Posts filed under 'Popular Perception'
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
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
If we gamers consider ourselves Homo ludens—humans who play—we can’t ignore that we have subspecies. Many call themselves “gamers,” but most mean something more specific. What distinguishes Homo ludens from people who don’t call themselves gamers, what unites us, is the perceived geek-factor of the games we play.
Within our geeky species, though, we’ve got varieties so distinct from one another that they can hardly be considered the same animal.
- Homo ludens sangoculi
Those whose eyes begin to bleed after avoiding blinking for five hours during an important raid. In other words, video gamers.
- Homo ludens terataleae
Those who play with monstrous dice. In other words, tabletop roleplaying gamers.
- Homo ludens con-concilii
Those whose definition of “diplomacy” is almost the exact opposite of Webster’s. In other words, board gamers.
- Homo ludens shovelens
Those who shuffle. In other words, card gamers. This subspecies is broad enough to encompass such infraspecies as homo ludens shovelens economica (trading card gamers).
No taxonomy is perfect. As with life taxonomy, the borders are blurry and subject to change. Unlike life taxonomy, in which separate subspecies rarely mate outside of unusual circumstances, Homo ludens is basically engaged in one enormous, non-stop orgy of crossbreeding. In common with Douglas Adams’s Hagunenonns of Vicissitus Three*, Homo ludens is a super-evolutionary being that morphs from one life form to another several times over lunch.
Despite that, though, most gamers do seem to wind up identifying more as one particular subspecies than any other, at least for a given time. For instance, although many MMO players also play roleplaying games, the vast majority of WoW players seem to be Homo ludens sangoculi, and many have never touched a icosohedron in their lives. A quick survey of gaming blogs supports this hypothesis. There are many video game blogs, many roleplaying game blogs, and so on. But there are very few blogs that embrace both kinds of games.
I enjoy different varieties of games with equal fervor. Surely, I’m not the only Homo ludens ecclecticus, right? Who else is out there? And what other subspecies belong in the taxonomy?
*If you don’t know about the Hagunennons, do get your hands on a copy of the original The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy BBC radio production. It has quite a few gems that didn’t survive to the many later versions of the property that will absolutely tickle a fan of the setting.
October 16th, 2007
Asking what women and girls want from games is the wrong question. The question probably has no real answer, and if anyone ever found one, it’d basically be useless.
I’ve put off writing about the topic of women and gaming for a while for two reasons. First, it’s a difficult and big topic. Second, it happens also to be a topic I care a lot about.
Thanks to a minor synchronicity, I’ve decided that today’s the day I begin to tackle to subject, though I’ll have much more to say on the subject in the future. The synchronicity that sparked this post involves reading this one at female-gamer.com and discovering the following video (thanks to this post on Feministing.com).
A very funny fake ad from SNL, but unfortunately it’s not really all that outlandish. The early 90s saw the introduction of “Battle Trolls,” macho versions of the bright-haired plastic dolls popular with girls. Although I saw the original ad over fifteen years ago, I still remember the narration: “Everyone knows that girls like trolls, but what to boys like? Battle Trolls!”
It made me shudder then, and it makes me shudder now, especially when I watch my two-year-old daughter putter in her kitchen for a few minutes making imaginary cakes, then switch over to her pirate ship for some high-seas adventuring.
I don’t pretend that, within our culture, a person’s gender doesn’t influence what he or she looks for in games. I won’t bother to speculate on how much game predilections depend on the biology of gender (my instinct an experience suggest biology has almost nothing to do with it, but that debate goes hopelessly beyond the scope of this blog).
But every time someone asks, “What do women gamers want?” We get the silliest answers—from men, from women, from everyone. For instance, a fascinating article in The Escapist a few weeks ago on the topic of heroines in video games included quotes from a variety of women in the industry. While one woman wished that female video game characters would “be wearing pants,” another said
Give my heroine a PMS day where she, unexpectedly and without reason, decides to pull the ears off small bunny rabbits. Have her try to leave the house and go back to change shirts four times. Let her have some upper body limitations and figure out how to manage using her legs.
Seriously? I game almost exclusively with women, and I don’t know a single one who wants menstruation in her escapism.
Here’s the main reason the question of “what women want” is stupid: We all want exactly the same thing from our games. Oh, some of us may prefer puzzles, others strategic board games, and still others vicious PVP, but what we really want is fulfilling entertainment.
In games with a narrative (most video and tabletop roleplaying games, for instance), this means that we want to be heroes—reluctant heroes, action heroes, and antiheroes, perhaps, but heroes nonetheless. On the more abstract, gamey side, we all want to be challenged, usually progressively, but not overwhelmed.
Do some women want the chance to decorate their avatars in MMOs in greater detail? I can assure you that an equal percentage of men want exactly the same thing. Do some adolescent men like to drool over cheesecakes in chainmail bikinis in their game books? Well, plenty of men are turned off by such illustrations, too.
In the end, the reason fewer women than men are attracted to all genres of gaming has everything to do with culture and almost nothing to do with “what they really want.” Almost all video and roleplaying games fail with women not because women don’t want to play such games, not because the games haven’t been successfully targeted to women, but because the games have been targeted at the hard core of a niche market. Most developers still market to the passionate minority. As soon as they start developing for people, not for “Men aged 18 to 35″ or “Women with $50,000 median income,” they’ll really start seeing a profit.
—
I could go on and on about this topic. As I said, it’s very important to me. I’m an unashamed feminist and an unashamed gamer. My regular gaming group comprises one man and four women. And, straight male though I am, I too bridle at the absurd physiques that decorate the books and the sexist language (see he or she) that even my favorite game company ridiculously insists on using.
So I’ll have more to say on the topic in coming posts.
September 27th, 2007
On vacation, I had time to read the core rulebook for the Buffy The Vampire Slayer Roleplaying Game
. I picked it up because a friend who has never played a roleplaying game in her life but who seems like a good candidate absolutely loves the Buffyverse.
In fact, our very first session will take place this Friday. Introducing a new player to roleplaying is fun and exhilarating. This woman is friendly, fun, and creative. She loves good stories and acts in the community theater. Unless the utter geekiness of our activity sends her screaming, she should be a wonderful addition to our group.
I like the Buffy system. This is my first encounter with Unisystem, but from what I can tell it will be a genuinely fun game system that actively supports the genre. The very grainy rules (one skill covers all melee weapon use) mean that players can focus on doing the cool stuff they’ve seen on TV without worrying about a dozen possible techniques for any given weapon. (Note, I absolutely love games that let you worry about such things. GURPS is my system of choice, after all. But that sort of detail has no place in Buffy.)
The text itself does a pretty good job capturing the feeling of the show (the name of that one melee skill: “Getting Medieval”), although sometimes I thought it got a bit heavy handed. Yes, it’s clever to use Buffyspeak in the text, but sometimes every single sentence in a rules-heavy paragraph seems to drip with Whedonesque wordplay. Funny and fun, but not all the time.
This Friday, we’ll spend most of our time creating characters. I’ll need to refamiliarize myself with the rules (I get lots of great players, but none of them ever seem willing to read the damn rules, even though doing so would make our games richer) and put the finishing touches on our introductory adventure.
Before I do, though, I’d like to ask anyone who plays or has played the game one question: How important are the various supplements? I have one player set to take on the mantle of the Slayer, one who wants to be a reluctant witch, another who can’t resist the alure of a lycanthropy, and the last who’s eager to play a Watcher. Will we be missing out on lots of great rules of we don’t have the The Slayers Handbook
and the The Magic Box
within easy reach?
September 26th, 2007
I love watching my toddler play games, not just because she has so much fun but because she learns so much as she does it.
Because the games—the skills, the goals, the rules—are so simple, I can see that the pleasure she takes from playing derives at least in part from the achievement of new skills or proficiency. Oh, the pretending part—the stories, the imagination, the simulation of things she sees her parents do—are a big part of the fun, of course. She loves imagining that she’s on vacation or that she’s a cat.
But when she begins to master a new skill or grasps a new concept, she can’t contain her joy. She dances. She shrieks. She sings. She insists on getting everyone who will stand still long enough to watch her play her game.
Why does she approach these developmental activities in the form of games? Despite being an avid gamer, I haven’t tried to force the concept of game upon her. Instead, it seems to be a natural approach. She imposes a game approach on almost every learning opportunity. Even the (to her) arbitrary rules we make are “game-able.” If we insist that she keep her food on her plate, she’ll test the limits of the rule.
“Can I put it here?” she asks, placing her broccoli on the table.
“No.”
“Here?” The broccoli is on the washcloth we keep at the ready at all meals.
“No.”
“In my cup?”
“No.”
“Can I throw it on the floor?”
“No, just keep your food on your plate.”
She shoves the broccoli into her mouth and asks “Here?” Her eyes twinkle, because she’s found a “cheat” to the game. She’s not putting her broccoli in any forbidden place, but she’s also not complying with the order to put it on the plate.
She has won.
I’ve written before about games being the absolute best educational tools we have at our disposal. Watching S— play, I stand by that assertion. She learns more rapidly when playing than at any other time, partly because the game makes learning fun, but just as much because the learning, properly framed, makes the game fun.
I see this in my own pleasure in games. I like to learn the MMOs I play. Once I’ve learned how to play my character, I lose interest in repeatedly doing so in order to achieve an arbitrary goal (like equipment), although I may enjoy improving my play in PVP. When I’ve learned all I can, I will probaby try a different class . . . or a different game altogether. The only reason I’d stay is for social aspects or exploration and immersion.
That so many people are motivated to collect rare virtual pets in an MMO seems a bit odd to me, I have to admit. I enjoy collecting as much as anyone, and I recognize that any goal in an MMO is an arbitrary one. But the pleasure for me comes not from getting something (especially something not real), but from learning how.
Thus, although I’d like to figure out how to make potty training a game, I don’t want to do so with prizes. I’m averse to giving rewards (like stickers) for successful potty use, even though I hear that it can be helpful. I know rewards of any sort, even arbitrary ones, can be powerful motivators.
My aversion stems in part from a philosophical conviction that the best motivator to learn a skill is recognizing that the skill is its own reward. Also, I want the rules of the game to be self-contained. I don’t want to be an arbitrary prize-awarded and authority; I’d rather play the game with her, somehow. In the best games, achieving the conditions of victory as defined by the game is the reward, because getting there is what’s fun. Trophies and medals are all well and good, and prize money is even better. But I greatly fear becoming the arbiter of my daughter’s potty success.
I’d like her to play the game to win the game.
—
I don’t have any plans for a fifth “Toddler gaming” post, although I have no doubt that I’ll be writing again and again about S— and the games she plays in the coming weeks, months, and years. That said, if anyone has any topics related to Toddler gaming they don’t think I’ve covered, or any thoughts on the topics I have covered, I’d very much like to hear them. Post a comment and let me know what you think!
September 12th, 2007
Three other families from my home area vacationed in the same spot we did earlier this month. One couple came with us to the game store, and they and another couple settled down with us the night before their departure for a little gaming fun.
The group settled on the recent acquisition Zombies!!!
Overall, I liked the game pretty well. I enjoy almost any board game that supports a shifting setting (in this case thanks to tiles, the playing of which is part of each player’s turn). I also admire the mechanics that support the creeping dread of slow-moving zombies while the more agile and stronger player characters can nonetheless only hope to survive by outrunning the endless stream of undead.
I say “endless,” but we quickly ran out of zombie figures and had to fake them with other counters. For a six-player gam, the basic box just doesn’t have enough pieces.
Unfortunately, I found some aspects of the game actively interfered with the fun:
- With six players at least, you had to wait a long time before you could do anything. This in itself isn’t a big deal, but if you were in a disadvantageous position—far from the helipad, perhaps, or simply far from the action—this could turn into a fifteen- or twenty-minute wait while you struggled to get back into position to do anything.
- Because of the long delay and lack of progress when you couldn’t move, it rarely seemed worthwhile to go pick up items (they show up on cards you draw, but you have to move to certain locations to actually “get” them) unless you happened to be right by the target location already.
- Having a skateboard (which increases your speed) is extraordinarily desireable.
- It’s possible to do such mean things to other players that you can absolutely destroy any hope they have of winning. I understand that, as endgame approaches, desperate measures are called for, but certain cards (such as the one that lets you move a player back to the starting point) effectively kill that player, forcing them into the cycle of sitting and waiting for a chance to do anything at all.
- Dying goes from being a very minor inconvenience near the beginning to a difficult challenge in the middle and a cause to completely give up in the end.
- The rules are ambiguous enough on a couple of key points that another edit after a playtest was in order.
Ultimately, I’m enthusiastic about the game, but I do strongly feel it needs some tweaks to make it truly fun. I’ll be poking around the web for rules variants before we tackle it again.
A note about how the game played for the less gamey participants: The owner of the game (let’s call him Tom) isn’t the best rules reader and assumed the game would be quick to play. Instead, it turned into three or four hours of undead creeping. The less geeky couple (Mark and Karen) seemed to have a good time. Mark’s a pretty hardcore WoW player, but he seemed a bit put off by the realization of fantastic themes on a game board.
Karen avoids WoW (and I’ve heard grumbles from her that sound decidedly like she’s starting to resent Mark’s playing), but she likes genre fiction well enough. And she’s so socially adept that she didn’t give off any obvious hint that she was bored. I got a vibe, though, that made me think she’d have been happier with another game or activity.
In other words, Zombies!!! is a reasonably fun game, with the potential for even greater fun. But it’s not one to try to bring new fans to our hobby!
August 30th, 2007
(Vacation is over, as is my enormous, soul-sucking “day job” project, so I can finally sink my teeth into a few posts I’ve been looking forward to writing about for a while.)
Some good friends came to stay with us for a couple of nights while we vacationed in a cabin next to a small lake in Vermont in August. Hanging out with them really was a wonderful change of pace. They’re far more educated, sophisticated, and smart than many of the people we know locally, so we had the pleasure of carrying on serious, adult conversation and activities. (I don’t mean to disparage the friends we see more often, but they fulfill a different friendship niche.)
After my daughter went to bed, our friends expressed interest in trying a game. Looking through what we’d brought, we opted for the least geeky offering: Settlers Of Catan
. Without the expansion, we couldn’t all play. My wife opted to knit and sit in as professional, equal-opportunity kibbitzer.
And then I started explaining the rules. I like to think I do a good job explaining rules. I work as a technical writer in my day job, so I’m no stranger to explaining technical specialized concepts to a non-specialized audience.
So I wasn’t prepared for the downright hostility. One player in particular hated everything she heard me say about the game. It sounded too complicated, too strategic (”It’s like chess!”), too competitive.
This woman is no fool. She’s a high-powered lawyer who has a ready grasp of any topic you can think of. She reads widely and achieves everything she sets out to get. She’s also extremely nice.
But as I realized that, I realized the root of her hostility. She didn’t think the game was too complicated, strategic, or competitive. She was too competitive. She liked explicitly non-competitive games but bridled at the possibility of a game she might lose.
She did not want to lose.
A little gentle ribbing on this point got us through the rules explanation and into play. And alas, she fared very poorly. She lost badly, even though I deliberately made a few bad strategic decisions that I knew would go in her favor.
But the friendly atmosphere, the good humor, and the inherent fun of the game won her over. She was the first to ask to play again (everyone was amenable), and even though she didn’t win that time, she wanted to play one more time.
Our three games kept us up till two in the morning, and even though we had trouble keeping our eyes open, we had a grand time.
So what did I learn? That a game can’t be appreciated without being played. That personal relationship skills come into play even before the board is set up.
And most importantly: that “non-gamers” may be non-gamers for want of opportunity and gentle introduction rather than because they wouldn’t like that game.
I have some other friends (somewhat more geeky but not by much) who I’ve been courting to play a roleplaying game (Buffy The Vampire Slayer seems like a good choice, as they’re big fans of the show). I’ve been cautious and hesitant, not wanting to scare them away.
I think now it’s time to get over that. When they try it, they’ll love it.
August 27th, 2007
I’ll be away till mid-August. During that time, I’m sure I’ll put up a few posts (and I certainly won’t miss my Friday potion miscibility articles), but not as often as I do most of the time.
I expect my vacation to be filled with gaming, though, so I’ll have lots to write about when I return.
August 4th, 2007
Just yesterday, I dashed off a quick post on games as art. A reader, Yehuda, pointed me to an article he wrote over a year ago on the topic, and it has some great thoughts. Not only does the article prove that the question has been discussed since long before I started this blog, but it also good job of defining “art” and “game” for the purposes of any discussion on the topic.
In contrast to that post, I deliberately tried to avoid getting into definitions—in part because such posts have done a grand job already, but also because I wanted to argue my point in such a way that the common, unspoken definitions of art and games would suffice to support my contention that games are art.
The more I’ve thought about it, the more I think that it’s the emergent, participatory, interactive element of games that makes them an exciting and distinct form of art. This is not to say that a beautifully designed board game might not be a piece of visual art. But when the game is played, the convergence of the rules, the pieces, and the players themselves becomes a fascinating expression of art.
There have been many attempts at “interactive” art, such as museum exhibits in which visitors are in some way incorporated into the art. Museums are pushing for more interactivity in their exhibits, with good reason. In fact, here is a simply terrific blog on the subject.
But not all such attempts are games. Letting visitors touch objects, move through interesting drawers, or get a feel for the perspective of some historical group may be very compelling, but a game is something different.
I remember visiting an exhibit of work by the remarkable sculptor Alexander Calder shortly after his death. I was only seven or eight years old at the time.
The museum was bursting with Calder’s glorious, kinetic mobiles and bright, abstract sculptures. But what I remembered best was a series of doors in a row. Visitors were invited to walk through the doors, only to discover that each door opened in a different way. Some had a simple knob. One was completely covered with knobs, only one of which worked. One, I recall, didn’t open at all, and the solution was to walk around it to the next door.
I use the word “solution” deliberately. See, the doors were definitely art, a sculpture, but they were also a puzzle or game. (No, I’m not going to get into the definition of “puzzle” and “game.” They’re different, but the line is decidedly fuzzy.)
That simple exhibit—both a game as art and art as a game—has stuck with me for thirty years. I remember what it felt like to turn the knobs that didn’t work and the thrill of finding the solution to a door. I remember laughing with my brother as we tried to solve the door that couldn’t open, then realized that the solution lay in looking at the problem from a different angle.
I’ll note here that Calder created a great many wonderful toys as part of his work. His charming Cirque Calder is as delightful today as it was when he first exhibited it.
I haven’t read much about the man, but I don’t think he drew a line between the toys and games he made and the art intended to dangle magnificently from a domed ceiling.
Calder we have someone who delighted in visual art, in toys, and in games. In his hands, all these things were more definitely art. And although I love the look of his sculptures, for me at least the one that has made the most enduring impression was a game he created.
(You know, after all this chatter about Alexander Calder and games, I think it’s time I start writing up a profile of the GURPS campaign I ran a few years ago that heavily featured the public sculptures created by Calder’s father for the City of Philadelphia. Voodoo, witchcraft, horror, and secret history on the streets of the City of Brotherly Love! I’ll get around to it eventually, but if you’re very interested, comment here and I’ll try to move it up in the queue.)
July 24th, 2007
Previous Posts