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I’m all for conflict in my video games; that’s been pretty well established. I’m also on the record with war games, games and real world guns, and censoring violence. With all that I’ve said before, this article on Eurogamer brings up a point that I had not really thought of before.

To use Simon Parkin’s own words from the article, as they are much more eloquent than mine:

The marketing of imitation adult products to children in the hope they will blossom into customers of the genuine article is widespread. The video game presents further opportunities for manufacturers to target young people. Toyota and Nissan work with racing game developers to show off their vehicles as pristinely desirable. Nike and Adidas position their logo on virtual boots. Gibson licenses plastic versions of its guitars in the hope players will progress from the coloured buttons of the peripheral to the nickel-wound strings of a Les Paul.

And Barrett, creator of the M82, a shoulder-mounted, .50-caliber semi-automatic sniper rifle, hopes that the appearance of its weapon in a video game will, in time, turn young players into gun owners.

This scares the shit out of me. Not because we are teaching our children to buy guns, or be violent because of video games (that has not yet been proven. In my mind, most of the evidence shows that it’s not true.) What scares me and makes me angry is that my enjoyment of entertainment (through the video game industry) has been used to increase violence throughout the world, and that has nothing to do with children and violent video games. (also, I just really dislike in your face marketing. I’m a big kid, I can make good decisions without this type of marketing, but I’m not in the demographic of a lot of marketing material)

Because of the licensing fees that video game companies pay to have likenesses of real guns in games, those companies are able to put more guns on the market, increase their brand, and have more influence on this world. While I respect this right, and I respect the 2nd amendment, my issue has to do with the funding of war, and possibly terror, through the games that I play.

To put it succinctly: (my emphasis)

But today we know that a portion of every dollar spent on triple-A military-themed video games flows into the pockets of small arms manufacturers, either directly through licence payments, or indirectly through advertising. These beneficiaries include Barrett in the US and FN in France. They may include other controversial arms dealers, such as Israel Weapon Industries, creator of the TAR-21, which appears in Call of Duty. Such deals politicise video games in tangible yet hidden ways. Consumers have, for the past few years, unwittingly funded arms companies that often have their own military agendas.

It’s kind of like how Tony Stark, in the first Iron Man movie, found out his company was supplying weapons to “the enemy.” I with this post was as cool of a rebuttal as becoming Iron Man.

At different times in my life, I have been an apologist for violent video games, expressing my belief that they were causing no harm to the people, especially to the youth, that played them. I still maintain that the violence in games is a different reality than our own, and people understand that. What I will not apologize for anymore are games that depict modern realism in games, especially ones that have licensing agreements with, and/or fund arms manufacturers. There is harm being caused, but it is indirect, and not in the way that “violent video games cause violence.” It it causing harm in an economic sense, by funding initiatives that I do not personally believe in. I will no longer be a defender of realistic war games.

Video games, and their creators/manufacturers/producers/developers are not to blame here. They are pursing their business goals. What they should be doing is being more open with consumers about these dealings so that consumers can make more informed decisions. If consumers are angered by the idea of funding arms dealers by buying video games, then stop buying those games. There are plenty of other games that exist that can be played guilt free. If we, as consumers, want to see these types of actions stop, then we need to financially show video game companies that truth. They will not listen otherwise. Bad publicity and financial downturn are the two ears of business.

At the end of the day, things have not changed much for me. I do not play games like Modern Warfare and Call of Duty because I felt that it was disrespectful in many ways, especially to other cultures, and to soldiers and historical memories of different battles or wars that were fought. It felt like the games were trivializing war. Now, I feel that I do not want to purchase any game that is under the same umbrella as the makers of these games.

That being said, I will still play games that are the same, but slightly different. Halo is an example of a game I would play, because it has the same elements (in many ways) to CoD or MW, but it does not have the modern day or historical realism. Same with Left 4 Dead. The fantasy elements change the game from a marketing scheme/historical problem for me, to just a game. The game mechanics and play are the same, the change in setting and tone make all the difference.

tl-dr

Did you know that gun manufacturers are making money off of you playing video games?

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Madeline is currently a history and library science student at the University of Maryland, College Park; was formerly a sixth-grade teacher in California, and has always been a proud and nerdy Seattleite/Oregonian.

Portal, the popular FPS/puzzle game that has been the source of too many meme phrases since 2007, has a more serious side than we knew. For teacher-librarians, or anyone else who has ever had to teach anyone anything, Portal is an excellent example of good instruction methods. Nicholas Schiller made this argument in a 2008 Reference Services Review article called “A Portal to Student Learning”, and it’s a very interesting argument for anyone interested in gaming or teaching.

Librarians (especially academic librarians) are teachers, but we are often not trained as teachers. Therefore, when we must design lesson plans and work on lesson goals, it is often hard to get a handle on some of the trickier teaching concepts. Fortunately, Portal is an excellent teacher and can help teacher-librarians understand tricky concepts in a concrete way.

(I’m not going to describe how Portal works because if you haven’t played it, you really should. It costs $10 on Steam, goes on sale twice a year, and might change your life.  Also, if you are interested in the whole idea of video games as teachers, please read James Paul Gee’s What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. It’s fantastic.)

Portal is a good example of two specific teaching practices: scaffolding and assessment.

Scaffolding instruction means to provide plenty of support as students are learning and then remove the support as they begin to master concepts and skills. The first room in Portal is empty except for a cube, a button, and a door, so it’s not too tricky to put those things together and beat the puzzle. Each new room you enter adds a new element- the portals, the portal gun, the sad turrets, the toxic slime. You learn about each element in a structured way and then have to apply in more complicated puzzles. A simple technique you learn for passing from portal to portal gets more complex when you have to chain portals or open new ones while soaring through the air.

Assessment means to test how well students have learned a concept. In Portal, game developers paired assessment with a concept they called “gating”; the doors on the rooms of the puzzles were gates that players could not pass beyond if they had not mastered the concepts of the last puzzle. For me, these two examples from Portal explain the concepts of scaffolding and assessment far more clearly than a technical definition in a teaching textbook. Because I have played Portal, I know how the scaffolding and gating feel.

So how could we apply scaffolding and gating to teaching?

In an information literacy instruction session it can be tempting to try and teach multiple skills at once. For example, we might try and teach advanced research skills using Boolean logic at the same time as we teach the basic interface of the discovery layer. This is probably not a well-scaffolded lesson; it’s not something that Portal would do.

In Portal we would first learn the basics with lots of support and then learn how to apply them.

In an information literacy session we would first learn how to use the interface, then learn how to use it to do serious research.

The same idea works for assessment and gating. The gating concept essentially says that there should be a check after every new lesson is taught. The game assesses how well you know the important skills by not letting you move on until you’ve mastered them. In the previous example, the teacher-librarian could make everyone find a simple item in the discovery layer to prove that they knew how to use the interface before moving on to new skills. This would be Portal-like “gating” in action.

Portal is a popular game partly because it is very good at teaching people how to play it. If you were thrown into the final levels without all the build-up and scaffolding, the game would be confusing, frustrating, and probably only really popular among a niche group of masochists. But because the game slowly introduces each new concept and makes sure you understand it before moving on, you feel successful at each step and more enthusiastic about learning what’s next. As teachers, we should try to give the same experience to our students.

tl-dr

When planning lessons we should always ask “what would Portal do?”

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Leodar and I had a good conversation over twitter the other day. The tl;dr of it was that we both felt the eSports community is seriously lacking in both maturity and role models. Leodar thought the role models could be fixed pretty easily, but the problem right now is twofold in my mind: lack of a “mentoring” community, and the gaming community as a whole needing maturing.

The reason he brought this up with me was because of the Ilyes “Stephano” Satouri incident. While what Stephano said can be debated, it brings for the wider problem of what needs to happen in the community. It will never be rid of problems like this (FIFA, the NBA, NFL, NHL, ATP, and all others still have problems like this), they can still hope to get better.

Lack of a Mentoring Community

For most professional sports, a mentoring community of some kind is generally in place to teach the rookies how to mature beyond high school or college. This is lacking for the eSports community for a couple reasons, the two biggest being: 1) The eSports community is pretty new, so there isn’t much depth of experience to bring in. 2) Many of the “pros” are still young. Younger than professional athletes. Some of the pros in the eSports community are still in high school, or even just starting high school. The public spotlight of being a professional gamer is beyond most mature adults, and it’s even harder the younger you go. Especially without guidance.

There needs to be some type of mentoring community for new pros that are joining eSports. No matter the game, no matter the age. There needs to be a “rookie training camp” of some kind to help players deal with the new stage. I’m not talking about playing the game either, I’m talking about how to deal with the PR, the media; how to be mature and present as a true professional.

The Gaming Community as a Whole

While I love the idea of a rookie training camp, it has one glaring problem, but I think the training camp will help fix that problem as well. The problem being how the gaming community acts. The “boys club” of the gaming community. The sexism, jokes, homophobia, trolling…everything. I’m not saying that it’s unique to eSports, because it’s not (I played varsity tennis in college, it’s pretty bad in every locker room), but the community needs to change and be changed before it starts getting more out of hand and gets even more ingrained into the culture. The suspension and fining of Stephano is a good step, but it’s an isolated incident and does nothing to create sustainable change. eSports as a whole need to be forward thinking and create the right environment for competition and sportsmanship. This, above all, is needed for eSports to gain acceptance for a wider audience (beyond gamers), and to also show the world that gamers are not violent assholes that preach homophobia, sexism, and racism.

Plus, it’s a trickle down effect. If the pros adopt these codes of behavior and are mature and sportsmanlike, people who admire and follow them will behave the same way. I think of professional tennis at these times, because it is generally held as an example of good sportsmanship, but high competition. Sure, there are problems, egos, and fights, but the sport of tennis is looked upon favorably by most people. How many non-tennis fans would think of tennis players as homophobes, violent, and racist? I’m not saying eSports has to become tennis, but it needs to move close to that side of the spectrum to gain more acceptance.

tl-dr

The eSports community needs to advance in perception, maturity, and sportsmanship, and it needs to start with its rookies.

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This article is a bit of a rebuttal to a Medium Difficulty article. While I agree with that article, and it hits many good points (especially the history of the arms industry and its relation to politics), it does not give a way to actually change or help the system, and also does not give the other side of the argument. It’s just a cry of “This is bad and wrong!”

So I want to talk about how I think it could be fixed (if it needs to be). I’ll let you decide whether it needs fixing, and then suggest how I think it could be fixed (or not).

I’m going to avoid a lot of the politics involved with this topic, as I’m extremely moderate in my politics, and try and present both sides of what’s going on here (as I see it).

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to what I wanted to talk about today, which is a subject mired in complexities. I’m going to try and present what I think is really going on and break it down as much as I can without getting into too much opinion, and will try to present all sides of the argument that I can.

The promotion of real world weapons in a video game

The tl;dr of the article is that EA is using the new Medal of Honor game to promote real world guns of the military variety.

Per my statement above of me being political moderate, this poses a HUGE issue with my beliefs, because I am both for, and against this idea at the same time. Quite a quandary.

Let’s go through it and see what happens:

Against - The Broken Record: Violent Video Games Make People Violent

Whether I buy into all the hype or not, there is a huge contingent of people that believe video games make people violent.

The media is awash with news articles about it. Like the killer in Norway. Or even the Columbine Massacre. (I grew up less than a mile from Columbine, I could see it from my back porch. I had many friends there, remember what the old library looked like, and knew a lot of people involved with it, so this examples hits home to me.)

Long story short, the argument saying violent video games make people violent is complete bunk. The statement that violent people may become more violent after being exposed to violence (e.g. violent video games), can hold some truth. But, as a whole, video games are not a culprit for violence.

So what’s my problem with EA using a different set of advertisers during a game? My problem is really the ease of access the original author describes in the article.

Like the way the gun drops terrorists or racks up headshots in multiplayer? Feel free to visit Warfighter’s official website and click on a sponsored link that will take you to McMillan, the manufacturer of the gun. There you may purchase a real-life TAC-300 to your own specification (night-vision kit is optional!) and have it shipped to your local federally licensed gun dealer for pickup.

There are a host of other guns, knives, scopes, and weapon accessory companies listed as “partners” on the website for Warfighter. (There are 11 listed at time of writing, and EA says they’re revealing a new partner each week.) In October, you’ll be able to purchase a limited edition Medal Of Honor: Warfighter tomahawk for $75 from SOG Knives that features “an extended cutting head.” It’s certainly a bit more intense than, say, the pewter dragon from the Skyrim Collector’s Edition.

I think I had the same gut check reaction that many people do when they read this.

OMG! Someone is going to sell a gun to someone who is going to shoot a bunch of people!

Because of this reaction, I think, “How dare EA do this! They are promulgating the decline of our society into violence! There is going to be an even bigger increase in gun violence now!” Which is a normal reaction for many people, especially in the wake of the Aurora Theater shooting and the A&M shooting. It’s scary stuff. Getting rid of guns would  definitely stop that kind of violence, so EA should bite the bullet (hah!) and end this advertising campaign right away. (That’s what my gut tells me at least)

But, that’s just a gut check reaction that doesn’t really look at the details of what’s going on. Let’s take a look at the other side of the argument:

For – It’s a free country!

While cliche, it’s very true. The 2nd amendment is very clear in the ability for people to bear arms, and I’m fine with that when done in an educated and safe way (which it usually is). I’m not a huge gun person, but I’ve spent enough time around them to respect them and know how to use them. I think we’d be better off without guns as a country (U.S.), but I’m not one to give up the constitution lightly; it’s good stuff.

For this EA problem that we’re talking about though, we’re not talking about a 2nd amendment “right to bear arms” issue. It’s a 1st amendment freedom of speech issue. Why is it the 1st amendment and not the 2nd amendment I’m bringing up as a “for” argument here? Because the sale of a weapon still happens through the same channels as always. The quote from the article even states: (Emphasis mine)

 There you may purchase a real-life TAC-300to your own specification (night-vision kit is optional!) and have it shipped to your local federally licensed gun dealer for pickup.

It’s not like gun laws are being changed and everyone is allowed to purchase these weapons. EA isn’t changing gun policy.  They are just advertising the weapons in a place people aren’t used to seeing them. People think of video games as fantasy and fake weapons, but this really brings it into reality. It’s no longer a fantasy setting of violence and war, it means real people and real weapons. I think people have a hard time with that.

Back to my point: This is a 1st amendment issue because EA is only advertising and making money in a capitalist economy. Is that bad?

The advertising that EA is doing is not directly harming anyone. The company selling the weapons will still exist even without EA. This is just a new business opportunity for both companies. Therefore, there is nothing that should be done (from a policy or government standpoint) to stop EA from what they are doing.

Like I stated at the beginning, I am a moderate. And like I stated in the previous section: I think outlawing guns would save a lot of (gun) violence. I also believe that guns should not be outlawed (per the constitution). I also think EA should not be censored in their games, or in their advertising because of the 1st amendment. It offers a serious dilemma because I see the value in all sides of this argument.

Vote with your wallet

My own moral/political issues aside, what can be done to fix this problem (in either direction)? There is an easy answer, and it has to do with what games you play. Paying for a game sends the company a message. The message of “this game is great and I approve of what it’s doing.” They take that message and make more games that are the same, because it’s making money!

Take Diablo III for example: People bitched and moaned and cried and whined about always on DRM, the Real Money AH, and plenty of other things before the game launched, yet it still became one of the hottest games of all time on launch day. Even with all the errors and bugs and problems. People voted with their wallets. Blizzard was too busy rolling around on their pile(s) of money (and fixing errors) to care what bloggers were whining about.

If the Diablo III launch had flopped because of the concerns people had about the RMAH and the DRM? Blizzard would have changed their tune VERY fast.

So next time you feel like a company is doing something you don’t like (or do like), vote with your wallet. If you don’t like this new brand of advertising that EA is using, or you don’t like who is advertising with them, stop giving them your money.

tl-dr

Don’t blame EA if they are advertising something you don’t like. If you don’t like it, don’t buy their products. If you’re okay with it, then buy their products.

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I don’t really enjoy violent video games. Or games that are gorey. I don’t want games that just shoot and kill people.

That being said, I love me some L4D. It’s gorey and violent. A hack and slash FPS with plenty of guns and killing.

Did I just contradict myself? I don’t think so.

I like L4D because of the conflict that is involved in it. I like games that have conflict, and a reason behind them. I like the story that is involved.

What I don’t want is violence for the sake of violence. War for the sake of war. Why am I in this war? Why should I fight? Give me consequences and problems.

Let me give you an example that Ben Kuchera of the PA report highlighted from Spec Ops:

Your choice in that situation consisted of saving yourself and letting some of the refugees die, or saving yourself and letting all of them die. It’s not much of a choice, and was ultimately cut for being too “gamey.” A better, more organic choice was substituted. “Instead, it was replaced with the rescue of Lt. McPherson. That choice was much simpler. You’re aiming a gun at a man who may or may not try to kill you. Do you pull the trigger or not? When you get down to it, all the choices in Spec Ops revolve around one simple idea: Make the player think about that trigger,” Williams said.

I think the moral aspects of a character while playing a violent video game influence what is thought of as violence more than blowing someone away with a gun in a video game. Shooting a virtual zombie, or even a virtual person feels impersonal. So maybe creating moral dilemmas and morally thought provoking issues in video games actually helps to create less violence. Wouldn’t that be a great study? Suddenly, violent video games with great conflict and moral choices become training for how to act during violent or chaotic situations. So violent video games end up becoming the thing that decreases violence. Seems pretty valid to me. It just takes some believable characters in believable scenarios.

Making the video game real and making the player think about pulling a trigger in the game really is what makes a game violent to me.

But is that really a good thing?

I found an article that talks about the “Macbeth Effect” of questionable moral decisions and violent video games, and it states that people who play violent video games that are not used to playing them feel like that have to physically “cleanse” themselves after the game to feel better. Experienced gamers do not do this, but have other coping mechanisms. The full paper has not been published yet, but it gives a good insight into people.

To me, it shows that experienced gamers can cope better with chaotic or violent situations, which may not always be a good thing.

Case in point:

I was stunned reading this article over at Medium Difficulty which is the opinion of a real world soldier on the depiction of violence in games. He talks very little about the violence of games, mentioning only that they are not realistic, and then discussing how the depictions of the soldiers in games is completely wrong.

In military videogames, you tend to get “good guy” characters that are the rough and ready types. The situation may be chaotic, but they crack on with the task in hand to the best of their ability, never let anyone down, and may or may not die in a dramatic fashion. Good, wholesome stuff.

Then there are the Tier 1 types: a more modern iteration that exists thanks to games like Modern Warfare and Medal of Honour. These stone-cold killers speak in clipped monotones, uttering the odd cool one-liner to show that although they are still human, they will never be anything but utterly professional. Both kinds of soldiers end up wrapped up in something bigger than themselves, their missions are always of utmost importance, and every action they take is ultimately justified.

Good enough for entertainment, but should war be sterilised and glorified in this way? Here is the crux of my beef with the military videogame genre:

None of the stereotypes exist. They are put in place by a media and a military that hates the wars we fight but loves the men fighting in them.

The section that really got to me:

Next time you watch a military documentary, ask yourself why only 3 or 4 men are ever interviewed from a unit. The answer?

The rest of them are like me.

There’s a reason the new guy always gets put on point and nobody really cares when he gets blown up, that so many incidents of collateral damage go unreported, that failed missions are spun into something positive like gathering “valuable intel,” and why only roughly 20% of combat troops ever get PTSD – when if you think about it, it should affect everyone that ever sees combat.

It’s because the vast majority of us are straight up sociopaths.

What this all reinforced to me is that video games don’t make people violent, some people are just that way. Video games are just that…games. I’m guessing video games will never mimic real war (and thankfully).

Back to my original point:

I don’t like violence in games, it’s just a plot hook. It’s the stories, the morality, the decisions that are involved that make a game good, especially a “violent” game. I think that’s what the majority of people want who play violent games. That, or an escape from the everyday world into a fantasy, because that’s what violent war games are, they are fantasy games.

tl-dr

Stop worrying about violence in video games, and start talking about conflict and morality, it will be better in the long run that way.

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I generally try and stay neutral and present facts as I see them during my posts. Or I try to present an opinion with supporting evidence, and then give some examples of why I’m right.

We also spend a lot of time on this blog talking about MMO gaming.

Today is not that day. Today I’m going to talk about FPS games. And I’m going to be a hardcore elitist snob.

Drawing a Line in the Sand

Get it? Line in the sand?

As many of you may know (and others who may not), there are 2 main camps of FPS players. Console players, and PC players.

PC FPS players will always be superior players. 

I say this because of my long time playing FPS games. There is no way (if I was playing someone of an equal skill level to me) and they were playing on a console (with dual analog joystick controller), and I was playing on a PC with mouse and keyboard, that they would beat me.

The skill cap for playing with a mouse and keyboard is just so much higher than with a controller. Dual analog is just slow, clunky, unsensitive, and does not allow for precision aiming to the same degree a mouse and keyboard does. Equal ability levels, equal tactical and strategic knowledge: the keyboard/mouse player wins every time.

Why?

1) Mouse Sensitivity

I can turn a full 180 or 360 because of how sensitive my mouse is. I haven’t seen anything comparable on a console. FPS games are about twitch muscle control, and you can’t twitch very well with a controller.

2) Controllers have Fewer Buttons

While it may not matter in many pure FPS games, having multiple buttons to swap through different weapons or setups can be pretty helpful. There is no analog controller alive that equals the amount of buttons on my keyboard + my naga. (The argument of learning more buttons for a keyboard/naga being hard is stupid. Learn it, and you’ll be a better player than anyone who plays with a controller)

3) Customization

Both 1) and 2) are examples of this, but PCs just offer so much more  customization for playing FPS games. Adjusting mouse sensitivity on the fly, quick swapping weapons, etc.

Sure, you can mod up a controller, but why? Just buy a keyboard/mouse peripheral for your console. Better.

You want to bring it in an FPS game? Get yourself a keyboard and a mouse.

tl-dr

Playing FPS games on the PC offers a higher skill cap than playing on a console.

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I’ve talked before about the negative side of video games: addiction and violence. I want to lighten it up a bit and talk about why video games are great and amazing. (Spoiler alert: yeah, they really can be good for ya)

I’m going to start this off with a link to an article from Cracked, and give a short list of the cool things that have come out of video games. They are all over the board, and all really cool. I’ll just leave them as a list, and you can read the details over there.

6) Multiple lives have been saved through community and friendships built on the internet.

5) A guy saved a life with his FPS Medic Training. (How cool is that?!)

4) A kid somehow fended off a moose thanks to World of Warcraft. (He must have been a Druid)

3) A web browser game helps explore the universe.

2) Video games help stroke victims recover.

1) Video games are creating a race of master surgeons. (That’s right. You better start screening your surgeon to see what his/her genre of preference is)

What other cool things have been done? I’m glad you asked.

In sports, football in this case, games are being used in non-impact, non-exercise training sessions to improve the mental agility of the athletes, which then improves their physical agility because of the added response time. I’d love to see this take off more; it has applications all over the place in sports, beyond just mental agility training. Take it as far as strategy and tactics for actual play situations, or dealing with pressure during games, and there could be a powerful training tool there. (I like to think that playing Mario Tennis on the N64 helped me out in my days of playing college tennis)

Good news for all you FPS fans out there! Playing FPS’s can help improve your eyesight.  So make sure you take two video games and call me in the morning. 

ur brain. make it better.

It’s a good thing that the Moose hero kid plays World of Warcraft, because he’s going to have an easier time of it when he’s older. It actually helps with improved focus and spatial recognition.

What about for mental illnesses like PTSD? Video games have you covered there too.

Relaxation time!

While video games may not help you get in shape, they are a great way to relieve stress. Both by playing them, and by watching others play. (Like this guy!)

tl-dr

Video games are great for living a happy life. And they get you all the girls (and guys too)!

Gamers Get Girls

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Todd has worked in the games industry for quite a long time, starting as a Beta Tester waaay back in the olden days of 1996. He then moved on to Silicon Knights where he was a Designer and a Lead Designer working on projects such as Eternal Darkness, Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes, and early production of Too Human, and has also been a Senior Producer on various projects for the Nintendo Wii and DS platforms. Currently he is playing Black Sabbath songs backwards to see if any of them make him go “light side” in Star Wars: The Old Republic and so far … no, none of them have.

I can’t count the number of times someone, in a social situation, has made that comment to me when I would tell them make I make games for a living. Yes, making video games can be fun, but it is also a business … BIG business. It’s not all fun and games when you are working in an industry that generates $1.7 Billion in Canada and $25 billion in the U.S. . That’s a lot of money, so you can imagine why game companies can be fun to work at, but also take things very seriously.

Other than playing the game you are working on, there are many other tasks that are required to get the game from concept to completion … and I don’t mean fragging your co-workers (Although that can be fun at times). One important task that is required is research. Regardless of whether you are doing a small mobile game or a major AAA console game, you still have to do some degree of research.

TARGET AUDIENCE

One of the initial things that need to be researched is to determine who your target audience is. Often you are creating a client’s vision of the game instead of what you want to make, so your idea of beheading zombies might not be appropriate if the client’s target audience is 6-12 year olds.

Research into your target audience is as simple as looking at competitive products such as reviews, trailers, and gameplay footage. The best way is to actually play through some of the competitive products on the market that are in the same age group. Bet you never thought all that time becoming a champion Halo player would have you end up playing Barbie’s next adventure and Mickey’s clubhouse, did you?  Playing games from competing developers is the best form of research for your current project.

REALISM

Now you are ready to research the realism of your project. Whether you plan a cartoonish or ultra realistic look, you still need to research the overall art direction of the game and create a series of concepts that define the look that best fits the feel and time period you want to achieve. A cartoony game such as “Castle Crashers” still shows time period accuracy where the knights have cylindrical helmets and accurate weapons (e.g. claymore, lance). Yes, the game has weapons that are more humourous such as an ‘apple peeler’ weapon, but this still fits into the whimsical overall feel of the game. A game like this doesn’t get into minute details, so research for this is as simple as going to the library to look through historical books or looking up information on the internet.

When ultra realistic games are researched, there is much more attention to detail. Games like Call of Duty and Assassin’s Creed had an enormous amount of research done to ensure the accuracy in the time period. The “Assassin’s Creed” series has been researched in the areas of fashion, architecture, technology, and social/political/religious contexts. When Ubisoft was making the game they actually sent people to Rome to do more intricate research into the layout of the city, and they also had an Historian working with them to go over historical accuracy. What you see in the game is what Rome was like in that time period. Of course, the developers take some liberties in order to generate interest in the game and to accommodate gameplay elements.

These are examples of the architectural research that was done for “Assassin’s Creed II”.

Left: in-game image … Right: actual building

Games in the “Call of Duty” series required research into World War 2 technology, military uniforms, weapons, geography, politics, and tactics to ensure its accuracy in depicting events from WWII, such as the D-Day invasion. In their most recent games, the developer met and worked with U.S. Marines to get pictures of current equipment that they use, witnessing equipment (like tanks) in use to see how they operate and react, and going through breaching operations.

In games like these, if players take the time to look around a bit and absorb all this information, they can learn a lot about the Crusades and Renaissance periods and about the happenings during World War events.

GAMEPLAY

No I am not going to forget about gameplay. I believe the best research that can be done for gameplay is to look at the existing research done for each scenario. Often, gameplay ideas come from looking at your environment as well as art assets that have been created. I was working on Eternal Darkness when the design team was brainstorming how to incorporate a chapter page for the player to find. I noticed we had a stained glass window in the level and suggested we incorporate into the stained glass. It would take too much work (at the time) to do that, so we decided to just make the glass breakable and have it hiding behind the window. So simply researching through your own project can produce gameplay ideas. Research other games to get ideas, and don’t stick to the same genre that you are working on. Good designers play various genres because you never know when an idea from one genre can translate into another.

TAKE TIME TO LOOK AROUND

So next time you decide to jump into a game because you have the itch to frag and gib a few newbies, take a few moments to do your own research and have a look around at the environment and in your inventory. All the research that was done to create many of the games we play is accurate to the smallest detail and can really teach a lot about what society was like in that particular time period. Some may be saying, “I want to kill some online players! I don’t want to waste time looking around!” But if you think about the fact that Game Designers can be very devious (I know I was), and they like to hide things around the game that blend in with the environment which are actually useable items you can take advantage of. Think of the look in your opponent’s eyes when you beat them using something they didn’t expect. All because you did a little research.

 tl;dr

Explore, have a look around … you never know what you will discover.

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

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

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The concept of eSports has been laughed at or fondly looked down upon as a childish past time for as long as I can remember, especially when I bring it up to anyone who is not a gamer. But believe me when I say that eSports are a legit sport now, and for a number of reasons.

Let me first get my credentials on the table so that you can understand why I’m saying these things, and from what perspective.

I have 2 sets of credentials that will hopefully satisfy people on both sides of the argument here.

RL: I played tennis on a Division II varsity team for 3 years, with a record of over .500 my senior year (translation: I won over 50% of my matches). Some of the guys I played (and got destroyed by) ended up playing on the lower level of the Pro Tour. During and after this time I was a USPTA certified Tennis Pro totaling about 6 years. I coached people of all ability levels, including being a high school coach, and coaching college players as well. I even have the multiple knee injuries to prove this.

In Game: Games for me have always been about competition, specifically against other people. I’ve competed at a competitive level in MMOs, RTS’s, and FPS’s. The (low) peak of my gaming competition is being nationally ranked with my Clan in the Cyber Athletic League way back in the day while playing Team Fortress Classic(I sorely miss my EMPs in the new TF2).

What makes a sport a sport?

Like a good gamer and child of the internet, let’s start with Wikipedia:

Sport is all forms of competitive physical activity which,^[1] through casual or organised participation, aim to use, maintain or improve physical fitness and provide entertainment to participants.^[2] Hundreds of sports exist, from those requiring only two participants, through to those with hundreds of simultaneous participants, either in teams or competing as individuals.

Sport is generally recognised as activities which are based in physical athleticism or physical dexterity…

Now, we can quibble all day long over what “physical activity” or “athleticism” means in regards to something being a sport, but eSports definitely fit the “physical dexterity” section of this definition. Don’t believe me on the dexterity thing? Check out this demonstration and definition of APM on youtube.

Sports need a cardiovascular component

That brings us to the discussion of whether a sport requires a cardiovascular component. I don’t want to get into the discussion of “how much” movement is required for a cardiovascular workout, because we’d be here all day. (In any case, Golf and Bowling require such a small amount of cardiovascular exercise that the argument is nullified if you consider them sports. And ESPN shows poker!)

Considering the wide array of different sports (and eSports), I would argue that a sport is anything that requires physical movement (to satisfy this section of the description). As long as it isn’t a purely mental activity (like doing a Sudoku or a Crossword), it has a shot at being a sport.

Sports are games

This is a difficult and contentions point, so I’m going to be brief about it here, and go into in more detail later. What makes something a “game”, a “toy”, a “sport”, or a “game” is a pretty difficult topic. Let me just say that sports are games and you can hopefully trust me (and that link) for now, until I get into it more later.

Mental Toughness

Here is the crux of my argument; the lynch pin. What truly makes eSports sports is the mental toughness involved in playing them. No matter the game, mental toughness is what really separates a sport from a game (in my mind).

Sitting down and doing a Sudoku is difficult, and requires a great amount of mental acuity, but there’s no pressure or competition involved. Those two things change everything. You take that Sudoku puzzle, give the same puzzle to the person sitting next to you and put up a time limit? Your entire attitude about the puzzle is going to change. There is a whole branch of a profession dedicated to this, known as “sports psychology,” because people think differently under pressure.

eSports competitors have mental toughness in spades. You can look up some basic matches, strategy, and view some professional games by going to pages like day[9], Total Biscuit, or even some actual Start Craft 2 tournaments at Team Liquid. Getting into competition at a high level and getting paid for it is part of what being a professional gamer is about.

tl;dr

eSports are here, they are the equal of “real sports,” and they’re awesome.

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

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

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Community is one of the most important things to gaming, heck, to the human race! Having a good community of people around you while doing an activity can transform that activity from something dreaded to something enjoyable. Gaming (to me) is just the opposite; it’s a wonderful activity that becomes amazing with the right people around.

Everyone likes to have friends (a.k.a. “community”) around when playing games. The big question is: what makes something a good community as opposed to a bad community? I’m not much into psychology (from an academic point of view), so I’ll just point you to Maslow.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/60/Maslow%27s_Hierarchy_of_Needs.svg/450px-Maslow%27s_Hierarchy_of_Needs.svg.png

You’ll notice that Love/Belonging are right in the middle of this list, and are necessary to reach personal esteem and self-actualization. Belonging to a community is necessary for human beings to achieve happiness, and so gaming should concentrate on that as much as possible.

Who hasn’t sat around screaming at each other and the TV playing Mario Kart? You haven’t? Do it – it’s the most fun you’ll ever have. That or playing FPS games against your friends. It’s immensely satisfying to compete and kill your good friends. All game genres and platforms provide some type of community. However, MMOs have the corner on community gaming in my mind (hence the “Massively Multiplayer” part of the description). Gamasutra has even gone on the record with an article saying that community can make or break an MMO, and I agree completely.

[Simon Ludgate has] long held that the most important feature in any MMO is to build a strong player community. It doesn’t matter how shiny or content-filled your game is: if it lacks in community, players will leave. Community makes or breaks an MMO: games that have leapt off the starting block full of praise and high review scores fell flat on their faces when they failed to build strong player communities, and games so bland they ought never have been made in the first place are still running today thanks to player involvement.

I completely agree, from both a personal perspective, as well as from personal observation of watching games come and go in the market, and not even the MMO market. Look at Call of Duty and Halo. They’re both relatively simple shooter games, but who actually buys those games for the single player adventure? It’s all about the multiplayer community and competition.

The gaming community outside of the games

Community within games is important, but there is a wealth of community for gaming that exists outside of playing games, and it’s talking about games. (Sports already do it, and guess what? Sports are games!) To paraphrase myself: participation with a community outside of a game is part of what makes someone a hardcore gamer, rather than a casual gamer.

It is my opinion that the hardcore gaming community should be a target of public libraries and information scientists.

Why?

Libraries are in a unique position to offer great amounts of information to different sub-cultures of the hardcore gaming community. Rather than just worrying about having a Wii in the library, or getting teens in the library to play Rock Band, public libraries could specialize in a specific community of gamers. Focus on the people and their information needs for their passions. There is a definitely lack of attention being paid to many gaming sub-cultures right now, exhibited by this opinion on the fighting game community. The author is speaking about mainstream gaming news outlets:

We read your work and we listen to your podcasts. Please read and listen to us. I appreciate 1up for hiring freelancers from the community to write reviews for fighting games. Thank you, but this is not enough. I appreciate Kat Bailey’s recent piece on arcade culture in Wired last week. It was off, but Jared Rea did the best he could in guiding her to where she needed to be.

All gaming sub-cultures crave information on their specific brand of gaming. Libraries are in a unique position to be able to provide this. How do you think a community would react if there was a fighting game tournament in a library? With player’s guides, internet gamefaqs available to browse (with the help of a librarian), or even a local librarian that works there who is into fighting games? Imagine an academic library having a game room to blow off steam during finals week! This is just the first step of what could be done if a community was built around gaming in a library.

The difficult part? Like any good community, the leader of the community (the library/librarian) needs to be an integral, and interested, part of that community. Make it happen, and libraries will see a whole new audience and information need they can help satisfy.

Here’s an example: The IMLS is leading the way on building community for libraries, museums, and education. Here’s a great article about how the IMLS is partnering with different groups for public school education. My only problem is that it does not mention gaming anywhere in the article. To really be at the forefront and to make an impact, games need to be integral to what libraries are doing.

tl;dr

Community is the most important thing to foster for human beings, including within gaming environments. Opportunities exist for libraries to fill this community need for the hardcore gaming community. They just need to reach out for those opportunities.

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

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