I am absolutely thrilled to say that, over the last few weeks, I’ve actually found not just moments but hours of time for gaming. I haven’t found the time to play much of anythign during a solid half year of heavy involvement in two demanding musical productions at the local community theater, and I’ve missed it, missed gaming of all sorts.
In the brief time since the curtain fell on our last performance of The Full Monty, I’ve managed to clock in quite a few hours of LotRO and at least four or five sessions of Arkham Horror, and already my brain has started ticking with observations about how the games work.
One form of play I did not give up during my sojourn on the stage was playtime with my now three-year-old daughter. Play with her is pretty much continuous, as she constantly insists we all assume roles in an extended narrative. This pretend play, which I hope she will continue to enjoy even as she adds dice and game mechanics as a resolution tactic (and she already does have her own dice and dice bag, though at present they’re merely toys to her), is obviously common among children. I remember hoping to “play magic” with my friends on the playground in elementary school, though sports gradually lured most of them away.
All of this is by way of saying: I finally have time to write about the many things that have been percolating in my head.
But I’ll get to that a little later . . . I’ve got games to play!
July 17th, 2008
Alec Bings
I continue to be absorbed in an activity as geeky as gaming but with only limited intersection. Before the curtain fell on our last performance of The Scarlet Pimpernel, I failed to resist the temptation to try out for the next musical being staged at the same theater, The Full Monty. I’m thrilled to say that I got a great part, and rehearsals are well under way.
Instead of rolling dice, logging into LotRO, or shuffling decks of event cards, most of my spare time is absorbed in learning how to strip and trying to hit a high C#. At least I’m getting play a role, though not to roleplay.
The breadth of knowledge that my fellow cast members demonstrate for obscure musicals and the careers of stage actors easily rivals the compendiums of rules and exceptions that gamers memorize in pursuit of their favorite hobbies. I suppose this is typical of any activity that requires a higher level of skill or talent (or both) than the average person has.
I noticed the same phenomenon among magicians, back when I was active in the amateur magician community. Magicians displayed the same impulse to collect things relevant to their chosen hobby that gamers often do, too, obsessively buying more lecture notes, instruction books and videos, and props than they could ever hope to use. (And no, I was definitely not immune to this impulse.)
Even my wife’s knitting group is clearly a collection of yarn geeks.
Is anyone not a geek? The people I see around the office certainly try to come off as geek-free. We certainly live in an era where geekiness is mainstream. I certainly hear comments pooh-poohing science fiction and video games far less often than I used to (though tabletop roleplaying gamers remain a subject of mirth for many).
Do we have the Internet to thank for this widespread acceptance of geekery? Does the fact that science-fiction blockbuster films give us believable dinosaurs instead of jerky claymation miniatures that only a truly imaginative fan could enjoy contribute? What about the fact that gaming consoles and computers now give users consistently immersive and engaging (and accessible) entertainment free of dot-munching yellow circles?
Geekery is now the inescapable norm. The borders of geekery get blurrier and blurrier, and the definition of “gamer” gets fuzzier. Where once there seemed to be a divide between those of us who self-identify as gamers and those we labeled as “casual,” we now see a spectrum. And even that spectrum is artificial, as the obsessiveness with which some play Bookworm exceeds the dedication others show to EverQuest.
Now if only we can get everyone to recognize that one geekdom isn’t necessarily better than another.
Except for furries.
Everything’s better than furries.
April 16th, 2008
Alec Bings
Opening night for the community theater presentation of The Scarlet Pimpernel in which I’m participating is less than two weeks away, and I realize that I’ve gone for several weeks with almost no gaming of any sort. Playing games has long been my primary form of relaxation, often taking up as much of my time as working for a living.
I haven’t spent much time in Middle Earth and Arkham. And since I’m the default GM for our tabletop RPG group we haven’t visited any of my own imagined worlds in even longer.
But while mastering dance steps (in high heeled shoes, no less!), striving for that high B-flat, and struggling to deliver lines in a convincing British accent, I’ve had time to reflect on an aspect of gaming that I don’t normally think about: games are primarily escapism, a way to make entertaining and constructive use of unstructured time.
While some who went on a self-imposed one-week gaming abstinence program found they couldn’t make it, I’ve had a pretty easy time. Why? Because a tremendous portion of my free time has been filled with the creative work of putting together a show that will (we hope!) entertain our audience. Participating in this play has fulfilled most of the desires that spark my interest in games.
Of course, just being busy wouldn’t do it. It just so happens that putting on a theatrical production offers a lot of the same pleasure that games do: the challenges, the imagination, the social interaction, the thrill of success (measured by applause).
Enjoying a reasonably comfortable games-light existence for several weeks hasn’t made me disdainful of them, though. In fact, if anything, I have an even greater appreciation for the value of play than I’ve ever had before.
I’ve spoken before (and no doubt will again) about the fact that games—though we may play them to escape, relax, and kill time—are one of the most worthwhile things we can do. We’re lucky to be a species that plays. The New York Times Magazine recently published a very interesting article on the benefits of play, as well as the reasons.
Play—be it gameplay, roughhousing, theatrical plays, or improvisational roleplaying—feeds our souls, exercises our brains, and keeps us happy. We should all do as much of it as we can. But for those who suffer a compulsion to play games, in particular games that they don’t actually enjoy, I recommend you find alternative escapes. Not non-play escapes, not non-game escapes, but different ones.
If you’re bored and frustrated with one of the many treadmills in an MMORPG, take a moment to consider the reward offered for your effort. Solving problems in games isn’t always fun, but it is generally enjoyable. If you’re not enjoying what you’re doing, by all means do something else!
The world is full of opportunities to play, and thinking gamers are in an excellent position to appreciate those opportunities and take advantage of them.
February 21st, 2008
Alec Bings
The Brainy Gamer (a proud new parent, as well as a terrific blogger and podcaster) recently asked for thoughts on what age kids should be introduced to video games. I began writing a comment, but it turned into a post, so I’ll put my thoughts here instead.
My simplest answer: I haven’t yet seen a video game I’d want my two-year-old daughter to play.
I still believe that games (in general, not just video games) are among the absolute best learning tools available. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that most good education involves games and most of the best games involve learning. I haven’t examined the thought in detail, nor searched for evidence, but I suspect that peak playing experiences and peak learning experiences are biologically and socially very similar. I think humans (and other animals) have an evolutionary imperative to play that, at its root, arises from our need to learn and adapt.
But of course that doesn’t mean we should be plopping our six-month-old children in front of Halo 3.
My own daughter is now two and a half years old. We’ve been very careful in the consumption of all sorts of media. We decided to comply with the AAP’s recommendation to avoid all television before two years of age before she was born. I know some quality children’s programming may not hurt, but I also know that a you child’s mind may be one of the most powerful things in the universe.
Children seem built to learn, and to learn fast. It’s a good thing, too, because they have so much to learn. I remember thinking, in the first few weeks of her life, how many things I knew and knew how to do. Somehow, she’d have to pick up most of those, as well as learning millions of things I’d never know. Staring at the little warm bundle, I couldn’t imagine how it would ever happen.
Watching her walk and dance and do puzzles at two and a half, listening to her sing and laugh and have imaginary conversations with a toy llama, marveling as she happily matches pair after pair of Memory cards, I can see that, yes, it’s possible. She will successfully transform from the helpless tube she was to a wise, fun-loving woman. She’s built for it!
So much of what she’s had to learn exists in the “real” world. She had to learn that when she’s holding a toy and opens her hand, the toy drops to the ground. She had to learn that she can roll a ball. She had to learn that the cat doesn’t like to have her tail pulled but loves to have her face rubbed. She had to learn that when she laughs, her parents almost always laugh too.
Do you know that feeling of euphoria when you get completely immersed in some new and fascinating subject? Or when you begin to internalize the mechanics of a game? A new human has to be immersed in life. Every moment—even one so simple as picking up a rattle—is a moment of full engagement. As adults, we get experience this total engagement, this mindfulness, only occasionally; for children, it can be a full-time experience.
My daughter was exposed to some television before her second birthday. Not a lot. We never once left her in front of a set while we rushed about getting things done. (We still haven’t. When she’s watching, we watch too.) Whenever she caught a glimpse of that glowing, musical box, though, it grabbed her attention and sucked it in
The first time I saw it happen, I was a bit terrified. She directed her full concentration to the screen. She didn’t have any words, but the faces and music and colorful lights consumed her full attention. I knew her mind was fully engaged.
But her body had gone slack. The wriggling, the grasping, the giggling, the wild kicks . . . they all stopped. She became almost 100% watcher.
Television is so ubiquitous we forget how powerful it is. Watching my daughter get caught up in it, though, reminded me: it is awesome; it is terrible.
My daughter did have some positive early exposure to games. Although we resolved never to play World of Warcraft (despite the compulsion) while she was awake, when she was ten months old I did once log in long enough to move a character from one location to another in preparation for an event after her bedtime and she caught a glimpse of the screen. She loved watching “the bird” (I don’t remember if it was a gryphon or a hippogriff) fly gracefully over the forests.
She responded differently than she had to television. She sat in my lap, stuck her arms out, and leaned back and forth the way the bird did. She flapped her arms. And she laughed.
It seems to me that she knew, somehow, that we were involved with the flight. She saw the figure sitting astride this fantastical animal, and she understood that, in a way, we were riding it. I’d been pretty liberal in letting her play with my job-provided laptop. She’d bang on the keys and laugh or squeal when the screen changed. (We even have a record of some of her earliest “e-mail messages,” long strings of characters that delighted her grandparents.)
She understood that this device wasn’t there just to show her things, that it was a tool for doing things. She’d ask for the bird every couple of days for a while, so we’d send one of our characters on a longish flight. When it landed, she was sated.
Now, our daughter watches a little bit of TV almost every day. That is, as a family we watch from fifteen to forty-five minutes of TV together within the hour or so before she goes to bed. We choose the content from DVDs and video tapes.
See, now she’s ready for it. She has a huge mental vocabulary, so she can understand what’s happening on TV. When she was one year old, she didn’t necessarily understand that everyone had a name, that animals couldn’t talk, that balls never fall up, that letters had sounds. Now, when she watches a few clips from Sesame Street (out of distaste for Elmo, “the Red Menace,” we only spin up selections from Sesame Street: Old School
, which offers a peaceful five minutes of cows instead of an overproduced barrage of self-promoting music and colors), she asks insightful questions about how the characters are feeling or sings along with the girl bringing her llama to the dentist.
So what about video games? Is she ready? She may well be ready for video games, but I haven’t found a single one that I’d waste her time with.
We don’t think she needs to master touch-typing by the time she’s five, and we know that a program that splashes bright colors on the screen in response to bangs on the keyboard will only interest her for a little while, while costing more than the handful of animal figures that stimulate her imagination, figure in her storytelling, and keep her happily entertained for endless hours.
Really, these things aren’t so much games as toys. They’re virtual toys controlled by the keyboard, but toys nonetheless. As for the educational programs designed for slightly older kids, like the ones I see running on computers in the children’s section at the public library, I haven’t found one that appealed to me. Why? Because they don’t seem fun. (Defining “fun” can make for an excellent exercise when discussing the theory of games, but I still maintain that games should be fun.)
And she’s not ready for games requiring skill, dexterity, and timing, though they may be somewhat more fun. She’s still working on catching balls, the mechanics of fitting puzzle pieces together, and living without diapers.
My daughter shares my passion for games, but she doesn’t truly play them. For example, she adores chess (I happen to have a Simpsons chess set
, and the brightly colored, anthropomorphic figures are a big part of the appeal), but “playing” consists of setting up the pieces—along with other toys—on the board. When she helps roll the dice while the grown-ups play Arkham Horror or Descent, she’ll carefully count the dots, announce the number, and then throw her hands up in the air and cry, “I win! Daddy wins! Mommy wins!”
In a year or two, she’ll really be playing games. She’ll delight in figuring out how the rules work and developing strategies. She’ll take pleasure in a hard-won victory and (I hope) a fair defeat. When she does, I won’t hesitate to play video games with her.
But I’ll sure as heck be playing board games, ball games, card games, skill games, and roleplaying games with her, too!
January 17th, 2008
Alec Bings
I don’t like bloggers making excuses or apologies for absences, but as I haven’t posted in over a month, I do think a quick explanation is warranted.
I do most of my writing on the corporate dime. The company I work for requires me at my desk for around forty hours a week, but gives me far fewer hours worth of work to do. This usually gives me ample time to muse in writing about games, correspond with friends, and read.
Periodically, though, it just gets busy! December usually works out that way. In the weeks leading up to the end of the year, panic about fiscal statements and rushed sales result in longer, more work-filled hours.
I could, of course, write blog posts at home, but since this busy time at work coincided with the holidays, there was little enough time at home to sit around writing about games. Family and friends—and my very absorbing participation in musical theater—consumed most of the remaining hours.
That said, I do have lots to chatter about regarding games in the coming weeks, and I look forward to putting some of my thoughts into writing.
After all, though I didn’t get to write about games, a fair amount of the family and friend time did involve playing them. I’ve tried a bunch of new board games and several new video games, and I’ve started reading a couple of new tabletop RPG books. I got to experience more of the wonderful world of toddler gaming (earlier posts on the subject: 1, 2, 3, 4), this time with some commercial products. And when everyone was off to bed and I couldn’t sleep, I even found time for a few digital adventures in online worlds.
January 8th, 2008
Alec Bings
A few minutes after I arrived home from work on Tuesday, a knock on the door announced the arrival of a UPS delivery. Even though the box clearly indicated that it came from Santa, I couldn’t bring myself to wait till 25 December. I tore right into it. In fact, I’d been expecting it. My mysterious Santa has been hinting to me (through posts on this blog and in my BGG mailbox) that something was on the way, a nice touch which really added to the fun.
Check out the wonderful contents. My Boardgamegeek Secret Santa gave me two wonderful games—both Modern Art and YINSH!
I’ve wanted to give Modern Art a try since I first heard of it, in part because it gets such overwhelmingly positive press and in part because its mechanic is completely different from anything else I’ve ever played. Boardgame geek I may be, but I’ve never played an auction game. I’m eager to see what it will be like. I also suspect that, in contrast to the more “genre” games I often favor, this one will be easier to break out with less geeky friends, so it may get more play that some of the games that are gathering dust in my closet.
I got DVONN (a GIPF project game) a few years ago (in expectation of an extended vacation with family who are otherwise sort of unfun). I loved it, and I’ve shared it with several friends who enjoyed it quite a bit too. Unsurprisingly, the friends who like it tend to be chess and go players, delighting in the abstract strategic and mathematical elements of the game
In addition to enjoying DVONN’s gameplay, I took great pleasure in the pieces themselves. They’re elegantly simple, but the aesthetics—color, texture, weight, and shape—delight the senses. (In fact, my daughter loves playing what she calls “the Circle Game.” She’s two, so this mostly means stacking, sorting, and placing the discs, and telling me exactly where I should put mine.)
I expected nothing less from YINSH, and I’m not disappointed. The game only arrived yesterday, and it’s a sort that doesn’t interest my wife much. (Although my daughter and I “played” it once, using a ruleset similar to the Circle Game.) But I did get to read the rules and fiddle with the pieces. I love that the rules are so simple and straightforward that, when I find a willing opponent, we’ll be playing within a minute or two. I love that the game is so complex that we’ll be playing for hours. Combining go, othello (reversi), and connect four, YINSH should be tremendously satisfying.
I have yet to get my gift package out to my BoardGameGeek target, so I’ll have more to say about the whole process soon. So far, though, it’s been fantastic. So . . .
Oh great Secret Santa, thank you!
November 29th, 2007
Alec Bings
Instead of trying to offer a considered and thoughtful analysis that ultimately treads on the same path others have already expertly walked (Broken Toys, GameGirlAdvance, No Cookies for Me, Shrub.com, FeministGamers, and many others), I figured I would instead offer a personal reaction to the Jade Raymond fiasco.
Put simply, I’m angry, ashamed, and depressed. Why is it that the same male gamers who long to have more women join the ranks of gamers feel entitled to gawk and grab? It seems that some core of what we define as “gamers” has built an exclusive, unwelcoming community where the simple social norms of courtesy don’t apply. They use “rape” to mean “beat in a game” and consider “gay” and “girl” acceptable insults. They act like rutting goats when someone reveals herself to be a real-life woman in a game, then hoot in derision when she leaves. They insist that no female gamer can possibly be physically attractive, insist that attractiveness is the most important characteristic a woman (gamer or not) can have, then deride female gamers (skilled or unskilled) for lack of ability.
Does it sound like I’m “male bashing”? I’m not. I’m bashing assholes. When I was a kid, we watched Free to Be You and Me (which I now watch with my daughter). I honestly believed the world was changing and would continue to change. I thought everyone wanted a world with fewer assholes.
Now I see the “boys will be boys” attitude broadly accepted.
I don’t blame men for this. I don’t blame women. I blame our culture itself (as practiced by both men and women). Look, I know feminism is hard. Even people who aren’t afraid of the word “feminism” struggle to realize their ideals. I know too many people of my generation who have given up the dream of self-actualization and equality. And look at how gender is treated TV today.
So it’s not just gamers. This rot is everywhere.
But it’s pretty bad in “gaming culture.” The anonymity of online gaming, the historically male base, the weird connection between machismo and competition (a fundamental aspect of games)—these have given birth to a core in which sexism and hostility aren’t just endemic, they’re sometimes lauded and often defended!
I’ve heard some people call for thicker skins or appeal to the right to free speech. Well, I’m actually a big fan of humor. I believe anything—yes anything—can legitimately be the subject of humor. I believe, too, that anyone has a right to express any idea in just about any form.
What bugs me here is our culture (our modern culture, the heavily American Internet culture, the gaming culture). If you want to be an asshole, you have every right to do so. But those of us bothered by this sort of thing have a duty, despite the fact that the prevailing culture doesn’t seem to agree, to express our dissent.
November 28th, 2007
Alec Bings
Just a quick note to say that I received my “Secret Santa Target” from BoardGameGeek.com. Since my target happens to have a domestic shipping address, I’ve opted to have the gifts I’ll give him shipped to me. That way, I’ll be able to ensure nice packaging and preserve anonymity. (Oh, I’ll reveal myself eventually . . . but not till after the holidays are over.)
My wife has participated in similar Internet-moderated swaps, but this will be a first for me. I’m pleased to say that I’ve already benefited. Perusing my target’s wish list has inspired me to add a few games I’d never heard about to my own list.
November 27th, 2007
Alec Bings
The One Ring. Luke Skywalker’s inherited lightsaber. The Aegis. Indiana Jones’s bull whip. The skin of the Nemean Lion.
Of such stuff are legends made. The so-called legendary objects that litter the lairs of MMO monsters and the vaults of MMO PCs, on the other hand, are for the most part nothing more than incremental improvements over lower-tiered weapons, armor, and other equipment we can cram into our character’s slots. There’s very little magic about these magical items.
The way almost all MMOs (and most CRPGs) work, there’s really very little choice. Equipment is a big (and ideally fun) part of roleplaying games. But, as realized in design built around timesinks, graduated progression, and balance, most equipment is, plain and simple, completely uninteresting.
To me, fantasy magic items and exciting science-fiction gizmos should let my character do things she’s never been able to do. Oh, I know we’ll never get away from good old-fashioned +1 longswords (which may be better simply by virtue of superior craftsmanship), but shouldn’t the really exciting, storied items give us completely new powers? Where are the rocket boots that let me fly and the gemstone that, when I clutch it in my hand, lets me dissolve into a shadow and slip under a door?
On occasion, when playing MMOs, I’ve been sucked into the pursuit of equipment that improves a certain statistic my character might have. For many, pursuing improved bonuses to a certain set of statistics represents a significant portion of the game.
How insanely boring! But it reveals what is, to me, the great truth and great failure of MMOs. They are not about stories, not about character, not even about the worlds they portray. They are about (very) gradually increasing your character’s power for the sake of increasing your character’s power.
Though that may be what draws some players to tabletop RPGs as well, such games manage to avoid the tedium of mind-numbingly dull equipment, largely thanks to the fact that a given game has fewer players, a world that can be permitted to change, and at least a pretense of narrative.
This shortcoming in MMOs helps explain why I’ve never bothered to have an item enchanted in WoW. While I value equipment statistics insofar as they let me know if a new sword is better than the one I have, I take no pleasure in squeezing out another small bonus to some statistic that is used to calculate yet another statistic that will help me end fights in 97.5% of the time I’d otherwise be able to finish them.
The real downside for me is that, once I’ve taken a character to the maximum level and played with all the abilities that come with a given class, I have very little reason to continue playing that character. There’s no carrot dangling in front of me. I can’t be bothered to invest dozens or hundreds of hours in the pursuit of improved shoulder armor, however cool it may look.
What can be done? As far as I can tell, almost nothing outside of radically different game design would help. Oh, I know there are a few exceptions. The Scepter of the Shifting Sands, for instance, is damn cool even though it doesn’t give a character any game advantages. But such things are so very few and far between (of necessity) that most players will never experience them.
To truly address the problem, a completely new approach to MMOs is necessary. In coming posts, I’ll not only gripe about things I don’t like but also propose things that I would like to see and also happen to believe are practical (hence the post’s subtitle). I welcome any thoughts, shared experience, or complete disagreement.
November 19th, 2007
Alec Bings
I know, I know. I’m a bit late to take up the gauntlet in Syncaine’s challenge regarding EVE Online having a solution to every problem anyone has with MMOs, being the best MMO. Syncaine is not specifically asking for critiques of EVE Online. Rather, he challenges: “Bring up an issue you have had with an MMO, and I’ll relate it to EVE and explain how EVE solves that issue.”
Rather than complain about EVE (which wouldn’t be fair, as I have limited exposure to it), I’ll list the top things I’d like to see in an MMO (all of which I happen to think EVE doesn’t deliver on):
- A real sense of narrative
- A real sense of immersion (although I admit I appreciate the semi-accurate simulation of what it’s like to be a tiny ship in vast space)
- A sense of community
- A sense of participation in the game world on the part of the player characters
No MMOs offer these to my satisfaction, and part of the problem may be the fact that the fourth at least seems to be somewhat ad odds with the first two. MMOs that offer narrative elements tend to offer the same narrative elements over and over to any group of players interested in exploring them. The cognitive disconnect, in WoW, of a single group of players repeatedly destroying an enemy until a certain item drops means that the cool background lore and narrative leading up to the kill are rendered meaningless from the perspective of world participation. You’ve defeated the biggest, baddest enemy of the universe, but you’ll go back and do it again tomorrow ’cause you want his breastplate, and for some reason it didn’t drop.
Immersion, the sense of living in the imagined world of the MMO, is both add odds with and compatible with narrative and player participation. On the one hand, nothing draws me into a world like a good, compelling story. But clicking through someone else’s story (always a danger in video games, MMO and otherwise) can certainly leave me feeling like an observer instead of a participant.
I’m not the first to long for an MMO in which emergent narrative, mostly created by interaction among the players and with the game world, would be the focus. No one’s come close to delivering something like this. Heavy roleplaying guilds have sometimes fascinating narratives, but usually the best parts of their interaction might just as well take place in text chat rooms.
Syncaine may argue that a game like EVE Online offers the perfect place for emergent narrative, true player participation, and a feeling of being in the world takes place. It almost seems like it should. It shares with Ultima Online some of the elements that could have allowed for terrific, epic worlds.
But then we have Syncaine’s follow-up post. When he discusses the “lack of short-term ‘fun,’” he reveals that some of the most exciting things ever to happen in MMOs took place in EVE, and I’ll be he’s right. It would be spectacular to participate in a PVP battle with hundreds of players on each side. Syncaine writes: “What draws me to EVE is that potential, that possibility of launching that Titan.”
Unfortunately, I don’t actually think that’s different than what keeps people playing WoW. Oh, the big events in EVE may indeed be bigger than killing Illidan, but only a small percentage of the playerbase got to experience that for a tiny percent of their game time.
So, richer though EVE’s narrative rewards may be, they come at a dearer price, and to a smaller percentage of players.
Oh, and that point about a sense of community? Well, any game with a loyal fanbase has it. I just didn’t find it in EVE because the game obviously doesn’t address my personal MMO needs. I therefore don’t have much in common with those who (legitimately) find it satisfying. I’ll find a community when I find people who enjoy being immersed in their worlds, their characters. The long lists of statistics and lack of avatar don’t support my kind of immersion.
In the end, I actually think EVE is a great game for the right audience. But I also know, thanks to this little exercise, that I ain’t that audience!
November 14th, 2007
Alec Bings
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