local librarian for training.

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I’m pressed for time to write this post due to a number of RL issues, but I’m pretty fired up so I’ll see how many words come out. I encountered this #1ReasonWhy thing last night in a Gamasutra article. #1ReasonWhy is a Twitter hashtag being used by women who work in the video games industry to state 1 reason why “they don’t feel comfortable in the game industry.” I’m not mad at the campaign itself; I’m mad that it needs to exist.

I’ve never worked in the video games industry, but I have worked in IT, both in corporate and in academic settings. So I can say based on firsthand experiences that for women, it’s not a picnic. I could share stories about what I experienced in those past lives, but I don’t even need to go back that far. Even now, I teach technology courses to library and information science students. Most of them are women, and most of them don’t feel comfortable with technology. But when I share teaching stories with my male colleagues who teach the same classes, I learn that they don’t have the same challenges I’ve had with students challenging grades and so on. I’ve known for years that as a young (or at least a young-looking) female teaching classes that are typically taught by a member of the boys’ club, I’m at a disadvantage. I know I have to work twice as hard to hold my ground with the students so they will give me half as much respect as they give the men. Why is this the case?

This overcompensation phenomenon is not just based on my past as an IT professional or as an IT instructor. It happens in the gaming realm too; unfortunately, it seems to come off as militant feminism. Due to my time issues, I can’t find links to them, but I’ve seen so many things online where women are working so hard to hold their place in the gaming world as players. But generally, the message is driven into viewers’ heads: we’re here to play, not to fuck you. (I’ve said this before: what if men worked hard to communicate this same message? Everyone would think they were crazy!) I think girl gamers take overcompensation to an extreme, but maybe not. Take a look at Fat, Ugly or Slutty or my recent post about when I was “raped” in World of Warcraft and make your own call on this.

Some men have been pretty shitty to me over the years. I’ve been raped. I’ve been in abusive situations. I’ve been treated by male IT colleagues like I don’t even know how to turn on a computer. While this doesn’t make it hurt any less, I know that these awful behaviors are based on their own insecurities and weaknesses. But why should us women have to work so damn hard to prove ourselves to be above their weaknesses and their lack of e-peen?

That is my point today. Women shouldn’t HAVE TO do any of this: the tweets about why women feel uncomfortable in the games industry, the working twice as hard for half the credit, the pleading with assholes to not “rape” their battleground team members (read the post). My political leanings aside, I’ve always had an issue with affirmative action because I believe that people should be given opportunities and rewards based on what they do, not based on their gender or race. I don’t want special treatment just because I’m a woman, only the same treatment.

Feminism, to me, means that women should have the same chances and opportunities that men have to do what they want to do. For some women, that might mean having kids and staying home. For me, it means pursuing a career in information science and playing video games. Both sets of goals are fabulous, and neither one is less valuable. But don’t trash me because I’m in what’s generally considered a boys’ domain, just like I don’t trash women who have no interest in this stuff. The more “traditional” women do work that is less valued in the world, but the work I do is also maybe not something women are supposed to do. So if poppin’ out kids and raising them isn’t valued, and women are undervalued if we go out in the larger world, what are we to do?

Dr. Marcia J. Bates received the Award of Merit from the American Society for Information Science and Technology (my primary professional organization) in 2005. This is the highest honor that you can receive from the Society. Her acceptance speech made me cry when I heard her deliver it, and I still get chills about it when I read it. You can read it yourself, but I want to highlight the end of her speech:

Finally, when it comes down to it, there’s a big difference between going through life with the wind at your back, and going through life leaning into the wind. I retired at 61 not because I really wanted to, but because I was worn out.

Fair treatment of women can happen only when we ALL self-consciously ask ourselves what we are doing every time we apportion work and rewards to men and women. Fair treatment does not happen without a self-conscious effort to change.

That’s why THIS recognition, the Award of Merit, is so very important to me, and I value it so highly. After all, I’m only the 8th woman to have received this honor, in the 40-plus years it has been awarded. Thank you.

I have felt for many years that I’ve been living my life “leaning into the wind,” but only when I have to deal with people who don’t understand. When I started playing video games at age 6, I didn’t know that it was supposed to be wrong. I played with my dad, and with a male friend who lived in my neighborhood. I had no female friends. I didn’t know this was supposed to be a problem until I was a teenager – when I started to see boys as more than people to hang out with – and even then it wasn’t a problem because boys actually liked the fact that I could talk about things they enjoyed as well: games, computers, whatever. This holds true today; just ask Fox the gamer. Even when I found my love of information science and started building my career, I didn’t think about the fact that information science is considered to be “library science for boys.” But I could never see myself reading story time to a bunch of kids in the children’s section. That’s a wonderful thing to do, it’s just not me.

We all should have the chance to be who we are. Unfortunately, people who don’t know this get in the way. Prejudices against people who don’t fit whatever mold is floating around in their heads is due to their own closed mind. But those of us who are just out there enjoying what we love shouldn’t have to be the ones doing the work needed to open their minds. It rarely seems to work, anyway.

Until we figure out how to open minds, see you in the battlegrounds, I guess. But beware. My DK is OP.

tl-dr

We are all created equal… until somebody tells us we’re unequal. Don’t let anyone do that to you.

Ding! You’ve leveled up! Please see your local librarian for training.

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The use of the word “rape” [...] is getting used more and more and I’m sure I’ve caught myself using the word although I prefer the word “gank” and the same to have similar meanings except “gank” doesn’t have that real word connection, at least not that I’m aware of.

– Orkela, commenting on Jacob’s post about griefing and trolling and all that other shit

OK, people. Yes, we’ve had posts about corpse camping (and how to handle it) and how Riot is handling these things. But it seems like no matter how much we post about it all, we find more to say about it. Today, I need to talk about “rape.”

It feels empowering to know this will be posted publicly on the Internet: I was raped. It was a long time ago, but it changed the direction of my life in ways I can’t even begin to explain. I became a stronger person for it, but that took many years to achieve. It didn’t turn me into a militant feminist. I don’t believe all men are bad. I think candlelight vigils and marches to observe the horror of rape are kind of pointless because I don’t know that they really fix the problem. I still have occasional horrific anxiety attacks; these only started after it happened. But I’ve had no choice but to move on, and my strength impresses people who know me well.

A couple of nights ago, I was in a battleground, and it was clear we were losing. This prompted one of my team members to say “we’re getting raped” in bg chat. I had decided a while ago that anytime I saw that word used in game, I wasn’t going to let it go. Ignoring casual use of that word is almost as bad as pretending rape itself doesn’t exist, or isn’t as bad as it is. So I replied with something like this: “please don’t use that word – I was raped irl and it bothers me to see it here.” When I do this, typically they stop, or at least don’t reply to me.

But, that night, that person did reply. He said things, horrible things, in response, such as “I’m re-raping you” and “I like rape” and some other things I have blocked out of my mind. Out of shock, I called him an “asshole” and some other things I shouldn’t have said, but he continued. I started sweating, shaking, and crying. I certainly couldn’t concentrate on the bg anymore. I /ragequit.

The amazing man sitting next to me on the couch asked the troll what was wrong with him (peppered with all kinds of great language, of course!), but the room was spinning too much for me to see the response, or to see if the disgusting talk continued. I sat there, in shock and devastation and anger at the mean people we share this world with, my hands covering my eyes. I heard him typing furiously next to me. Eventually I looked up, and saw him sending a ticket to a GM about the troll. After he finished, he said he told Blizz that if they didn’t do something, we’d stop our subscriptions. Then he held me and reminded me of this very essential truth: frequently, on the Internet, people don’t remember that there are real people at the other end of the line. I knew he was right, but that didn’t stop my flashback or my disappointment about humanity’s meanness. I went to bed and slept fitfully, and in the morning wondered if I’d had a nightmare. Maybe I had a few nightmares, I’m not sure. But I remembered the incident was real, and then wasn’t terribly enthusiastic about starting the day.

By the next evening, Blizz had replied and said they’d do something about the troll, but they didn’t say what they would do. I didn’t want to play that night. I still don’t want to play. I will face it eventually and create new fun times in game, but I’m not ready right now. And that is ok. If I had truly faced my pain over the rape years ago instead of stuffing it down with too many antidepressants and food and general withdrawal from life, maybe I would have recovered sooner. It’s taken me almost 20 years to realize that if you shed a few tears on occasion about something horrible, it is healthier for you and the people who surround you.

Yes, don’t forget that entire communities (including our gaming communities) surround us rape survivors. Rape is everyone’s issue. Talk with my mother or that awesome man next to me on the couch about their thoughts on my rape if you don’t believe me. It’s also not just a woman’s issue. The questions like “What was she wearing?” and “Where was she?” that are typically asked of female rape survivors make us think we should have done something different to prevent it. But we would never ask these questions of a man who was raped, would we? Read this post from a male gamer who survived rape as a child for a powerful perspective.

But the question becomes: how do we stop it? I think a lot of these comments – not just the word “rape,” but anything nasty that any troll says – are due to ignorance. I wonder whether that person would have pushed it with me as far as he did if his mother or sister had been raped. Simple policing such as reporting the player, or self-preservation acts like putting the player on our ignore list, is sometimes all we can do, but it doesn’t solve the bigger problem: these people, and their shitty attitudes, exist. People frequently lack knowledge about other categories of things and people that they are mean about, which is odd because we’ve all got defining characteristics that set us apart from others. Perhaps the troll’s father died when he was 4 years old, or he hates his red hair, or whatever… something would set him off if I pushed enough buttons, I’m sure.

I’d like to end this post on a positive note, and say “it will all get better after librarians know how to give people all the knowledge they need for achieving personal intellectual enlightenment” or proclaim “Google will save us all” or give some other Infogameristic words of wisdom… but I don’t have any of those words right now. To fix a lack of education, or to open your mind up and sense the broader world, you have to want it intrinsically. The existence of information, professional educators, Internet content providers… none of it can force your brain into recognizing how your words and actions affect the people with whom you share the world. Including the World of Warcraft, it seems.

Thank you for sharing in my catharsis. And if you write hateful comments in response to this post, I will approve them. You know why? Your words speak for who you are. Including these people.

tl-dr

it was me and a gun
and a man on my back
and I sang “holy holy”
as he buttoned down his pants
you can laugh
it’s kind of funny
things you think
at times like these
like I haven’t seen Barbados
so I must get out of this

–Tori Amos, “Me and a Gun,” singing about her own rape

Ding! You’ve leveled up! Please see your local librarian for training.

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In case you didn’t know – and you probably didn’t, unless you’re a librarian who has time to read – Saturday, November 3, is International Gaming Day @ Your Library. An American Library Association-organized event, this is THE day to go to your library and play library-sanctioned games with other patrons. That is, provided that your library is participating. And provided that you knew about it. Chances are, neither condition applies. According to ALA estimates, approximately 20,000 people will be Playing Games @ Their Library at around 1,200 participating libraries worldwide. Will you be one of them?

Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s wonderful that libraries offer these kinds of programs; they promote literacy and community and other positive things. Despite these benefits, not every library is on board with games (no pun intended). When many people hear the word “games” these days, they think about addicted 14-year-old boys sequestered in their parents’ basements to blow up things in front of a console or a PC who don’t quit playing until they are eventually inspired to kill people in real life. Of course, these awful stereotypes are largely unfounded, but they do unfortunately contribute to the reasons why many librarians are hesitant to participate in gaming programs. The odd thing: at the same time, librarians are proponents of reading banned books, and many banned books contain violence. I credit Jacob for unexpectedly pointing this out when he was a guest lecturer in my social media class last year.

Again, the libraries that do participate in gaming programs provide an amazing service. But I also see issues with the most common approaches. In my ideal world, every day is Games Day. I happen to have other plans this weekend that don’t involve games. Many programs focus on catering to teens, but since the average age of a video gamer is… well… closer to my age, and since nursing homes provide Wiis for their residents to get some exercise, we need to be more age-inclusive in our programming. Also, the public or academic library’s function as a community space is not in question here, but why does a library’s gaming program typically only consist of Game Things You Can Only Do If You Are @ Your Library? Let me explain a few of my ideas.

You don’t need games to have a gaming event.

Buying games – or at least buying enough games to have a decent-sized program – is expensive, and libraries are generally experiencing an increase in business with a decrease in funding. (no, I don’t get it either – but don’t ask me, ask @ Your Government). However, if one of our driving forces behind hosting game events is fostering community, then why not have a “gaming cafe” night in which people who play a certain game – or maybe even different games – can just hang out and talk about games? (I’ll grant extra XP to the librarians who decorate the tables with a d20 or a few Magic cards or something).

Metagaming resource provision ftw.

Talking about games, reading about games, trolling online discussion forums about games, collecting RL items that are related to games… Jacob and I call doing these and other things “metagaming.” But if you are new to a game, or even if you’re an experienced player, you need to find resources that can help you improve your playing. Be aware that compiling metagaming resources for gamers will require a certain amount of understanding about the games for which patrons want to metagame. For example, after the WoW MoP expansion, I wanted to find a good PvP spec for my frost mage’s newly reconfigured/epic fail of a talent tree, but it was difficult. If you didn’t understand that, you need to do a little WoW metagaming yourself before you provide metagaming resources to WoW players.

Also, while I’m on this rant, don’t just put up a page @ Your Library’s Website with links to metagaming resources, and expect gamers will find them. Unless it does better in search engine rankings than WoWWiki, they won’t come. Never once in my 30 years of video gaming have I heard a gamer say, “I think I’ll see what the library can tell me about my leveling my frost mage from 85 to 90″ or similar. No. It’s just not in the gamer’s metagaming vantage point. Which brings me to my third idea.

Embed yourself.

Librarians have been playing with this idea for a while now: go where they are rather than waiting for them to come to you. We see this in our attempts to run The Facebook Page @ Your Virtual Social Media-savvy Library, and in academic librarians’ away-from-the-library f2f office hours, for example. Gamers won’t metagame @ Your Library or @ Your Library’s Website as much you would like them to, but the interesting thing is that gamers have a constant need for information. My student Caroline Whippey is exploring this broader issue in her PhD thesis research: information seeking in games. A driving factor behind any game is simple: if you don’t learn, you don’t win. When you learn, you must process information by default. This fact should be taught on Day 1 @ Your Library School, right after the professor gives a stern “no, loving books in and of itself doesn’t properly justify your decision to become a librarian” lecture.

When I say “embed yourself,” I mean ***play the games***! Level a frost mage or a sylvari or something. Do lots of metagaming. Then when your fellow players are ready to metagame, you throw metagames at them. Not literally. Throwing things at patrons is bad service. Then again, metagaming without gaming is also a fail. You see my point.

Yep, this takes time and effort.

Gaming is not a resource-free diversion. Even an encounter with a new board game requires acquiring new knowledge, but we do it because it’s fun. We don’t realize we’re learning, or we don’t think about it that way. If you don’t think there’s learning involved in games, sit down with an FPS on an Xbox 360 for five minutes, or throw yourself into an RBG with somebody else’s character, and let me know if you win. But I already know the answer.

Again, about Saturday… I’m sure Games Day is fun and useful for the librarians and patrons who participate, but I wouldn’t exactly call 20,000/6,000,000,000 people a game-changing revolution. I hope ALA will think more creatively in the future about what gaming means in libraries as subsequent Games Days are planned. If nothing else, let’s think of every day as Games Day, because a day without games is… well, just a day, and we already have 364 of those every year. And it does not necessarily have to be a day @ Your Library for people to learn and have fun – or for librarians to help.

tl-dr

I’ll probably spend International Games Day @ Your Library outside enjoying the last of the fall foliage, but that doesn’t mean (1) I won’t be playing a game and (2) I have all the information and people I need to play that game.

Ding! You’ve leveled up! Please see your local librarian for training.

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Maine is not a state I typically associate with controversy, but there is a current controversy in Maine politics that has made international news. Are you ready for it? Wait for it… Wait for it…

A Democratic candidate for Maine’s state Senate, Colleen Lachowicz, plays World of Warcraft.

Maine Republicans are arguing that because of this abominable pastime, she is in no way fit to be a politican, and they have set up this ridiculous website, called Colleen’s World, meant to prove her status as a horrible person. Their argument goes: a woman who plays an orc rogue – and, therefore, spends her free time stabbing everyone in the back – shouldn’t hold office.

This exemplifies so many things that make me really angry. I hate the negative political campaigns that Americans have grown accustomed to. In a way, maybe her mad virtual backstabbing skillz help her campaign because that’s all so many candidates do irl. American politics have become like a train wreck of a reality show that we can’t seem to look away from, such as Honey Boo Boo, or a bad song we can’t stop listening to, like “Call Me Maybe.” But I digress.

The negativity in the Maine Republicans’ attack plan is rooted in that famous media myth so many gamers love to hate: people who play video games are violent. They think they can prove Colleen is unfit for the Senate by highlighting things she’s posted on discussion forums – “crude, vicious and violent comments” as they call them on the website. They clearly have no understanding of gamer culture (nor do they want to); they highlight comments she makes about WoW play and jump to the conclusion that these comments can be somehow correlated to rl? What??? If people took seriously everything I’ve ever posted on gaming forums, I’d never land a full-time faculty position at a highly respected research university… oh wait… I already have one.

We’ve covered the “video games are violent” thing in previous posts on this blog, such as “Taking Aim at the Issue: Real World Guns and Games”, “Violence vs. Conflict in Video Games”, and “Violence and Video Games: Looking beyond the obvious”, so I’m not going to get into that discussion in too much detail in this post. But one part I’m alternatively annoyed with – and I want to explore this some more – is the idea that we have to hide our identities as gamers to be taken seriously in the world. Here is a quote from the BBC article I cited at the beginning in which a games researcher named Ladan Cockshut discusses gamers’ place in the world (I’ve never heard of this woman, and I couldn’t find her on Google Scholar, but whatever):

“In my work, I’ve spoken with many people who in their regular lives have roles of significant responsibility (as doctors, managers, or educators) but who choose carefully with whom they disclose their gaming activity,” she told the BBC. “And disclosing their gaming activity is often accompanied by a degree of apology or embarrassment.”

But, she added, having a gamer run for office was a “heartening” development.

“This would seem to run contrary to the other stereotypes that we love to assign to gamers: that they are lazy, antisocial people who don’t have a ‘real life’,” she said. “Maybe this will trigger some dialogue about our perceptions of gamers and the role that games can and should play in modern society.”

If us gamers do have to hide the fact that we’re gamers, then it’s no wonder why we want to hide from the real world! Seriously though, why is it that our society thinks some free time activities are acceptable and others are not? Have you ever heard of a person who hides the fact that they like watching football or baseball so others will respect them? Hell no – and, guess what people, football and baseball are games too!!!! And as for gamers wasting away all our free time on games… we’ve all known people who spend hours memorizing the RBIs or the ERAs or whatever of their favorite baseball players, and nobody thinks twice about it. But, obviously, if WoW players like Colleen are focused on improving their rogue’s Agility, they’re violent, lazy time-wasters.

I went to high school in Texas, in an area known for political and religious conservatism. (hint: America’s most recent past president lives there now). At our football games, they always said a (Christian) prayer before the game, right alongside the national anthem. I questioned how they could do that given potential separation of church and state issues. I also remember other people pointing out that it was odd how they could say a prayer before they went out on the field to kick the other team’s ass. It was ***real life game violence*** somehow made softer with pre-game prayer and the school’s participation in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. I remember so many players getting hit so hard they couldn’t get off the field. There were even rituals in place for it: for example, the cheerleaders would get down on one knee until the player either stood up or was carried off the field. But would any of these football players, or the coaches and parents who directed them, ever have to answer questions about their participation in football before they could do something visible or important? No, and at least in Texas, this involvement would be a highlight of their qualifications.

So… why the split? Why does the media, and the people who are brainwashed by it, differentiate between “this kind of game is great” and “this kind of game is bad”? Virtual violence is more dangerous, and more telling about our characters, than rl violence? I’ve played video games since 1981, and I’ve blown up a lot of aliens and monsters and even a few rogues, but I’ve never hit a person in reality. Honestly, the most I’ve ever done wrong is park in the wrong space on campus – but I paid for the ticket. I might have said a few bad words when I found the ticket on my car, and it might have relieved my stress to run some bgs with my frost mage… but in reality, the ice stayed in my freezer. Throwing ice at campus police won’t get me tenure, but Frostbolting a freakin’ orc in Arathi Basin certainly makes me feel better. And I’ll proudly tell everyone that I did it.

tl-dr

Gamers are everywhere, and we do everything. Just like you muggles.

Ding! You’ve leveled up! Please see your local librarian for training.

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I’ve been reading Jesse Schell’s book The Art of Game Design, a book that is practically worshiped in influential gaming circles. As an information scientist, I’m trained to think about the user at all times, whether it’s a library patron checking out a book or a gamer in a boss fight. So, naturally, I was really interested in Schell’s chapters on designing games with their potential players in mind.

I must admit, I was on board with everything in his book until I reached chapter 8, “The game is made for a player.” As I began the chapter, I was expecting to read a review of the principles in user-centered design – such as involving users at all stages of the product’s development, performing usability testing, and so on… especially given the game industry’s tendency to involve players in widespread beta testing. Instead, Schell presented me with psychological theories such as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, among others, as well as designing by generalized demographics. This generalization section is where I seriously objected.

If you’ve been reading this blog for long, you might remember from my previous posts such as “Boy gamers, girl gamers… or just plain gamers?” and “Girls and sex (and games): An unnatural order of things?” that I’ve never been your “average” girl – whatever average means. So when I read in Schell’s section on designing by demographics that “when making games for large audiences, generalizations are useful” (p. 103), I woke up and read on.

Age: in my age bracket of Schell’s (35-50; I’m at the lower end, so watch your comments) he focuses on the fact that people in this bracket are busy with raising a family and may not have as much time for games and “look for game playing opportunities the whole family can enjoy together.” I don’t have a family. I don’t have as much time for games as I’d like because I have a demanding career, but I don’t have to worry about what the little munchkins think of my passion for PvP.

/stops to save post draft obsessively due to thunderstorm passing through town

Gender: this is the section that made me want a drink. Apparently, men like mastery, competition, destruction, spatial puzzles, and trial and error in games… ok, sure. I’m not a man and I don’t want to generalize men based on the men I know/game with, but this isn’t every quality I observe in my male gamer friends.

Apparently, women like to see the following in games:

– Emotion. As support, he says that women like “emotional” romance novels, and men like “physical” porn. I have never read an “emotional” romance novel, unless I was making fun of one, which may have happened during less productive times in my high school and university days. I’ll never admit to it.

– Real world. Females apparently like to do things that mimic RL, like taking care of dolls. The dolls I owned as a girl stayed in the closet, while I ran the video games nonstop. He mentions Barbie games in this section. Not so much. Anytime I’ve ever discussed Barbie games with a female friend, she has a similar disgusted reaction; we go to the restroom and and throw up together (because, of course, ladies always use the bathroom in pairs).

– Nurturing. “Females enjoy nurturing. Girls enjoy taking care of baby dolls, toy pets, and children younger than themselves” (p. 104). I guess this is why I told my parents at a young age that I didn’t want any brothers or sisters, and I thankfully remained an only child? Oh, wait. Never mind.

– Dialog and virtual puzzles. OK, this is one point I agree with: my spatial skills are not nearly as good as my verbal skills. I get laughed at all the time in game for my inability to find things, but I can carry on 5 whisper conversations while reading guild and general chat without thinking twice. But the spatial/verbal thing is different because that’s based on biology; the other things might be due to socially created gender expectations.

– Learning by example. “They [females] have a strong appreciation for clear tutorials that lead you carefully, step by step, so that when it is time to attempt a task, the player knows what she is supposed to do” (p, 105). Oh, GOD, no. Just give me the game and let me screw around with it. I learn things so much better when I get in and screw them up. Of course, I’ve never had the problem that I’ve encountered with some people who think the computer is going to blow up if you do the wrong thing.

– Also, he states that girls don’t like blowing up things in game (he’s never seen me play on an evening after a tense committee meeting at work, obviously) and that women, as mothers, don’t care much about having fun as long as their family is having fun. I know several mothers who game, and they can blow things up for their personal enjoyment as much as any man; in fact, it’s an outlet for them so they have something to do outside of their kids’ needs. But I guess they are in the 1% too.

So, back to information science research: one of my favorite professors in information science school, Dr. Linda Schamber, used to tell us that if it wasn’t about people, we shouldn’t include it in our papers for her class. I took three classes from her, and even in her Information Organization class, she remained stoically user-centric. At a time when the games industry is fragmented in interesting ways, from the “non-gamers” who are playing CityVille and Angry Birds all day, to the hardcore types who are somewhat bored with the options, it is certainly the case that designers must understand their future players’ needs, and design accordingly. But, what is the best way to do this? It’s a difficult question because you can’t characterize gamers any one way – or, if you do, you have to look at many facets, as @Gameronomist and I uncovered in Gamer Classification Week on this blog.

We do lots of research in IS on things like “the information needs of X group.” Unfortunately, these groups are frequently operationalized by the university students that the researchers can easily collect; this is not authentic user needs research. Sure, students game, but so do many other “types” of people, including women who never played with dolls and men who like to socialize while they level. Game designers and information scientists need to work together in meaningful ways to actually base game design on real input from real potential players, and think about ways to make game features flexible based on a range of real human desires and preferences, not on the ideas that boys like this, girls like this, young people are this way, and so on. We can do it. We haven’t yet, but we can.

tl-dr

Game design should take into account a number of factors, including evidence-based user studies. Information scientists can help with this. Also, I’m in the 1%, but strangely enough, I’m not voting for Romney.

Ding! You’ve leveled up! Please see your local librarian for training.

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This week, all the gamers who aren’t talking about good things like GW2 – or bad things like the latest Zynga “game” that invades my Facebook news feed until I hide it – are talking about the new World of Warcraft expansion, Mists of Pandaria. I knew several days ago that I would have the first post-MoP post (that’s redundant, but it makes sense) on this blog, but I’m not playing it. Why not?

I could easily get on my late-night rant soapbox and talk about the silliness of a freaking panda and proclaim I’ll never sell out to Blizzard’s stupid idea. I’m not playing it because… well… I’m just not playing it right now. I’m flying out to present at the #influence12 conference today, and I knew that if I bought it now, I wouldn’t get all my work done before I left. So I will get it next week. Sorry for the lack of a highly principled soapbox.

I must sheepishly admit, however, that I logged into my boring Cataclysmic WoW tonight so I could at least say hello to my friends. The ones who were starting to level from 85 to 90 told me this unanimously: the scenery in the new areas is amazing, but it’s going to take them a while to level. I don’t remember the exact number, but I think just to level from 85 to 86 is something like 13 million XP, and if you’re doing a quest that’s only worth 120,000 XP, you’re gonna do a lot of quests. Try switching to dungeons or bgs, perhaps? On second thought, why do we bother leveling at all?

We level in WoW because Blizzard keeps making us. They need a way to work in new content to keep us short attention span gamer types interested, so they throw in a new continent, new classes, new races on occasion. According to Scott Nicholson’s book Everyone Plays at the Library, one characteristic of a “game” is that it has goals. Video game creators set goals for us by deciding how many levels we need to go through, how many XP we need at each level, how many things we need to kill before we can get the XP for the quest… game creators give us goals, and we work to achieve them, regardless of whether we get frustrated or bored along the way. When you think about it, the goals are somewhat arbitrary, but we live and die by them in game. (Typically, I die more than I live in game, but I don’t want to lose my gamer street cred, so I won’t talk about that little issue).

But what motivates us to achieve those goals? Reaching level 90 in 12 hours (which some players did, according to the battle.net forums, if you want to believe them) won’t change your life in any real way. You won’t have more money, or more love in your life, or a cleaner apartment… but you will feel like you’ve accomplished something you’re proud of. And, despite the frustration of getting killed by the thing, or the fact that you got in trouble at home because you neglected to clean the bathroom like you promised your spouse you would because you were trying to kill 10 of the things so you could at least get to 86 on your main before the end of the evening… you will have enjoyed the process.

That is what gaming is about. Goals and fun. While not everyone claims to be a gamer, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t like reaching goals or having fun, and that fact could take me on an entirely different tangent. But, back on the leveling issue, I must admit I’m a little frustrated with the MoP level increase. I’ve still got Cataclysm endgame content to play, and I would have been happy with only new endgame content for MoP, and maybe a new battleground and new dungeons, but I guess I’ll be leveling for a while again until I can see what the new endgame content is like. I can’t reach 90 in 12 hours of play, but I don’t want to… the fun would be over too fast!

A closing thought: somebody found this blog the day after MoP’s release by Googling “Wow, pandas suck.” I’m slightly proud of that.

tl-dr

A gamer’s relationship with leveling, and other goal-related gaming activities, is complicated – perhaps even codependent? What do you think?

Ding! You’ve leveled up! Please see your local librarian for training.

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Yesterday, September 12, Ace and I were again interviewed on the fabulous Contains Moderate Peril podcast. This time, the topic was “Are gamers a unique type of customer?” Talking with Brian, Roger, and Ace always equals a great event. I could talk games with them for hours.

Listen to the podcast if you have time, but perhaps the overall points discussed in the podcast could be described as this: the relationship between gamers and the vendors who make our games is perhaps best defined as “complicated.” We buy games and expansion packs weeks or months before we see them, we trash talk games but continue to play them as we threaten to leave them, we tell the vendors what we think without hesitation, and so on.

When we were talking, and in the hours after our interview, I couldn’t stop thinking about library vendors. Before I became a full-time faculty member, I was a systems librarian at an academic library. I was the first point of contact with our integrated library system vendor, and I was very active in their user group.

Additionally, I’ve done library consulting work – mostly conducting usability tests, and training people on how to conduct usability tests – for libraries in different places and different orientations. OPAC and single search interface usability has been (and continues to be) in question for libraries. So, while I’ve never worked for a vendor, I have plenty of experience with library system vendors and their products.

I mention this because the relationships that gamers have with vendors, and the relationships that librarians have with vendors, are unique for different reasons. Us gamers love to complain when our vendors do things we don’t like (the pre-MoP WoW patch is a perfect example; I’m still in mourning over how badly my mage has been nerfed) and we complain when they don’t do things we think we would like. As we discussed in the podcast, we commune around the bitching. Regardless, we continue to play their games. (That said, I did ragequit a battleground recently because my mage kept dying at an unacceptable frequency, and an overpowered druid called me a “retarded mage” as I was struggling to live, but I won’t go there right now.) But, overall, the game vendors use our input much more than vendors in other domains, even though we might think it’s not enough.

Conversely, us librarians don’t expect enough from our vendors. I’ve seen this unfortunate phenomenon manifest itself in so many ways. For example, in the early 2000s, a vendor could say to a library, “Look! It’s all XML!” and the library would think it was the best product ever made because XML was the newest and greatest thing. But once the library purchased the product, the library’s ability to configure and deploy the product was in question, since not all libraries had the resources to do that type of technical work.

Another example: libraries pay maintenance fees to vendors despite the fact that (1) librarians don’t feel comfortable telling vendors what changes they need and (2) vendors don’t necessarily respond well to technical concerns, bugs, or desires for system changes. This is a bit of an oversimplification, but the library system vendor I worked with agreed to implement three (and only three) enhancements per year for each part of the system. Library automation system migration is a time-consuming process; in some smaller libraries, there is a lack of staff who can “talk techie” enough with the vendor to communicate needs and problems effectively. These and other elements make it easy to feel like we’re at the mercy of our vendors.

From a business perspective, you can’t blame the vendors for their position: some development changes are too time-consuming to address from a cost-benefit point of view, and it’s a better use of their time to develop new products and services for us. I have friends who work for library system vendors – I don’t at all believe they represent the Dark Side of Libraries, but I do believe they have their own (understandable) agenda that becomes easy for librarians to forget when we’re feeling passive-aggressive over a glass of wine with colleagues at ALA.

So we have gamers with tremendous amounts of feedback opportunities, and game vendors who are mostly willing to make as many changes as possible because they know that’s what will keep us playing. And we have librarians who feel like their hands are tied when it comes to changing the products that their automation vendors provide. I don’t understand why these different relationships exist. As we said in the podcast, we don’t put much effort into the relationship with the company who made our TV. And chances are that if our TV dies, we’ll just go buy another one because it’s an excuse to buy one equipped with the latest technologies anyway. But we won’t pay for a new TV months in advance with little knowledge of what that TV’s going to do for us (I’m looking at you, gamers) and we won’t keep using a TV that doesn’t do what it needs to do for us without taking some sort of action (I’m looking at you, fellow librarians).

Jacob and I weren’t trying to answer any questions in our podcast, and I’m not trying to answer any questions with this post. However, I hope we can help everyone reflect on how we relate to game vendors, library system vendors, and any other business we support with our money on an ongoing basis. Starbucks (a vendor I support a little too often) guarantees that if we don’t like our coffee, they’ll remake it for free. I’ve taken them up on that once or twice, like when they put sweetener in my drink that I ordered unsweetened. That’s customer service right there! But how is that level of service different from other products?

I’m not happy with the new talent system in WoW but Blizz won’t change it just for me; however, might they change it if all of us nerfed mages and warlocks banned together and requested changes or canceled our subscriptions? We can work on it for sure. They want to continue feeding our addiction.

If enough librarians complained about the OPAC because we think it’s silly to make people omit initial articles in title searches as well as make them type the author’s last name first, would that be addressed? Not likely… unless it’s “all XML,” in which case the library is more than welcome to make the change themselves.

I realize there are likely contradictions in my post, but the complexity of these relationships makes contradictions hard to avoid because you can’t speak in absolutes on this issue… maybe you can’t even use logic. I’m not an economist, but I think I learned in that Economics 101 course they made me take in college that our capitalist society is supposed to work itself out through competition. But with so few vendors making library systems and large-scale video games, perhaps we don’t have as many choices in these areas as we have in who makes our coffee. That said, I hope gamers as well as librarians – two groups that play a large part in defining my own identity – can find ways to make sure that our vendors are giving us what we need, and that vendors are compensated fairly for their efforts. Until then, I’ll be bitching on the battle.net forums. See you there!

tl-dr

Gamers, librarians, and their respective vendors they love to hate… yeah, it’s complicated.

Ding! You’ve leveled up! Please see your local librarian for training.

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Before I start, I must thank Erik/Klaes for coining this post’s title. He coined it before I even wrote the post. He’s that good. Also, best wishes to him as he starts his new life as a university student this semester!

Next, to contextualize this post, I need to state that I’ve been very distracted by RL lately. Significant personal changes have occurred. (Note to self and to my readers: buying a new car, finding a new place to live, and changing your relationship status all within the course of a few weeks keeps you busy). Although I had a WoW toon hit 85 a few weeks ago, when all these changes were just happening, my mind has not been nearly as zoned in on games as it usually is. Instead, I’ve been thinking about things like which part of the city I want to live in, whether a 2012 Chevy Cruze or a 2012 Honda Civic would be the best choice (I picked the Cruze and I love it), and how to get rid of extra books without crushing my librarian soul. You know. The important things. Oh yeah, and I have a job, too… gotta pay for this stuff.

I’m happy that all these changes have gone smoothly thus far. But I’m writing this post late at night before the movers arrive in the morning. I’m wide awake with thoughts rushing through my head about whether the direction of my life is the most authentic one for me right now. Will I like my new home? Can I afford these car payments? Is it really possible for me to manage this much change at once? Is Guild Wars 2 as much fun as Ace and other gamer friends say it is? How should I spend my five talent points on my mage?

Oh… that’s right. Rule #32,767 in @infogamerist’s spellbook: RL comes first. Games come second. Especially in times like these. I was contemplating this fact last night as I was packing the items in my kitchen. Feeling jealous toward all the people experiencing GW2 while I wrapped yet another piece of packing paper around yet another plate, I wondered why we do anything. Then I remembered: oh yeah, we like to have fun. That’s why we show up to work on beautiful summer days, stay up until 3 am wondering about whether the old couch will fit in the new living room, and stay up packing dishes until past midnight. And what better way to have fun than play games? GW2, Frisbee, Monopoly, Pass the Pigs, whatever… we live for those times. But you can’t pass the pigs until you’ve packed the last coffee mug.

Blizzard released its pre-MoP patch today. I downloaded it and went in game briefly on the evening of the patch release, but I was not able to focus on the changes in talent points, or on the fact that my mage’s weapon use is now more limited. (no wand if she has a staff – seriously???) Shortly after exploring the changes, I logged because I just didn’t have the mental energy to make those decisions, and I was feeling too overwhelmed with the world for them to have taken away my lovely frost mage specs. Everything changes, especially when the changes are as exhausting as they could possibly be.

So the movers come in the morning, but the Internet guy comes to the new place in the afternoon so I can be in game by… 7 pm at the latest? Or was I supposed to unpack or something? Maybe. But as I’ve learned from the last few days, it’s harder to handle the fun times when the real things happen, like when you spend the evening watching a dog chase after a horse toward the highway across massive corn fields.

I really saw that happen in July. And that visual summarizes my summer in a nutshell.

tl-dr

RL comes before games. Even if we don’t want it to.

Ding! You’ve Leveled Up! Please see your local librarian for training.

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People who know @infogamerist irl know that she is obsessed with the searches that lead people here to tl-dr. (She can’t help it; it’s part of her information scientist genetic makeup.) When she checked the searches this morning, she found this one:

why are hardcore gamers angry

That is a really good question! We all know that we are angry, but why?

Nerdraging is one of our favorite pastimes. This search, combined with something that happened at home over the weekend involving a disagreement over incorrect information on a battle.net page, made @infogamerist think a lot about gamer nerdrage. She has no answer for why nerdrage happens. However, she can attempt to create a classification of gamer nerdrage. She has not found this to be an easy task, but it’s an important one for the future of gamer culture. We can’t understand why we nerdrage until we examine how we nerdrage. The unexamined nerdrage is not worth executing.

First, definitions. Urban Dictionary provides the following definitions of nerdrage:

1. Indignant, hysterical, and incoherent screaming brought on by video game induced frustration. [nerdy editor's comment: technically, this definition is provided under "nerd rage," not "nerdrage." Citation fail.]
2. Nerdrage is both the emotion felt when a nerd is exposed to something that directly contradicts the core beliefs of their obsession, and the reactionary diatribe by the nerd that inevitably follows. [nerdy editor's comment: "nerd" is not plural, and using "their" is a bad solution for using gender-neutral language. Grammar fail.]
3. The overwhelming anger of a nerd when something or someone gets the “facts” wrong on a geeky subject such as Star Trek, Dungeons & Dragons, Lunix, etc. [nerdy editor's comment: "Lunix" was a Commodore OS and that was a really long time ago, so she's going to assume they meant "Linux". OS fail.]
4. The act of Nerds Raging! [nerdy editor's comment: caps appeared in the original text, but are obviously not correct. Caps fail.]

All these definitions have correct facets in them, but none are complete. Nerdrage can exist on so many sites and manifest itself in so many ways. But, this post will only focus on types of gamer nerdrage, and tips on to handle each of them. It should be noted that gamer nerdrage can be invoked via trolling, but not always.

Here we go. /flexes e-peen

Player-to-player rage: This happens when one player gets mad at another player and says horrible things to the player they’re mad at. They can be really offensive, like when a female player is told “ur a lesbian hore” (and +1 on the offensive scale when the rager can’t even spell the insult). But sometimes they’re so bad they’re just funny. In this post, you’ll find a comment in which a kid says he was once told he’d had a penis in his stomach since birth. (What???)

@infogamerist’s tip on player-to-player rage: Avoid other players, whether it’s Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, or freakin’ Farmville (the game that makes @infogamerist nerdrage based on its mere existence). Avoid all players. End of story.

Defense rage: No, this has nothing to do with play strategy. It’s rage that occurs when players get mad about bad behavior from other players, such as camping, griefing, sexist comments, and so on. Read the comments on this post for a lively discussion from a kid who does this all the time on Xbox (same post as the penis-in-the-stomach post). One comment he made about his habits: “It’s funny to see people get angry because I tell them they suck.” That philosophy causes some serious defense rage.

@infogamerist’s tip on defense rage: If you follow her tip on player-to-player rage, you’ll never experience defense rage. If you want to cause defense rage, laugh at them after you kill them, and you’ll see how nicely your world unfolds. For added pleasure, /hug and /kiss them.

Game mechanics rage: Rage expressed within the game, about the game; typically occurs if you’re not able to kill something because that part of the game is bugged. But, sometimes trolls like to cause game mechanics rage. (that link was not necessarily associated with game mechanics rage, but the trolling is so epic that it had to be included somewhere in the post.)

@infogamerist’s tip on game mechanics rage: Grow up! I mean, become a game developer and see if you don’t miss a bug or two. If you want to cause game mechanics rage, play Warsong Gulch in WoW and tell everyone in battleground chat to go “ALL IN” throughout the bg. Rage will flow like blood from all other party members.

Vendor rage: A broader term that encompasses all kinds of rage directed at the company who made the game. Blizzard is really good at making us nerdrage – Diablo 3 disappointment, Galactic Trade Network search fails, Tuesday server downtime, pandas… all of it. You can’t do much to avoid vendor rage because vendors have all the power.

@infogamerist’s tip on vendor rage: Spam the vendor with tickets until they fix the thing, even if it means quitting your job and leaving your family. Unfortunately, you’ll probably have to go to that extent before it’s fixed.

Fact correction rage: Any rage resulting from incorrect statements. This can be related to vendor rage, player-to-player rage, or any other interactions in which facts are disputed. Feelings can get really heated about whether or not an item needs enchanted, or whether Spirit or Intellect is a more important stat for a mage, or whether it’s a helm or a sword that caused that thing to happen.

@infogamerist’s tip on fact correction rage: Stay out of these fights when possible; typically, e-heads will roll before they are finished. However, if you see something that’s clearly and totally wrong, let the world benefit from your supreme knowledge. Refer to everyone else in the chat/in the forum/on Vent as a “FUCKIN DOUCHEBAG.”

Ragequit: @infogamerist’s preferred form of nerdrage!!! This happens when you get so mad at vendors, the FUCKIN DOUCHEBAGS who keep killing you, game mechanics, or whatever else that you can’t take it anymore, so you just leave… you /gquit, or log, or throw your computer/console/controller out the window. And then you rage at yourself because since you just destroyed your gaming equipment, you can’t get back in game and therefore now have nothing to do since you dropped cable last month to pay for the expansion pack you can no longer enjoy.)

@infogamerist’s tip on ragequit: If a break will speed up your cooldown, then take one. But gamers have short attention spans; this means that if you ragequit to prove a point to other players, they will only care for 2 seconds at most. In other words, AoE is minimal, and crit is increased by 0%. Hardware destruction is discouraged.

So there you have it. Somehow, this list feels complete, but also seriously lacking. What nerdrage types did @infogamerist miss? How have you experienced the ones she’s listed? Do you have more pro tips to share?

Note: As a female, @infogamerist does not really have an e-peen. With that admission, she’s fully expecting a male pig to comment on this post and tell her to get her fat, ugly, slutty self back in the kitchen so she can make him a sammich and then suck his e-peen. Unfortunately, the first one to do that has no e-peen, and probably no rl-peen either.

tl-dr

Stop nerdraging. Of course, if players, vendors, or your games are wrong, then do what you have to do to make them right. And remember that nobody cares except you, and the 200 people who reply to your angry forum post.

Ding! You’ve leveled up! Please see your local librarian for training.

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