tl-dr

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.

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

We all have strengths and weaknesses. Here at tl-dr, Jacob and I work hard to provide you – our fellow game enthusiasts – with a broad scope of interesting content, high-quality writing, fabulous guest authors, thorough tagging and categories, and so much more…

BUT – and this may surprise our loyal readers – we can’t do it all.

Due to a variety of issues related to our current site, such as a past malware hack, a less than optimal user experience, and our use of a WordPress theme that was badly coded and therefore less configurable than we’d like, we’ve been working on a blog redesign. We’re not new to this kind of work, but we had no idea there would be so much effort required to get it done, especially finding somebody who was available to do the work for us.

So, Jacob and I being the “git-r-done” control freak types that we are, we started to work on the redesign on our own. This involved the purchase of a blog builder tool and going nerd-happy for a few days… designing categories, playing with layouts, debating color schemes… we made lots of progress very quickly, and we like what we’ve done… but then we got stuck.

One of the things we’ve known for months is that we need visuals on the blog. At a minimum, we need a banner for the top of the page. And while Jacob and I could organize, write, and PvP all day (and we would rather be doing those things more than most other things), we can’t make *anything* that looks pretty. It’s just not what we do.

So, this post is a plea for visual design people out there to help us out! If you or someone you know would like to take a shot at designing a graphic for tl-dr, we’d love to hear from you. If you’re interested, you can comment on this post, send us a tweet (@gamesmeetinfo), or write on our Google+ or Facebook pages. We know what we want, and we can communicate our vision, but we can’t do it ourselves. If you come up with something we decide to use, we can pay you a little bit of cash. Or, alternatively, I can pay you in mage food.

tl-dr
Make us a hot graphic to go with our pending redesign, and I’ll conjure you some mana brownies!

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

 Welcome to the tl-dr Newbie Blogger Initiative Post (Number 2)! Big props go out to Syp and his blog Biobreak for starting up this concept. It’s a great way for new bloggers to get into writing for whatever their reasons are.

For this post, I want to write another post on how to help out other bloggers. After this post my high-and-mighty-soap-box will be broken from the advice I have spouted. For this post, I’m going to focus on Categories and Tagging (in the WordPress nomenclature), because I am an expert on such things. Really. I swear. I have a Master’s Degree in how to organize stuff (even gamers), and I work professionally creating organization systems for online systems. Ask me about web design and I would not be able to help you besides say, “You should make it look pretty!” But data modelling, curation, and organization are my wheelhouse. Star  Shadow has a great tutorial on using categories and tags in Wordpess. I’m just going to build on what was said there.

Categories

This section is very controlled and will be how you want all of your posts grouped together. For example, if you’re running a gw2 site:

Professions
—Mesmer
—Ranger
—Warrior
—etc.

Crafting
—Leatherworking
—Cooking
—etc.

Type of play
—pve
—pvp
—wvw

etc. etc. The main goal with “categories” is how you want to group your posts for people to *browse* or *navigate* to a different subject on your blog.

You can break out the categories any way that you want really, just remember that once you decide on them it’s hard to change them. If you want to add a new category to 100 posts that you’ve already posted, you have to go back and add them by hand. So deciding on categories near the beginning of your blog would be a pretty good idea. (If you want some help with this, I’m happy to throw some ideas at you.)

Tags

Tags are important for 2 things on your blog.

1) Searching
If you’re searching for something on your blog (not from google), the tags are what will be searched, so think about what types of terms people would search for. (Google will search fulltext, categories, AND tags, so it covers all the bases)

2) Word cloud

This is important because it’s a great visual for the tagged content on your site. People will click in here a lot to find different content you produce, so if you use many tags in the same ways they’ll be able to find more content they are interested in. I read an article last year about word clouds that actually said they improve how people find stuff on your site by x%. I don’t remember all the details (like who wrote it), but I remember the paper being solid. If I find it again, I’ll let y’all know

Cases and phrasing

This is just for consistency to help out your users. It takes a bit more thought when you put tags on a post, but the effort is well worth it in the long run.

Make sure you always use the same case for words. So, if you have a tag for a guild wars 2 blog, and you want to tag every post being about guild wars 2, make sure you always say “Guild Wars 2″. The system thinks “Guild Wars 2″ “guild wars 2″ and “gw2″ are all different things. It can’t understand the semantic similarities between them, so you have to be diligent about using the same phrasing, capitalization, and case for all the tags you use. (e.g. “tags” and “tagging” are actually 2 different tags in the system).

Meta tags

I’m going to use a real example here to illustrate how tagging should happen “behind the scenes” of a post where it is only done for a system.

Here are the tags for the last #nbimmo post I wrote. And I was lazy and didn’t do all of them. I only did about half of what I wanted/should have.

nbimmo,newbie blogger initiative,newbie blogger initiative mmo,creative commons,creative commons license,cc license,cc,sypster,biobreak,dmca,digital millennium copyright act,takedown notices,take down notices,c word,cunt,c-word,attribution,sharealike,share alike,noderivs,no derivatives,noncommercial,non commercial,plagiarism,jacob ratliff,jacob a ratliff,jacob a. ratliff,gameronomist,gaming information,information about games,video game information

Let’s break it down a bit to make sense of it.

“c word,c-word,cunt”

Let’s start with this one, because I bet many people did not even see it in my list. First of all, let me apologize for the language, as it is definitely R rated and NSFW (but in this context it is SFW, because I could have this conversation at work because of the context).

In the post these keywords are taken from, I had a section that referenced the “C-Word”, and I was talking about copyright, but referring to the C-U-Next-Tuesday variety as a tongue in cheek joke. I added that version to the Meta Tags because 1) having it doesn’t hurt anything (because no one can actually see it), and 2) if someone is doing a search for that word and comes upon my post, I would rather they be on my blog than somewhere else.

“copyright,copyleft,piracy,pirates,pirating,dmca,digital millennium copyright act,takedown notices,take down notices”

A few of these words I used in the actual post, but most of them I did not. I never talked about copyleft or pirating. The others are just the many variations a word could have. Pirates and pirating being a good example. I would not use all of these for the visible tags (as I mentioned above), but using all the variations for the meta tags is good because then I get different people to come to the blog who have different search behaviors.

“creative commons,creative commons license,cc license,cc,attribution,sharealike,share alike,noderivs,no derivatives,noncommercial,non commercial”

Same as above.

“gaming information,information about games,video game information”

I put these tags in the meta tags section of every post published on tl-dr. It’s the main focus of our blog, so I want to make sure people looking specifically for these topics gets to us

“jacob ratliff,jacob a ratliff,jacob a. ratliff,gameronomist”

These tags are all about me. My name and how I am searched on the internet. Before I started using the handle “Gameronomist” there was only 1 search result for it on Google, now there are tons. Googling my name has also changed because of the SEO I’ve done on this blog. I have moved up significantly on the searches, and this blog is ranking up in them as well. Good personal branding.

Do you have any suggestions for good ideas about tagging and categories? Let me know!

tl-dr

Categories are ways to organize posts. Tags are used to search for posts. Meta tags are for Google.

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

Just a forewarning before you get too deep into this post: It’s going to be full of jargon and the nerd will be deep; both the gamer nerd and the library nerd. Truly full-on nerd. (Or Geek. Whatever.)

Disclaimer: This is in no way endorsed by Bioware, and it just contains the authors’ opinions.

Bioware has also been noted as saying they understand the Galactic Trade Network system is lacking. Rumor has it that they had another system in place during beta, but it taxed their servers so much it was crashing the game. (These statements are conjecture)

Diane and I are making a couple of assumptions for this post, so we’ll just list them here.

1) You know what an Massively Multiplayer Online game (MMO) is.

2) You know what Star Wars, The Old Republic (SWTOR) is.

3) You’ve used an online auction system before (like eBay).

The Galactic Trade Network (GTN) is the (rough) equivalent of eBay, but it exists within SWTOR. That’s right. A hugely robust search system that is completely independent of the world wide web exists. This area of information search and retrieval is undiscovered by most, if not all, of the information science world. It’s time to take a look at it now. And more than that, it’s time to critique it, and see how it can be improved when hundreds of years of classification and organization are applied to it.

^A visual of the GTN, so you know what we’re talking about.

Everything is already classified

The good news about the GTN is that (almost) all of the content is already classified, and that’s just because of the function that the content plays within the game. Items have a number of different metadata attributes (ways to describe something), like: Title, Level requirement, Stats on the item, Quality (Artifact, legendary, etc.), Armor Type, Weapon Type, the list goes on. All of these different things are metadata attributes that are applied to different items. (Librarians use the word “metadata” because it’s easier than saying “the word(s) you use to describe an object” when talking about stuff like this. Additionally, the formal definition we learn in library school – “data about data” – is just too circular to be meaningful).

So all of the items in SWTOR have rich classifications and abundant metadata already on them. What does that mean?

It means that Bioware has the foundation to create amazing search interfaces. All of the content exists and it’s easy to find, and now it’s just a matter of taking all of the content and creating a user interface that allows for easy access for the user. Sounds easy, but it’s extremely difficult.

User-Centered Design

Bioware has already come out with a system, and it works, but it could be improved upon. The SWTOR Community has already commented on how  the system could be improved. I’ll run over them really quickly and add my comments to them. (The original post is what I’m using for this section)

1. The drop-down categories (armor type, rarity, level reqs, etc) should be for NARROWING DOWN EXISTING SEARCHES, not confining what you may search for.

This is possible, and could be done, but not in the current system that Bioware has implemented. The common “faceted navigation” that you see in most commercial websites like Newegg and Amazon has become an industry standard, but applying it to an in-game system has yet to be done (to my knowledge). This would be a large innovation in the gaming world.

2. We should be able to search by name FIRST. I should be able to type in exactly what I’m looking for, click buy, done. It’s that easy.

I completely agree with this one. The current system allow for no “Title search” of an item. You are required to pick a filter before searching by title, which makes for extremely nice database design and a lot less server load, but annoys users now that they are used to being able to search how they like. This keyword search to narrow down an existing search also does not work very well right now, it only works on a direct match of a keyword (e.g. “Red Goo” not “red go”), which is frustrating as a user.

3. If I’m listing multiple same-item auctions, PLEASE have it memorize what my price was. If I’m leveling up my crafting skill and I made 20 Random-Blue-Chest-Piece-of-***-Kickery, please for the love of all that is Star Wars let me only name my price once rather than making me type the price in 20 times. That is way too many clicks and key presses.

Save the time of the [user]. Any little change that can be done which will make the life of the user better should be done.

4. Include an armor SLOT drop down. Helm, gloves, chest, legs, etc. If I’m looking for a Purple Medium Armor level 47BOOTS, I shouldn’t have to search through pages and pages of chest pieces, leg pieces, and helmets to find it.

This will be an easy fix, and one that I assume Bioware will implement rather quickly. As I mentioned above, all of the data is already classified well, this is just a matter of adding another “filter” which the current UI doesn’t support.

5, 8

Hit up the original thread to read these. They don’t have anything to do with the system or UI, so it is beyond the scope of this post.

6, 9, 10, 12, 14, 15

Save the time of the [user]. (see #3)

7, 13

See #4

11. Some of the items are currently being listed under the wrong categories. For example, Underworld Trading Fabrics are being listed under Diplomacy.

A bug in a new system that needs to be worked out. Perhaps the metadata for “Underworld Trading Fabrics” is in the wrong part of a database somewhere. Just needs to be looked into on the back end.

Simple GTN Additions

Aside from a complete overhaul of the GTN system, there are a few things that Bioware could do to improve upon the current GTN UI. They’re simple changes that will make the lives of all of us users much easier.

1) Alphabetize the drop down menus.

The current drop down menu that is first chosen looks to be ordered by “priority”.

That’s fine for someone who is looking for something at the top of the list, but each user has a different priority. Alphabetizing the list will make it easier for people to scan down the list for what they’re looking for (e.g. I’m looking for a “consumable” so I automatically will look toward the top of the list, instead of the middle where it currently is now). This is by far the easiest change they could make, and it would increase usability so much.*

*Some of their drop downs are alphabetized, some are not. There is very little consistency to it.

2) Make the list shorter / Separate it somehow

The best practice for creating lists like this (a taxonomy) state that you don’t want a list longer than 7-10 terms because the standard user just zones out and stops reading the list. Either make the list shorter (hard), or separate it into different lists for easier reading. Create a hierarchy out of it, just on the list.

Example:

Gear

• Armor
• Melee Weapon
• Ranged Weapon
• Implant
• Earpiece
• Offhand
• Relic

This way, users can see what they are looking for at a glance very easily. And it doesn’t even require a change to the background programming of the system, it’s just a cosmetic change on the UI.

3) Refine by specific stat

This one may be a bit more difficult, but I’m unsure without knowing the intricacies of how Bioware’s actual database system works. There should be a filter or refinement tool to allow for searching/narrowing by a specific stat (e.g. Willpower, Might, alacrity, etc.). It could even be more general and you can narrow by primary or secondary stat.

Crafting materials

Right now being able to find crafting materials on the GTN is a nightmare, mainly because of the no title or keyword search option (or the keyword narrowing function not working properly). A quick example: If I want to find a material for crafting something, doing a search yields 26 pages of results, with 8 items on each page. Narrowing this by title would be easy, but the best way to be able to do it would be to sort it by crafting level.

Most crafting items just have “Item level 1″ as their item metadata, but they also have a specific “grade” applied to them, which can be Grade 1 through 6. There are also many sub-categories of crafting materials.

Being able to search or refine a search by a “Grade 2 Biochemical Sample” rather than a “Grade 4 Biochemical Compound” would allow a great amount of functionality for advanced users. And, again, the metadata/classification already exists, it’s just a matter of implementing it in a user friendly way.

If you liked X, then you would also like…

The above was all Jacob’s work; now it’s my turn (this is Diane). Think of us as two sides of a d20.

Recommender systems try to predict what the user would like based on current and past searches. If you use Amazon, you are familiar with recommender systems. For example, if I search Amazon for SWTOR, I get the following recommendations on the SWTOR product page:

As you can see, it recommends SWTOR game time, another video game, an operating system that supports SWTOR, and so on. This is based on past behavior of other Amazon users.

Pandora is a popular example of a recommender system: If you start a “Katy Perry” station, Pandora will play music by other dance pop artists. Some of us think recommender systems in their current forms are frequently too narrow in scope, and some of my academic research seeks to work on these ideas. For example, Katy Perry is certainly similar to Taylor Swift, Avril Lavigne, Rihanna, and so on, but what else could a system find for me that is not so obviously related? Who were their musical role models when they were growing up? Who has a voice similar to Katy’s that I might enjoy? I’m currently leading a project funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada called “Using affect-based labels in whole collection retrieval” to, in part, investigate these issues.

As a researcher, it’s my job to be visionary, so here we go. In the long run, information science needs to stop thinking about documents/objects (e.g. A pdf, a word doc, crafting materials, medpacs, or PvP gear) in a system as individual silos, things that can only be retrieved if you can identify one or more facets. The idea that you can only find things by telling the system what you are hoping to find- and telling the system in the terms of the system – needs to become old school. In the paper entitled “Breaking in and out of the silos: What makes for a happy photograph cluster?” that I presented at the Document Academy conference in 2010, I stated the following:

… extensively known Web sites and tools really only provide ways to start “searches” with “keywords.” A search for any relatively broad search string retrieves far too many documents for an individual to sift through. Additionally, the “black box” phenomenon in which the user does not know what exists in the system is of ongoing concern … known-item and narrowly-defined subject access searching … has denied us any substantial progress toward new ways of thinking about information exploration.

Let’s say I am a Sith Assassin, and my crafting skills are archaeology, treasure hunting, and artifice. Here are some potential information exploration questions:

• I have x, y, and z crystals (crafting materials) in my inventory. If I could learn what products others are selling that are made with those materials, it might help me decide what to make next based on supply, demand, and physical feasibility. Also, knowing what products are most popular might help me decide what I should spend my time and credits on.
• I am at level 13, and it’s my first SWTOR character, so I am still a noob. I think Khem Val would be a better tank if I could get him some better armor, but I don’t know how to find armor except by sifting through the GTN with the existing interface that Jacob described above, or by hoping to loot/find something good. How can I find things that fit my character’s (and Khem’s) current status? He can only use heavy armor. I think his pants are already pretty good, but he doesn’t have anything on his head yet.

Max level players/characters won’t have these kinds of questions, but you can’t get to 50 until you figure out things like these. Be patient with the noobs’ needs. Focusing on the user and how their information exploration happens is a valuable tool, rather than just focusing on finding specific documents or objects. It’s about the user experience, not the the search result.

In conclusion, finally

MMO players are in a constant state of information seeking. This knowledge state compels us to retrieve or explore information constantly; the plethora of items we need to purchase for crafts, combat, and other tasks are essential to becoming 1337. Better in-game information search, retrieval, and exploration systems that facilitate making the obvious and not-so-obvious connections between items for sale would help us put these pieces together in meaningful ways. We, Jacob and Diane, with our classification and systems expertise, would love to help Bioware make this all better. (We’d also love an all-expenses-paid speaking engagement in Hawaii, but as previously stated, this is all just our opinion).

Side note: We had to edit this post before publishing it because Bioware fixed a few of the issues without mentioning it in patch notes. Good work Bioware!

tl;dr

The UI for SWTOR’s GTN could use some improvement, as many players have noted. We have some ideas on how to make it better.

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.

Welcome to Gamer Classification Week! This week, Jacob and Diane are providing a 5-part series on the categorizations related to gamers and gaming. Understanding these many aspects of gaming is essential to helping you understand games, gamers, and the information with which we collide. Make sure you catch up with Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3!

The type of game that a gamer plays is generally more important (within the gamer community) than how often that person plays said game. Playing each of these types of games will still label someone as a “gamer”, but the different types of games attract very different types of people, for many different reasons. The types of games that I can think of off the top of my head are: FPS, TBS, RTS, RPG, MMO, Racing, and Fighting.

First Person Shooter (FPS) games are generally the type of game the lay-person knows about, because they are the type of game brought up in the ongoing debate about video games and violence. Some of the top contenders for most well known FPS games are Doom, Halo, Half-Life, and Duke Nukem, but there are many many others. Generally these are multiplayer games, and require a lot of hand eye coordination and practice, with a large emphasis on tactics.

On a larger scale, there are Turn-Based and Real-Time Strategy (TBS and RTS respectively) games, which focus more on strategy than tactics. There is also a component to RTS games that’s considered very important, which is micro. Micro is the ability to micro manage and organize multiple units/buildings/groups at a time. Usually it’s measured in Actions Per Minute (APM), and some professional players have been known to get upwards of 400APM during their RTS games. (I’m sure I got that number wrong, and feel free to correct me in the comments). day[9], who I’ve previously talked about, is an expert at this, please see his page and videos for more information.

Role Playing Games (RPG), are another popular genre of game, and generally involve focusing on one character, or avatar (not Avatar the movie), and using that character to go on different adventures. RPGs typically bring to mind the fantasy genre, but they can actually be any metaphor, from Super Heroes, or to just everyday life.

While all of these different game types mentioned (FPS, TBS, RTS, and RPG) can be played in a single player environment, many of them take on a completely different context when the multiplayer environment is added. For FPS, TBS, and RTS games this leads to increased competition and community, sometimes very robust ones. In the case of RPGs, adding multiplayer spawned a whole new genre unto itself, creating MMORPGs (sometimes pronounced Ma-Mor-Pa-Ga’s if you want to say something hilarious), but otherwise known as Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games. These are games where hundreds or thousands of people exist in an online virtual world playing side by side and/or against each other.

Racing games are something I haven’t been in contact with since I was younger. Generally very straight forward for picking a car and driving, they have become very advanced in recent years, combining ideas from other genres. You can have an RPG racing game pretty easily by being able to customize a car and go on “missions” to earn money. Just a different metaphor. Then you have combat racing games like Mario Kart, which are fun for any type of gamer. (I welcome any comments or content that I can add on this section from readers.)

I’ll come clean about fighting games: the last one I played was Street Fighter II. No Alpha. It’s been a while. I take that back, I did spend a lot of time playing Super Smash Bros., but that is the extent of my fighting game experience. I would welcome a more experienced opinion on them in the comments. In general, fighting games are third person, and mainly melee combat. It can be 1v1 or multiplayer; it varies dramatically.

So what do these different genres matter? For the gamers reading, they already matter because those are the games that you play, where your community is, and where you spend your free time. For the information world, it matters because of how information is disseminated to these different groups. Libraries and the information world cannot just “research games”, because they are too nuanced and different in every information aspect to be grouped together in that way (as Caroline has previously said).

Do you have a favorite genre of game that I didn’t mention? Let me know in the comments!

tl;dr

Different genres of video games are as different as genres of books.

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.

Welcome to Gamer Classification Week! This week, Jacob and Diane are providing a 5-part series on the categorizations related to gamers and gaming. Understanding these many aspects of gaming is essential to helping you understand games, gamers, and the information with which we collide. Today, Jacob provides a look at how gamers are viewed – what a bunch of nerds! See Part 1: Casual, Hardcore, and Professional Gamers, and Part 2: Geeks, Nerds, Dorks, or “Others?”

The format of a game means a lot to a gamer. The platform defines the game in many ways. For me, the platform that I choose to play on has to do with two main factors: community and use.

Let’s start with the big daddy of community gaming:

Facebook

Facebook is considered the place to go for casual gamers. It is defined by the community. Playing Farmville by yourself is possible, but playing with friends is where the rewards of the game come into play. The sharing, helping, and community building among Facebook friends is what helps to define Facebook gaming as a platform. While this platform is not really considered to be the realm of “gamers”, it now holds a sizable portion of the community that plays games online, so it cannot be discounted from the race. This is different than enriching the community, like hardcore gamers are more likely to do, because there is no involvement with the community outside of the game. This is just participating with the community while playing the game.

In terms of use, Facebook is very limiting for the type of games that can be played. It requires internet access, subscription to the Facebook service, and a group of like minded people to fully be able to play the game. The development platform for the game is also limited because making more complex and in depth games is not always possible. Imagine trying to play Mario Kart or Dance Dance Revolution on Facebook and you’ll start to understand what I mean.

Console Gaming

Console gaming used to be very simple and straightforward. There was a tv, the console connected to it, and the controller connected to the console that controlled what happened on the screen. The use was very simple, but very effective (and still is). Community was the same. It used to be that the community revolved around single player games, or how many friends you could fit in your living room (and argue over whose turn it was). (Check out this link for a great evolution of the different gaming consoles)

Console gaming has now evolved into advanced online multiplayer networks. Being able to play with upwards of 8 or 16 players at the same time in the same game from different rooms is astounding. This was the dream back in the early ’90s, and it has come about. You can sit on your couch holding a (wireless) controller, wearing a headset, and talking to your friends across the country while you all play the same game. This is the reason (I believe) why people who play Facebook games are not considered “gamers.” Facebook games cannot reach this level of depth for community or use. Not even close.

Community and use for console gaming has even gone a step further in recent years, morphing into a hybrid of PC gaming.

PC Gaming

When looking at this short list I have compiled (Facebook, Console, and PC games), the list has continuously become more deep in terms of both community and use. Facebook has a very large community, and many users, console gaming less so, but in a much richer way, and PC games continue this trend (except perhaps in terms of total numbers).

PC games provide the largest breadth and depth for use in gaming because of how the platform works. Games can be designed specifically for the pc, can run on other programs that run on the PC (like Facebook, which runs in a browser on a PC), or can even be emulators of console games. You can even use controllers that mimic console games on the PC. The downside to PC gaming is the complexity; it is hard for new gamers to start playing many PC games because of their complexity.

So why even play on a console if the PC exists? Because of the community. If you have 4 people sitting in the same room with 1 computer, how are you all going to play the same game? It’s possible, but difficult. It’s much easier to play Rock Band or a game on the Kinect though. The PC may win for the most in depth and broadest use platform, but the console will always have the advantage of in person community. Unless you want a good ol’ fashioned LAN party!

Do you agree with my assessment? Are use and community good ways to measure different gaming platforms?

tl;dr

Facebook, consoles, and PCs are the gaming platforms of choice, but each have their own advantages of use and community.

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.

Welcome to Gamer Classification Week! This week, Jacob and Diane are providing a 5-part series on the categorizations related to gamers and gaming. Understanding these many aspects of gaming is essential to helping you understand games, gamers, and the information with which we collide. Today, Diane provides a look at how gamers are viewed – what a bunch of nerds! See Part 1: Casual, Hardcore, and Professional Gamers.

Today’s question: how are gamers classified? Are we geeks, or nerds, or perhaps dorks? This is a simple question with a complex answer.

Do you consider yourself a gamer, or at least a geek, nerd, or dork? If you’re unsure, I have a simple test for you: go to the ThinkGeek and browse. Do you like anything you see? If so, you probably have gamer/geek potential. (Personally, I love ThinkGeek’s Tech Jewelry page – but I’m a stylin’ kinda geek, and I think the idea of wearing a broken image necklace is beyond hilarious. But that’s me.)

Gamers as well as similar people who might be called nerds, geeks, or dorks have been marginalized for years. My dad, who passed away in 2010 at the young age of 67, was an original. He carried pens in his (plaid) shirt pocket, spent entire weekends fixing $10 radios because he thought it was fun, built PCs from parts, and worked in the computer industry from the early 1960s until he retired. He really didn’t care what anybody thought of him for doing these things, which a trait I picked up from him. But people who didn’t understand him just dismissed his activities (and even his work!) saying, “Oh, he’s a nerd, so that’s what he does.” I think he was the best male role model a girl could have: be yourself, and enjoy it!

As a result, I am a happy and proud nerd. But, despite this positive influence, others have made me suffer for it. For example, a “popular kid” called me a “dork” in 7th grade gym class, and then threw a basketball at the back of my head so hard that I almost fainted. As a result, I’ll see black spots in my line of vision for the rest of my life. Yeah, really popular stuff there.

On a happier note, think about the “nerds” in the Revenge of the Nerds films: people with weird hair, bad fashion sense, no social skills, or just plain… different. People made fun of them and bullied them. But what happens in the end? They always win! (This scene from the first film, in which they used computers and other technologies to make relatively danceable 80s music at a talent show, is timelessly epic.)

What else are we known for, stereotypically? Let’s see: we stay up all night and sleep all day, consume three food groups (sugar, caffeine, and fat), and… play games. Right? Maybe.

Geekdom has become mainstream, but it also has taken on a different angle over time. We’ve equated nerd/geekdom with being intelligent, completing work on time, and using today’s technical conveniences. People say, “I’m such a nerd. I’m always on my iPhone.” Sometimes I want to reply, “Not necessarily. That thing came in a beautifully designed package from a shining white store, and if you open it up, it will void the warranty.” Computer stores used to be true geek sanctuaries: they had all kinds of parts and interesting accessories, dusty shelves, concrete floors, random items like Star Wars mouse pads, and last year’s games on clearance.

Now, computers are mainstream no-brainers, and I’ve been complaining for years that everyone sold out. You can take a computer home in a little box from a Big Box store, and then you download almost everything you need online. Remember, though, that geeks made the circuits that run your computer, the code that makes YouTube possible, and the databases that store your Facebook profile. (Yes, there are multiple databases that store your Facebook profile. Don’t ask.) If you want to see how real geeks buy technology, see Newegg 0r Fry’s, and the truly brave can visit here in person for an old-school experience.

To be fair, there are other types of geeks/nerds/dorks. For example, I know several “humanities nerds” (my term): people who can recite a wide range of literature or recall the composer upon hearing the first two lines of an obscure piece of classical music (as well as the composer’s birth and death dates and places). These types don’t tend to game as much, however, so while they’re really important voices in the geeks’ chorus, they don’t factor in quite as much to the conversation on this blog.

Where does this leave us? I’m not sure. Geeks and nerds and dorks are so varied that it’s difficult to classify us. Just look at the cast of characters in Revenge of the Nerds, and you can only come to one conclusion: they’re all different, but they’re also all loveable in some way… just like every person alive today.

And we shall inherit the Earth.

tl;dr

Gamers are geeks, nerds, and/or dorks… but why is that bad, who cares, and aren’t you one too?

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.

Welcome to Gamer Classification Week! This week, Jacob and Diane are providing a 5-part series on the categorizations related to gamers and gaming. Understanding these many aspects of gaming is essential to helping you understand games, gamers, and the information with which we collide. 

And, so, here begins Part 1 of the 5 part series of how to classify gamers!

What’s the difference between a casual and hardcore gamer? I’ve posted about this before, but now I want to write about it in more depth.

In my mind, there are three different ways that gamers talk about other gamers (regardless of what type of game is played, or on what format). These three different types seem to lend themselves easily to being classified by the amount of time playing games, but it goes much further than that. It’s a matter of commitment to the gaming community as a whole, rather than just sitting and playing. I find that’s the difference between casual, hardcore, and professional gamers.

Casual Gamers

Casual gamers is assumed at first glance to be for those gamers that play games sporadically. Now and then. Sometimes. When they have time. But that’s not true. Look at the number of people that play Facebook games (the true barometer for casual gaming in a lot of ways). There are people spending dozens of hours a week playing Facebook games that do not consider themselves gamers. In my mind, someone is a casual gamer because of two distinct facts: 1) The person does not identify themselves as a gamer. This automatically puts them on the outside of “gaming culture.” 2) There is not a larger interaction with a community outside of directly playing the game. This concept is what drives someone to the next level of gaming.

Hardcore Gamers

How does someone become a hardcore gamer? It’s the same two reasons I mentioned above, just on the opposite side of the fence: identify as a gamer, and interact with a larger community. There are so many ways to do this that I do not have the space or the time to write about them. I will just point out one example as an illustration of a true hardcore gamer, and that’s Taugrim. Take a moment to look around his site, and you’ll find tidbits such as this:

The AC has 3 talent trees from left-to-right, 1 for tanking and 2 for DPS:

• Shield Tech (Shield Specialist): this is the tanking tree. As you’d expect, this is the tree to spec into for PVE tanking, as there are multiple talents that boost survivability via armor-based mitigation, increased shield chance, increased absorption, etc. This tree provides excellent utility in PVP including an in-combat charge, -Accuracy PBAoE debuff, and a proc-snare effect
• Advanced Prototype (Tactics): this DPS tree provides passive and on-demand speed buffs, excellent short-range (0-10m) capability, increased elemental and internal damage, crit mechanics, and strong CC capability
• Pyrotech (Assault Specialist): this DPS tree provides mechanics that revolve around Damage Over Time (DoT) effects, including damage buffs, procs, and snare effects. This tree provides the strongest > 10m ranged capability of the trees

You’ll notice a lot of jargon and language that most gamers wouldn’t understand, as it’s meant for a specific game. It’s a way to communicate to the community. He’s an advanced player who is trying to help newer players of a game better understand what’s going on, and how they can improve. It’s a great resource for beginning or intermediate players of Star Wars: The Old Republic. Taugrim is a great example of a hardcore gamer, and a hardcore gaming community, but I’m not sure if he fits the next level, that of professional.

Professional Gamers

The definition that makes someone a professional is if they get paid to do it; their livelihood depends upon it. Such is what separates the hardcore gamer from the professional gamer. There are two distinct brands of professional gamers: entertainment/education, and competitive.

The first is hard to define as either entertainment or education, because it can be both, or just one at a time. A prime example of this is day[9]. He crosses the boundary and also competes, but for this illustration I want to point out what he does for the gaming industry. He spends a lot of time just interacting with the community, providing online entertainment in the form of streams, and also live broadcasting games he plays to educate others (both for general gaming advocacy, and how to become better at particular games). The best example is this video that he published to describe his life of gaming. I highly recommend watching the first 5 minutes; you’ll be hooked for the whole hour and understand gaming in a much better light.

The video from day[9] mentioned above also describes his life playing video games competitively. There is a large, robust community around competing internationally in different video games. They span all different genres and platforms, and there are a number of people who have a very lucrative career from competing in video games. The eSports market is taking off rapidly. It has even begun to penetrate social and international barriers.

Are you a gamer and agree or disagree with how I’ve “labeled” you? If you’re not a gamer, do these breakdowns make sense?

tl;dr

Casual, hardcore, and professional gamers classifications are not a matter of time spent playing games; it’s a matter of commitment, both individually and to a community.

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.

Everyone classifies themselves and others. This blog is already classifying a group of people known as “gamers.” The term itself is very broad, but there are ways to narrow it down. The definitions of the smaller gamer groups overlap quite a bit, but they can give a good idea as to how the different groups view themselves.

I will get my personal bias out in front right away, and I apologize in advance. I’m working on my behavior.

People who play Facebook games aren’t gamers. There, I said it! I’m sorry!

Let me rephrase to what I really mean: “People who play Facebook games are not my kind of gamer.” And that’s really the core of the issue. Even though everyone plays games, each group of gamers has its own identity. I think it is crucial for the information science and library community to realize the differences between these groups and plan accordingly, because the differences are night and day (at least to a gamer). It’s like trying to tell YA readers that Jacob and Edward are the same, or that catalogers and reference librarians are the same job. (I know I made a Twilight reference. It won’t happen again!)

So what’s the difference between gamers? I’m glad you asked. Based on the classification that Wikipedia provides, I would put myself in the Casual/Mid-core/Hardcore area of gaming. Anyone is allowed to be tagged multiple ways; they are not exclusive.

The difficult part of the Wikipedia definition is that I do not really agree with it, and I do not believe most gamers would either. Sure, a gamer may use one of those terms to describe their play style to a lay-person, but to another gamer, the lingo is completely different. Within the gaming culture, the amount of time that you play does not initially classify you, the type of game that you play is what classifies you. Once the type of game played is defined, then the time spent playing said game can be mentioned (e.g. casual or hardcore).

Coming up in the future: how to actually classify gamers, and how they classify themselves.

If you are a gamer, how would you classify yourself? If you are not a gamer, how do you think of different types of gamers? or all they all the same?

tl;dr

Gamers classify themselves differently than the rest of the world does.

P.S. – For those of you still looking for a gift for that gamer in your life.

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.