Gaming History Interview 2007

This is an interview of my gaming history and habits. It was conducted by Shaun on 26 September 2007.

Q1. What first drew you into gaming?

A1. I was given an Aquarius computer when I was young. Started playing the one game I had for it. It came with a book which contained the source code for other simple games. I used to spend time writing the code into the computer using basic so that I could actually play them. Later I got; Spectrum 48k, Amstrad CPC 464, MegaDrive, SNES, Dreamcast and Playstation 2. I also have a PC as well. Used to spend a lot of time playing the games machines often out of boredom as there wasn't much else to do and my love of gaming continued from there.

Writing about games

New Games Journalism
“Bow, Nigger”


This was an article written about Jedi Knight II by Ian Shanahan. In his review of this game, Shanahan concentrates on his feelings while playing. He writes in a personal style describing events and reactions in a story type way. There is hardly any actual discussion about the aspects of gameplay such as the interface, but rather he concentrates on how his experience of the game and his interaction with the other on-line player made him feel.  

Gender in Gaming

The Warriors

Based on the 1979 cult film of the same name, The Warriors is a story about a New York street gang accused of killing a rival gang leader during a massive gang meeting. The nine Warriors at the meeting need to get back to the relative safety of their home turf (20 miles away) with every gang in the city looking for them. The game is a beat-em-up, which runs through a story detailing the rise of the Warriors from it's beginnings, taking over territory, to the fateful meeting and the subsequent battle back across New York. The player plays through these periods doing missions such as raiding enemy territories, entering tag (graffiti) competitions, defending against rival gang attacks, as well as flashback bonus missions such as how certain members joined the Warriors. The Warriors allows the players to fight, mug, steal car stereos, take drugs as healing, and robbery.

Women in The Warriors

During gameplay, the player does not have control of any women. The gang does not seem have any women members. Women are only referred to by the characters as sexual objects in conversations or in cut-scenes or to be mugged on the streets. They are generally shown as weak and a few cut-scenes show women making bad decisions making them look unintelligent or just simply being there for the use of the male characters. The portrayal of women in the game would have them fall into a mixture of Krotoski's (2004) categories of The Helpless Female character or the Sex Kitten character with them having not much part in the gameplay or the story progression.

Shadow Hearts Covenant

This RPG is set six months after the start of World War One and follows the story of a group of people led by Yuri, an man who can morph into various 'fusion monsters'. Yuri's powers were sealed at the beginning of the game and he must travel the land fighting human, monster and demon enemies and gaining companions while regaining his powers. The power used to seal Yuri's power will kill him eventually so Yuri and his group must travel to many locations all over Europe to uncovers why it was done and how it can be stopped. While doing this they also uncover clues about a plot to destroy the world and must attempt to stop it.

Women in Shadow Hearts Covenant

The main group of characters in the game has a fair split between male and female characters. The female characters are shown as being strong, not needing or relying on the male characters. Karin, the main female character, is a very strong combat character and is a good addition to any combat group during the game. The combat group, in which you can select which three characters will take part, can be made up entirely of female characters. They are all included in the story progression and some have sub-plots and quests based around them. One of the characters is a young girl but the other two are women and these two have been 'sexualised' in much the same way as other game characters of the type (Lara, Tina, Ivy, the list goes on). This would make the women in the this game fall into Krotoski's (2004) category of Girl Power Figures or 'Action Babes'.

Women's Gaming Websites

I looked at an article written by Megan Parker for www.grrlgamer.com called “No Girls Allowed: Masking the Female Voice”. The article talks about a product called 'Voice Changer Software Diamond' which allows female gamers to change their voice to sound like men when playing on-line games. Why would women want to change their voices to sound like men? Megan talks about the times on-line when even though playing a female avatar, other players will still assume she is a male until she actually speaks. This shows that many people still believe that there are few women in gaming. Megan also points out that many males do not like being beaten by women. Megan argues that this product does not help the case of women gamers experience in gaming, because rather than educating the male gamers (and game companies) that there are lots of female gamers who are just as good as the men, it allows them to believe that they are still in a male dominated zone. Megan concludes her article by saying that using this software would be “sticking your head in the sand and hoping the problem will go away”. She states that the more female voices are heard in games, the harder it can be for many males and game companies to continue with their current ideas of women in gaming.

Bibliography

Alexs Krotoski, 'Chicks and Joysticks and Exploration of Women and Gaming', Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association, September 2004, http://www.elspa.com/assets/files/c/chicksandjoysticksanexplorationofwomenandgaming_176.pdf,
Date of Access: 30th November 2006.

Megan Parker, 'No Girls Allowed: Masking the Female Voice', Grrlgamer.com, 19th November 2006, http://www.grrlgamer.com/article.php?t=voicegenderbender, Date of access: 30th November 2006.

Narrative In Gaming

The sequence that events happen to a player in a game is the Narrative, which is closely linked with the Story and plot.Due to low computer memory many early games could be said to not really have a narrative or story and so used what Wolf (2003) refers to as "Extradiegetic Narration". Extradiegetic Narration is where some of the games narration (or perhaps character back history) comes from outside of the gameplay. This could include; looping story demos, it could be based on a familier film or book, even simply written on the games case. As computers and consoles have become more powerful, this form of Narrative has become less necessary. With more powerful computers though, Grodal (2003) states that "the interactive capability also raises a series of new problems that were absent in the earlier media". Torben is refering to the discussions on Interactivity vs Narrative. Narrative or story progression in earlier media forms is solely in the hands of the writer or director. In games, the interactivity means that a partial amount of the story progression is controlled by the player through their actions (or lack of). Two groups have been discussing how much Narrative should impact on a games design; Narratologists and Ludologists.

Narratologists state that the whole game should be made of narrative pieces and everything should be in relation to the story. Ludologists state the game should concentrate on the gameplay aspects (the player interaction) and the narrative should be kept to the non-gameplay aspects. This means items such as Cut-scenes but as Crawford (2003) points out "Integrated cut scenes don't solve the problem of interactive story-telling, because they do nothing to make the story interactive." and "The story and the game remain isolated from each other".

Wolf (2003) tells us two ways that some game designers have tried to add Interactive storytelling to their games to differing success. The first is by making the game have just one linear narrative which is within larger story. As the player plays through the main game story they can interact with characters or events which give information etc which are in relation to the larger story but do not actually effect the main game story. This could be things such as further background story information or extra information about the world. Interaction with these characters or events might help further the players understanding but isn't truly really interactive storytelling as the player still can not affect the story's narrative. The second way is through branching storylines. In a game with branching storylines, the designers will have added sections where choices can be made which will send the players down differing story routes. These routes mean that if the game is played again the player could experience a different storyline if they make different choices. Sometimes these different story routes would lead to a different game ending but it is not entirely necessary as the routes can merge back together at a later point.

Further Narrative types in games are explained by Jenkins (2004), who discusses four types of Environmental Storytelling.
The first, Evocotive Spaces, is similar to Wolf's Extradiegetic Narration in that the game world is based on something already known and familiar to the players. The story is not copied from the original but must stay withing the rules of the original. The next, Enacting Stories, relies on the geographical movement of the player around the gameworld. This usually creates spacial stories which have what Jenkins calls Micronarritives, which each provide a small bit of plot progression.
Embedded Narratives is the third type and here some of the narrative information is given or discovered by the player during their progression through the game. The last is Emergent Narratives which deals with games where the programming and the space the game is set in allow for "player generated narratives".

Bibliography

M.Wolf "Narritive in the Video Game" in M.Wolf (ed) The Medium of the Video Game (University of Texas Press: Austin, 2003) p93-111

T.Grodal "Stories for Eye, Ear and Muscles" in M.Wolf & B.Perron (eds) The Video Game Theory Reader (Routledge: New York, 2003) p129-155

C.Crawford, Chris Crawford on Game Design (New Riders Publishing: Indiana, 2003)

H.Jenkins "Game Design as Narrative Architecture" in N.Wadrip-Fruin & P.Harrigan (eds) First Person : New Media as Story, Performance and Game (MIT Press: Cambridge, 2004) p123-129

Narrative - Enacting Stories

Narrative

Jenkins (2004) argues that there are 4 types of environmental storytelling; Evocative Spaces, Enacting Stories, Embedded Narratives and Emergent Narratives. In our Group Project Design Groups, we have individually looked at one of these types each and completed the following tasks:

1. Summarise the main argument that Jenkins is making in relation to the category.
2. Bullet point out what you regard as the important elements within the category.
3. Briefly add your own examples from your own playing experience.
4. Consider the extent to which the game you are producing will be / or could be influenced by consideration of this narrative category.
5. Report back your findings to the group.

I read the extract from Jenkins ‘Game Design as Narrative Architecture’ on Enacting Stories and here are my results:

Enacting Stories

Summary

Games are more often Spatial Stories which have smaller goals etc within the overall story. These smaller goals (micro-narratives) would have some sort of memorable moment, be it a cut-scene, a gameplay experience such as high action and would produce an emotional impact / experience which helps the overall story experience.


Bullet Points of important elements:

• Two levels of narrative:
• broadly defined (overall story).
• localized (levels).
• Spatial stories:
• Episodic and sometimes can be re-ordered without massively impacting the overall story as each individual ‘episode’ only offers a small part of the overall story.
• Story progression:
• Is by player movement / exploration rather than simply plot progression.
• Environmental Storytelling – plot is influenced by players interaction with the game world.
• Micronarratives:
• Memorable moments / emotional impact / emotional experience (connected to the overall story).
• Plot vs. Freedom:
  
• Conflict of allowing enough player freedom while still keeping the plot going.

Gaming Examples

Final Fantasy X-2:

Players have the freedom to visit all the known game locations, interacting with NPC’s and the game world. Certain locations will advance the story by opening further quests / missions / imparting information etc. They don’t have to be done in a specific order and some can be ignored altogether.

Most locations will have a Mission of some sorts there which will either advance the story, provide the player with some reward (item), or provide other information such as a bit of background story. There will usually be a challenge and these separate missions are micronarratives and have 'memorable moments' (eg.: fighting a huge boss - see picture, finding a powerful item, plot cut-scene, etc).

- Spatial Stories and Narrative influenced by player & game world interaction.

Project Considerations

The game design of our group (Absent Logic) already has some of the ideas of Enacting Stories. There is an overall story and then there are smaller puzzles for the player to solve to advance the story (micronarratives). At present though, our game idea is fairly linear. One puzzle completion leads directly on to the next advancing the story.

We could amend this so that certain parts of the story have an optional choice of which areas / puzzles to do in which order, before having to go on to the main story progression puzzle. This will give the player an amount of freedom and will make parts of the game story Spatial and a help in the Freedom vs. Plot area as well.

Bibliography

H.Jenkins (2004) Game Design as Narrative Architecture in N, Wadrip-Fruin & P, Harrigan (eds) First Person : New media as Story, Performance and Game MIT Press, Cambridge p124-126

Defining Videogames - Paidea vs Ludus

Paidea and Ludus

In the ongoing debate about how we define videogames, there are several terms which I will explain and give examples for. The first two would each encompass a large number and variety of games and they are Paidea and Ludus.

Caillois (2001) discussed these terms in reference to the rules in place. If the rules are simple then the game is Paidea ('play') and if the rules are complex then the game is Ludus ('game').
Further discussion of these terms and the relationship between 'play' and 'game' caused others to add further definition to Caillois' explanation. Therefore Frasca modified Caillois' definition of Paidea and Ludus to;

• Paidea: “physical or mental activity which has no immediate useful objective, nor defined objective, and whose only reason to be is based in the pleasure experienced by the player”,
• Ludus: “activity organised under a system of rules that defines a victory or a defeat, a gain or a loss”,
  (Frasca 1999)

Paidea and Ludus Examples

Paidea:

Columns – a simple game where coloured columns of 3 gems fall down and need to be lined up to make them disappear. If the columns reach the top of the screen then the game ends (similar in concept to Tetris). There isn't a way to win this game as the game will just continue dropping more and more blocks, faster and faster. The emphasis is on the enjoyment of the player rather than them achieving a specific built in victory condition.

Ludus:

Soul Calibur 2 – A Beat-Em-Up game where the aim of the story mode is to win eight fights which includes the 'boss' character Inferno (the baddie). The game also has a Weapon Master mode where the player plays through a huge number of fights with different victory conditions which will unlock items and further modes. Although this will give the player a multitude of rule set choices to play with, they are all strictly defined by the game itself and not the player.

Further Terminology: Alea, Agon, Ilink and Mimicry

There were also four more terms Caillois (2001) proposed which games can be categorised into. These were Alea, Agon, Ilink, and Mimicry.

Alea:

Alea is Chance / Randomness. Columns in my example above could be described as a Alea game because the sequence of the coloured blocks is random. The player is unable to deduce a pattern and thereby 'predict' the next block and so can not plan too far ahead.

Agon:

Agon is Competition. Games which have an element of competition in them would be referred to as Agon such as Soul Calibur 2. Playing Soul Calibur 2, as a fighting game, could be said to be Agon in two ways. It has a two-player mode so the players could be in competition with each other but during one-player mode the player could be said to be in competition with the game itself.

Ilink:

Ilink is movement. These games have a large importance on how you move during the game. An example of this would be Jet Set Radio where you take the role of a Jet Powered Rollerblade wearing graffiti artist. In the game you are required to perform tricks and stunts which enable you to score more points, avoid obstacles and pursuers, and reach otherwise inaccessible areas / platforms.


Mimicry:

Mimicry are the simulation games. Not just the Command & Conquer and Transport Tycoon type simulations, but also games where there is a roleplay element. Therefore, Need For Speed: Most Wanted would fall into this category as you play the part of a street racer and you have to race in a semi-realistic way and play through many things which would really have to happen (car upgrades, learning the correct way to corner, how to get fast starts off the line, etc.).

Combinations

In addition to all the above, there are some games (a lot some would say) which can fall into more than one category. Therefore depending on what the player is doing or decides to do the game could change category. One example is Columns which back at the start of this I put into Paidea. Some versions of Columns have a two player option where you have to survive for longer than your opponent. This then gives the game a victory condition element and could put it into Ludus. Games also combine across Alea, Agon, Ilink, and Mimicry. Need For Speed: Most Wanted can fall into the categories Mimicry, Agon and possibly Ilink. Then there is also the times where the game has specific goals or victory conditions but the player decides to ignore those and do there own thing. Star Ocean: Till The End Of Time is a roleplaying game where the player has goals which need to be achieved to progress the story. Achieving these goals will increase the characters stats preparing them for the final battle with the games boss. Before completing the current goal though a player could decide to go off and explore other areas, speak to every single NPC in the game so far or practice the minigames. These activities would remove the victory conditions because the player is no longer trying to achieve them and would make the game Paidea (at least for that play session).

Ian's Gaming Interview 2006

Q1) What first drew you into gaming?

A) As a kid I had been brought an Aquarius computer and book with the code to write in the games yourself. As I grew up I continued to play on newer consoles / computers (Spectrum, Amstrad, Mega-Drive, SNES, Dreamcast, PS2) so gaming has been a part of my life for a long time.

Q2) What elements of the games you currently play do you find the most engaging?

A) I like RPG's and Strategy games most, but any type of game that makes you think about what you're doing usually will interest me, although I'm also a big fan of Beat-em-ups. I like large games with lots to do and find. I have lots of games from almost every genre so that I've always got a game to fit my mood.

Q3) Briefly what would be your 'ideal' game?

A) Probably an RPG style game which has a decent action element to it, where the combat was more real-time that turnbased.

Q4) How long, roughly, do you spend gaming per week?

A) Roughly, about 10 - 30 hours depending on what else i've got on that week.

Q5) How does this break down, alone, with friends (physically present), networked, clubs, etc.?

A) Often alone on the PS2, sometimes online on either the PS2 or PC playing multiplayer online games. Sometimes with friends we'll have a gaming day. Also the after pub/club beat-em-up session often on Soul Calibur 2.

Q6) How does gaming fit in with your other social / domestic arrangements?

A) My gaming sort of merges with everything else I'm doing. Quite often I'll have a bundle of things I need to do and while gaming I'll just suddenly pause the game and go off and do one of them. So mid-game I may pause and decide to go sort out the washing, make some phone calls or make some food.

Q7) What sort of collections of games / consoles do you have, where are they situated in the house.

A) I still have some of the old systems lying around (my Amstrad is in a cupboard somewhere with a stack of games). The SNES is still about as is one of the Dreamcasts I had (both again with a bundle of games). The systems that I currently use are both in my front room. They are the PC and the PS2. There are 2 TV's one dedicated to the PS2.

-- End of Interview