Game Design as Cultural Practice

Exalted: Live Action Role-playing Games

These days I am playing this game with my friends regularly on Saturday nights. I would like to analyze the game and my play experience because most of the game play is based on an imaginary narrative game space. We have four players and one mediator in total. 

In the very beginning of Jenkins' article, the relationship between narrative and interactivity are discussed. With the assumption that narratives are created by the author of the game instead of players, there seems to have a conflict between narrative and interactivity at that time. Jenkins points out that “stories are not empty content that can be ported from one media pipeline to another”, thus games tell stories in a different way than other media do. In the LARP game that I play, I found this statement to be true especially under "productive play" scenarios. The soul of the game comes into the realm by the creativity of individuals, coordination with other players’ decisions and imagination, the improvised and relevant performance with certain plot etc. Compared to computer-based RPG games, we also has the similar constraint that the major branches of story are predefined (that’s why we have rule books and a mediator who knows everything ahead of all the others). However, on a more “localized” level of each of the narrative space (a chunk of story that happens in a limited space), the possibilities of play is technically infinite. That’s why there is one game mechanics called “stun dice”, meaning that when you do something creative in the game, you are getting extra dices for your next quest. The fundamental difference is, in LARP, the players are narrators at the same time. They need to come up with attractive plots and embed it within the larger story, while comprehending new stories by other players. When a player takes part of the role of narrator, they are more engaged with the whole process of comprehending and telling the stories actively, tied with the commitment to the group. 

In his article, Henkins focuses on the role of game designers as narrative architect, building the spatial environment for evoking, enacting, embedding stories and making them emerge. However, in LARP, players cannot easily perceive the space. In Celia’s paper, she discussed how the commonness and difference of narrative environments between disneyland and world of warcraft. Following alone the same line, due to the difference of the affordance of media and scale of play, LARP creates different narrative space. While it seems that players in LARP has full freedom of human-scale embodied action, the feedback from the game is limited. Exploring the game space is like walking in a think fog, blind. We do not have visual feedback from the game system, all the feedback players receive comes from the narratives of the mediator. She is not directly telling you what to do, instead, a player always need to ask questions, make decisions out of multiple choice, and negotiate with other players to make a consensus about where the story goes. It is amazing that with all the constraints of perceiving space, players still figure out what they should do once they get comfortable with relying on narratives and also after getting updated with other players. The evoking, enacting, embedding and emerging stories all happen in the game as the major resource of fun. One important moment for me is to see the world map of the entire game space. I view it as a common ground, an anchor indicating that I am working in the same space with other players, although the representations of that space is different in each of the player’s mind. With the help of the environmental change, the story can develop itself through collaborative and productive play. 

In the LARP game that I played with my friends, there are two female and two male characters. One of the female character is played by a male player. With the typical theme of heroes saving the world from evil dark powers in ancient times and challenges that is based on quests, it’s a typical scenario that “girls play in boyland”. (A more specific example here is that, a player may choose to have higher “socializing” skills, however, whether persuasion is successful is not decided by the speech that she gives, but by rolling the dice.) One easy change here is to introduce the domestic space into the game play. As suggested by Ludica, girls have more connection and impact on the domestic space. Since the game is placed in a friend’s house anyway, it would be interesting to map the actions in the game world to the real world, and vice versa. One example is hosting the mystery party, the house was decorated in a way that will evoke the atmosphere for “make-believe”. Compared to other 3D model based video game space, one advantage in LARP is that it is easy to change. It would be interesting to see how to use it as a platform to test how the change of narrative architecture can lead the experience towards a more girl-friendly direction, including many of the changes mentioned by Ludica, such as encouraging constructing other than deconstructing, more cooperative and community-based play, having fun surrounding the domestic space etc.. 

 

Yan Xu, yxu7@gatech.edu

 

Crackdown, most extreme game ever.

In crackdown, the player takes the role of a new recruit for a city's police force. Your character is physically augmented with the ability to shoot guns very far, pick up large objects, and jump thousands of feet in the air. Your main goal is to clean up the city by taking out the three different gangs and their bosses. The game is a third-person shooter, and players familiar with other shooting games will feel right at home with "moving through space in a distinctly masculine fashion", as Fullerton puts it. The game consists of jumping through the city killing enemies, using the character's large jumping height and strength to solve what puzzles the game has in order to get to the bosses. As the character kills and explores more, his abilities increase in size, fitting with what Judith Butler would call "disciplinary regimes".
    The city is split into 4 areas, with three gang-controlled territories and the police HQ in the middle; each territory is also broken into districts, each with its own boss. As the character moves on and gets better, he can go into more and more areas, with access to higher buildings he can jump to. This organizational structure matches up with what Fullerton describes is another common trait of male-gendered game spaces. As characters go through the game, more information on where to go is also revealed. The city itself is a futuristic metropolis filled with tall buildings and slums. Of the entire city buildings, however, the character can only go indoors about 10 or so times. Since the gameplay is based on shoting and jumping, the world only includes areas that allow it. Like a theme park, the buildings are simply a facade with nothing inside, since the character can't go there. If you happen to get inside a door that you're not supposed to.
    The game space is designed strictly for the type of fight or flight situations that Henry Jenkins describes in his article: those that exist in "boy space". While the game might tell the player not to attack pedestrians, the players have almost no consequences in the world. As a peacekeeper, the player has no obligations as a cop to do anything but kill. The enemies offer no option of anything but violence, shooting the player from as far away as they can see you. The enemies also fill the sci-fi theme, with mutants and exotic assasins from other countries.
    The game and the world that it takes place in fits the criteria for what is considered a masculine game, but it doesn't really try to be anything else.

-Andy Korzik

Are you a player? Oh really what type then?

 World of Warcraft of course I don't have to worry too hard. Where do I fit in on the player typology from bartle? Achiever, socializer more than the other two. I don't explore stuff and I don't like perpetuating the cycle of the "killer". I describe myself thus because I enjoy overcoming the game world challenges like raiding and questing but I really don't care that much about the intervening space between the end points/goals. I guess one of the reasons for that is I feel goal oriented but the goals I am most like to follow are the ones I make. Often times to me it feels like the designers of WoW have designed content to give equal time to achievers and explorers and i'm not much into the exploring part so i find it a drain on my main resource which is of course time. In abstract I love the idea of an expansive world that can be explored and awesome information learned about. However, there is only so much time I can devote to the game an so I play the way that gives me the most reward for that time.

 "There are all these people I know who exist for me only in terms of my interactions with their avatar. I don’t know really how old they are, what they do. It’s all based on the avatar thing" (taylor multiple pleasures). I totally agree with this person even with the advent of voice over internet programs like ventrilo a lot of how i percieve and construct a mental image of a person is based on the avatar I see. Though the more alts they have the more likely I am to associate with voices first and characters second. I really feel like this quote from taylors interviews sums up how things work in any interactive environment that is removed from visuals. People depend so much on visuals that anything even if you know its not real can become a part of the mental model for interaction with a person.
    I wonder how environment affects the mental modeling people do of other players in the game. For instance I think that after looking through these types that if a game doesn't really have the affordances necessary to show "killer" tendencies then its very unlikely that somebody will have that precise definition attached to them. Like in Second Life griefing would be extremely difficult because of the "game" design though not entirely impossible. But in WoW its probably extremely easy to earn the reputation of a killer/griefer because theres a great deal of affordance towards violence and interrupting other players if you like playing that way. Thats not to say killers are the only people you will find in Wow but that you will find them more often ebcause of the game environment.

Jerald Parker.

Automatons and Mammoths: An Examination of Syberia

The game space of Benoît Sokal's Syberia is a bizarre, engaging, and oddly believable alternate world. Presumed to be composed of the forgotten corners of the world and the timeline of a man's imagination - which the player, as the enterprising lawyer, Kate Walker, must explore and unravel to find the heir of a toy company and finalize its takeover - it is an adventure game along the lines of Myst that seems both easy to categorize and to defy categorization completely. On one hand, with its "illusion of authenticity" and "integration of space and story" embedded into the very premise of the game, Syberia embodies much of the spirit of the theme park (Pearce, 201). The game actually layers reality over reality to provide an authentic feel for the game, both through realistically rendered 3-D graphics, but also through the narrative itself. For example, embedded into this fantastical narrative of automatons and the search for living mammoths is a parallel narrative about the 'reality' of modern-day New York City through the intermittent calls Kate receives throughout the game. These calls, revealing a disintegrating domestic life, serve as a constant reminder of the world she has left behind to find her target, and also provide a foil for her development during the game.

Space and story, likewise, have been fused together; from the steampunk-esque wind-up train that Kate rides from destination to destination to the destinations themselves, the player must explore and interact with the space and with the items and people embedded into the space to piece together the story, much like a puzzle. Virtually every NPC can be talked to in this game, for example, and while not every NPC needs to be talked to in order to understand the story, their interactions with the main character provide extra flavor to the game. On the other hand, while many objects offer interactive qualities, not every object is important to solving the puzzle at hand, though the game constrains the 'usable' objects (which differ from 'examinable' objects) within the space to those strictly needed to progress through the game. In that sense, the game hits the same defined boundaries that Pearce covers in her comparison to theme parks - but had the developers provided options to interact with every object, one can only imagine that the difficulty of the game would increase exponentially.

One of the most interesting aspects of this game, however, is the presence of a sensibly-dressed female protagonist, and in particular, a female lawyer, and the way that the space has been sculpted with this in mind. Much of the environment is civilized, if not precisely modern, and maintains an air of mystery that is intriguing rather than threatening. Moreover, in keeping with the LucasArts philosophy, the player cannot die or come to harm (beyond the extents of the narrative) in the game, rendering it 'safe'. Coupled with the use of a female avatar, the game space is seems to fit more with the traditionally female protected space (Jenkins, 344-5). Yet, while the player cannot revisit an area or go ahead to the next area until the main puzzle has been solved, the player can generally roam around the whole of the area from the time they enter (although sometimes these areas must first be 'unlocked' by a puzzle') until the time they leave. In this sense, the freedom of the space - in terms of exploration rather than actions - fits Jenkins' concept of the traditionally male "outdoor space" (344). I hesitate to call this an "androgynous space", as described in "A Game of One's Own: Toward a New Gendered Poetics of Digital Space", however, as the player has hard limits built into the game mechanics while exploring (admittedly, this could also be a technical limitation), and is also subject to Kate's reactions to the space and the objects around it, which remain fairly gendered (1). Still, Syberia is definitely an interesting step toward an androgynous space, and well worth playing through, at the very least.

-Pauline

Zork and Game Space

When I think of space relations in video games, only one game comes to mind as a defining game for a sense of space. This is the game of Zork. I actually have never played a text based game that is entirely based on no visual elements until this year in one of my classes. Jenkins specifically mentions how males have drastically different expectations for video games than females. He also discusses how the age of the player can create different expectations for the way a game will change the sense of space for that player, i.e., a player who is of an older age will experience the sense of space in the game much differently from a younger aged player. In the classroom, we were all required to play the game and when people were asked to describe what the world of Zork looked like after only 30 minutes of play, the results were extremely different. Each person had a completely different sense of space and structure for the game than the next person because they interpreted the world in a different way. Fullerton mentions how the average white, male programmer will make a game that they will enjoy, which limits the audience and introduces bias. The game of Zork was originally made by the MIT dynamic modeling group which consisted of only males, which is the audience the game was originally catered towards. However the popularity and the simplicity of the game allowed for an extremely large number of spin off games to be made for many different kinds of gamers. The article by Fullerton and Pearce talked about creating a space that would be geared towards one sex. Zork, however, seems to allow for creativity to come in to play and more or less allow for the user to envision the world as they see fit. The puzzles are still in play but the user can imagine anything they want to in order for the world to be more appealing. Pearce mentions how the game of Uru allows the player to essentially play as themselves as they are exploring the world. Zork is the exact same way. The character I believe was left intentionally ambiguous so that the player can personify the main character as themselves when they actually play.  The game of Zork was a unique experience for me and I feel that it is not only the future but sometimes the past we can look to for innovation. The lack of the visual elements forces the player to put a mental mapping of the world in their mind in order to move around. Sure once you start playing the game for more than 30 minutes you find yourself lost and have to physically draw yourself a map as you explore so you do not continually get lost. The game does however allow the player and the world (maybe not the objects within) to be changed to whatever the person can imagine. I remember a specific example in the game where you come to a cliff and the game tells you that you see a spectacular scene of the world ahead. I was playing with a few friends and I saw a barren wasteland that seemed to stretch on for miles while my friend saw rolling hills. The experience is completely adjusted to whoever is playing the game and the space is geared towards the player simply because the player is designing the entire virtual world as they play.

When the Known Becomes the Unknown

"Space, the final frontier." This famous line from the ever popular Star Trek: The Next Generation holds true in more ways than one. Outer Space is a great and vast world filled with endless possibilities, but so too is the space we create ourselves within the confines of our monitors, television sets, and imaginations. These virtual worlds are potentially even more diverse in their construction since the rules of the real world need not apply. Magical creations, heroic figures, and the ever popular "funny physics" allow game worlds to create their own rules about how life behaves which ultimately reshapes the way people experience it.

Persona 3 was released by Atlus for the Playstation 2 on August 14, 2007. The game places the player in control of a boy whom the game never gives a name who can summon an unlimited number of personas, or spiritual warriors created from his constantly fluctuating personality. The story plot revolves primarily around the school which he and the other persona users attend during the day. The characters (and thus the player) go to school just as they normally would and sit in desks listening to a teacher drone on about the greatness of one author over another. But at night the school transforms into a twisted and demonic tower known as Tartarus (pictured) with numerous floors which the persona users must ascend in their quest to understand the monsters that inhabit it and the mystery of the Dark Hour that exists during the stroke of midnight. Jenkins discusses space as an attempt to expand the limited amount of space we live in. In Persona 3, this idea is taken quite literally as the familiar school transforms into a twisted labyrinth that towers into the sky. This expansion of space brings with it a series of dangers that the player must combat over the course of one year, the game time allotted for the player to reach the top.

 

While half the game involves constantly battling for survival, the other half of the game involves building relationships with the other students in the character's class. Social Links are formed by talking to and participating in the daily lives of each of these students. These links transfer into the creation of stronger and stronger personas created by the main character. As Pearce discusses in Narrative Environments: From Disneyland to World of Warcraft, this plays to a need for "a human-scale, pedestrian experience of immersion in a three-dimensional narrative."

 

As discussed in Tracy Fullerton, Jacquelyn Morie, and Celia Pearce's paper A Game of One's Own: Towards a New Gendered Poetics of Digital Space, there are various roles taken by the characters that tend towards various stereotypes. The one in charge of the SEES organization (to which the persona users belong) is a calm and decisive woman who has no trouble barking out orders to bring people in line. Another of the older users is a young man who sees the Tartarus as a challenge to be conquered through his own physical prowess. There is another hot-headed boy who tends to go charging into a fight with little or no forethought, and the opposing female character who is constantly questioning herself and battling with her fear of the Shadow demons that inhabit the Tartarus. One more girl joins the team as an information gatherer who tends to stay out of the fight. And of course there is the main character whom the designers leave mostly open to player interpretation. Eventually the players are introduced to one final girl who could very much be considered a member of the "quake girls" discussed by Jenkins. She is very confident in herself and always ready for a fight.

 

Persona 3, despite its controversy or players "suiciding" themselves to summon personas, was named best RPG of 2007 by numerous publications. The reasons for this are obvious to anyone who has played it. It manages to find the perfect balance of exploration through both a known space and one that is completely twisted and alien. The responses of the numerous persona users span the gauntlet of human emotions and give every player a character with who they can share the exploration experience. And the transformation of a known space to an unknown one speaks to the power of our imagination to see something that is much more than that which is before us.

 

 

- Michael Gorbsky

The World That Never Was, A Spacial Narrative

In 2002, Square Enix released Kingdom Hearts, a game where Sora fights the darkness and the Heartless in order to bring light and order back to the multiple worlds.  In 2005, Kingdom Hearts II was released, containing these themes but also bringing a new enemy into the worlds, the Nobodies.   The Nobodies are the memories left of strong-souled people whom were turned into heartless.  They are strong foes than the Heartless, and instead of blindy consuming hearts like the Heartless, they only wish to find their old hearts and turn into humans again.  Sora and his friends travel between the worlds yet again to lock the doors to the world, saving them from the darkness.  The final world of the game is the home of the Nobodies, The World That Never Was.  Like the name suggests, The World That Never Was has a pseudo existence like the creatures that dwell within it.  The world is split into two sections, the dark city that dwells beneath and the stark, void castle floating above which this essay focuses on.   Square Enix successfully creates, in The World That Never Was, a lonely, vast world, emphasizing the androgynous space and narrative of the Nobodies.

By creating a setting stark and void as the Nobodies’ souls, The World That Never Was mirrors those that dwell within it. Like the Nobodies themselves, The World That Never Was or TWTNW is a setting that does not even truly exist.  It is only a half existence mirroring the existence of the Nobodies in the game.  This world is the world of the Nobodies and the fantastical setting and every aspect of the world creates an unrealistic feel, a desperate, lonely feel.  The building is a mute gray with random shades of blue, the ceiling and sides surrounded by the souls of nobodies going into the Kingdom Hearts.  The Kingdom Heart is the only object that stands out in the setting.  It is bright pink and yellow versus a muted, grey world.   They use the colors to bring it to focus, as it is the last task of Sora to lock Kingdom Hearts.  Rather than creating a space gendered towards women or men described in Fullerton and Pearce's article, TWTNW is an alienated empty space making anyone playing within feel its despair.  In contrast with the void of the level, the most emotional experiences of the main KH2 characters occur within the level, making their emotions stand out as well as the tragic lack of the Nobodies' emotions.  I do not wish to spoil the game, but one such emotional quote from the dialogue within the level is, "He made me feel like I had a heart."  The despair and apparent lack of soul that the Nobodies have is illustrated through TWTNW and this strong emotional appeal is created through an androgenous space.   

Square Enix creates a sense of narrative space by having the architecture farther away from the player be darker and smaller as seen above.  They use perspective to create a sense of space. Many floating pieces of wall overlap each other, furthering the perspective.  The fact that they are floating and not connected to anything creates a feel of detachment.  A Nobody does not have a heart or feelings, and the grey mute walls mirror this coldness.  The setting is filled with narrow passages for Sora with wide, empty spaces surrounding the path.  The passages are completely void, creating the feeling of loneliness and emptiness of the Nobodies that live in the world.  The architecture is very geometrical and structured, and the only organic shapes found are the Nobodies’ sign, seen above on the walls.  Almost any room found within TWTNW’s castle has a section where the space seems to extend forever, shown above in the lack of a bottom beneath the stairs.  This vastness creates a huge void, in contrast with many of the compact worlds of Kingdom Hearts II.   The world is vast but severely lacking in anything beyond its actual architecture, creating a feeling of alienation and aloneness.   

The nobodies, the enemies of the world, have a detached, floaty way of fighting.  Their bodies are solid, mute colors of gray, blue, and light pink.  They seem from another world, complimenting the fantastical feel of the setting. Nobodies are mere memories searching for their hearts in order become human.  They are very tragic enemies.  The normal Nobodies fought in the game are empty fighting shells of people.  They fight in a floaty, organic manner, creating a sense of a spirit which conflicts with the fact that they have no hearts.  This theme of Nobodies seeming human is furthered with the Organization XIII, an organization of thirteen Nobodies that look human and claim to have feelings.  In contrast, the common Nobodies are very organically shaped and their blank faces give them the feeling of an empty vessel.  This difference between Nobodies creates a feel of doubt within Sora as he destroys them to save the light.  The colors, organic shape, and fluid fighting of the Nobodies create a paradox of whether they are more human than they seem.   

In contrast, Sora and his friends seem full of life.   When left standing, Sora stands tall, looking directly ahead with a look of determination on his face.  His mere stance illustrates his courageous personality, the shining light of the team.  In contrast, Riku slouches and stares at the ground, ashamed of his darker soul.  Sora saves Riku from the darkness in TWTNW, thus explaining his unconfident stance.  The third party member, Goofy, slouches and stands with his legs far apart, creating a relaxed, comic appearance, mirroring Goofy’s personality.  Their personalities are further created in the way that they fight the Nobodies.  Goofy runs around with his shield shoved in front of him, his gate long and clumsy shoving Nobodies out of the way.  Sora runs with his keyblade held confidently above his head, resting on his shoulder, easily hacking and slashing Nobodies to nothingness.  In contrast, Riku drags his keyblade like a weight behind him as he slinks after Sora.  By their mere standing and fighting stances, Square Enix successfully portray the characters’ personalities.

The main characters of the game, Sora and his friends, stand out in The World That Never Was due to their bright costumes and props.  The rest of the world is severely lacking.  Sora wears a black outfit accentuated with bright yellow and red stripes.  Goofy wears his usual bright green shirt with yellow pants, and Riku wears a white and yellow shirt with jeans.  The only other characters in TWTNW are the Nobodies whom are solid colors of pale pink and grey.   Square Enix clearly establishes the main actions of the sequences by making Sora and his friends wear bright colors versus a grey background and dull colored enemies.  During a fighting sequence, Sora’s keyblade, the weapon he uses throughout the game, gives off bright sparks of light.  Riku’s keyblade and Goofy’s shield give off sparks as well as seen in the screenshot above.  These bright sparks draw the viewer’s eye to the center of the screen and the fighting sequence.  Sora’s keyblade is the most important prop throughout the game.  Sora is the keyblade master, and he acquires different keyblades throughout the game.  Sora is constantly fighting the darkness and the heartless, using the keyblade to lock the doors of each world and save them from the repressive darkness.  SquareEnix emphasizes the keyblade and other weapons by making the brightly colored sparks fly from them with every swipe at an enemy.   

In contrast to Sora and his friends, the castle in TWTNW has absolutely no props and is nothing but the building itself.  The lack of furniture and anything usually found in a castle only makes the space seem wider and more vacant.  TWTNW is not homey at all in contrast to many of the other worlds in the Kingdom Hearts games.  The only object found in the world beyond the Nobodies themselves is the Kingdom Hearts.  The Nobodies believe that by gaining the Kingdom Hearts that they can find their own hearts and become human again.  Sora as one of his final tasks must lock the Kingdom Hearts and return the giant accumulation of hearts to its owners.  Similar to the bright colors of Sora’s outfits, Kingdom Hearts is bright yellow, shown below.  This bright color and the lack of anything else found in the world bring emphasis to its importance.  The heart almost seems to be a source of light, emphasizing its desirability to the Nobodies.  This lack of props mirrors the lack of hearts and souls that haunt the Nobodies.

Square Enix through the narrative space of The World That Never Was illustrates the souless Nobodies.  The level like the rest of the worlds within the game cleverly is designed to appeal to both men and women by involving elements for both such as the best gameplay for men and the immense emotional appeal for women (Jenkins).  Also due to its skillful mise-en-scene, TWTNW is one of my all time favourite video game levels and in my opinion, " the integration of space and story are at their highest level of artistry" (Pearce).  Narrative and space are perfectly intwined.  By its lack of color, props, and emotion, TWTNW is the definition of a genderless space which can equally appeal to both men and women. 

~Tatum Clanton, gth760n

Chauvinistic Samus: A Tale of Irony

Metroid Prime 3 Corruption is a first person shooter that was published by Retro Studios.  The plot of the game is essentially to try and stop a group of miscreants who sick “Dark Samus” (evil double of yourself) on you to try and stop you.  The game consists of many different worlds that you must defeat in order to beat the game.  In order to beat the worlds, which consist of different levels, you must beat puzzles and kill monsters, which makes for an interesting adventure/puzzle/shooter experience

The fast paced game play of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption is accompanied by fast tempo music and stunning graphics, which make for a stereotypical boy space game according to Jenkins.  Jenkins describes boy books as:
The space of the boy book is that space of adventure, risk-taking and danger, of wild and untamed nature that must be mastered if one is to survive.  The space of the boys book offers “no place to seek cover”, and thus encourages fight-or-flight responses. (Jenkins)
Metroid Prime not only provides such an environment that is found is most boys books, but it forces the player into such scenarios.  By creating such an atmosphere and game space, Metroid has set itself up as one of the cornerstones of boy games and has been popular since its creation.

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption may be one of the best selling games on the Wii but, it still has many cultural faults.  Like many games out in today’s market the Metroid series is targeted for a male audience and really ignores the female gaming base that could become potential customers.   Jenkins uses The Secrete Garden as an example of girl books and describes them as:
Traditional girls’ books, such as The Secrete Garden, do encourage some forms of special exploration, and exploration of hidden passages of unfamiliar houses or the rediscovery and cultivation of a deserted rose garden. (Jenkins)
What Jenkins was trying to emphasize in his essay was that boys tend to enjoy games that are fast, full of action, competitive, and require hand eye coordination while girls tend to like games that are more about character development, discovery, and exploration on their own time.

Fullerton dives farther into this idea of gendered games and describes some games that pushed the boundaries between male and female games.  The Sims and Animal Crossing are both examples used in Fullerton’s essay as games that have crossed the male and female gap.  Fullerton goes on to state:
The Sims also falls into the category of what one might call constructing or cultivating space. This engages the garden metaphor, as well as the notion of players creating or building the game as they play it. Players also use The Sims to create their own stories, and its skinning tools to create their own characters and objects. (Fullerton)
These creation games where the player has control over the environment are very popular games for both males and females alike.  By creating a game space that works for both sexes these games have opened the market and became best sellers.

    Now that games are starting to emerge that are popular in both male and female circles it is time for the rest of the gaming industry to step up and start taking all demographics into consideration.  A big upcoming problem for companies is figuring out how to make their current franchises work across the board and how to design new games that will be fun for all the play.  A good example of the antithesis of this movement are games like Metroid and Counter Strike where there is little character development, minimal storyline, and is mostly hack and slash.  The companies who produce these and similar games should consider adding more directions that the player can take then just point and shoot.  By adding more unique aspects of game play to a game it will open the game to a wider demographic and will be an all around more successful and popular game.  In Dr. Pierce’s paper she discusses how games such as Second Life and There.com are popular for both male and female characters because the player’s create the content and can share each other’s creations in the virtual world.

    The video game world is not going to move on to the next stage until games such as Metroid Prime start allowing users to choose different paths and play styles which include more discovery, creation, and deeper story lines while still keeping the old dynamics.  If the game companies don’t start pushing their games to a new limit and changing their ways then economic Darwinism will do it for them.  It is time for drastic change in today’s video games and it is our job as consumers to show the video game companies that putting new covers on old books is not going to fly anymore.  Games such as Spore, The Sims, and Animal Crossing need to become the new cornerstones of the video game world and hopefully soon the video game companies will open their eyes and finally see that boy books and girl books really weren’t that different after all.

-Amichai Israeli

Blogpost 8: LittleBigPlanet, Space, and Games

    When considering the cultural significance of the relationship between games and space, one game in particular comes to mind: LittleBigPlanet.  In order to justly analyze LittleBigPlanet and its use of game and space, one must first consider how it defines itself as a game.
    On Media Molecule’s website (the developers of LittleBigPlanet), they describe LittleBigPlanet as, “the world of LittleBigPlanet is quite unlike anything you have seen before. A handcrafted landscape where players can find adventure, make their own levels and [socialize] with friends (MediaMolecule.com).”  The game itself consists of players seeking out adventures, socializing, and most importantly, making games of their own.  This serves to change the paradigm of the space in which players play.

“The ‘wild spaces’ are far more important, many researchers conclude, than playgrounds which can only be used in sanctioned ways, since they allow many more opportunities for children to modify their physical environment.” (Jenkins 336)

By shifting how people view gaming from reactive (reacting to developer’s designs) to creative (creating new levels for themselves), LittleBigPlanet becomes more of a toolbox or toy bin, while the space can be regarded as a playpen or artist’s canvas.

“One model would be for adults and children to collaborate in the design and development of video game spaces, in the process developing a conversation about the nature and meanings of the worlds being produced.  Another approach (Cassell) would be to create tools to allow children to construct their own playspaces and then give them the space to do what they want.” (Jenkins 344)

As if responding to Jenkins’ views on collaborative development, LittleBigPlanet also allows players to share their creations with each other, transforming the space once again from simple playpen or canvas to a social forum for creativity on a much broader spectrum.
    LittleBigPlanet itself may be a revolutionary backlash in response to the traditionally linear nature of video games.  Traditional games, are described in A Game of One’s Own, as being, “presented in a series of ‘levels which escalate in difficulty, barring those who cannot master the skills and secrets of the game… from advancing (Fullerton et al 3).”  In LittleBigPlanet, however, the difficulty of any given level is decided upon by the player because the player is designing the level in the first place.
    Through this creative mindset, players begin to take ownership of the space they create and play within.  Media Molecule acknowledges this and promotes the feeling of ownership by giving the players the ability to customize their avatars.

“One game that has tried to walk the line between players having a ‘role’ and playing ‘themselves’ is the recently relaunched Myst Online: Uru Live (2005/2007).  In this game, players take the role of explorers who, presumably playing themselves, have come together to uncover the mystery of the abandoned underground city of D’ni Ae’gura.” (Pearce  4)

By doing this, the Uru players became so personally attached to their avatars and the world they occupied, when Uru shut down, they migrated to There.com and strove to recreate the experience.  Similarly, through the ability to customize one’s ‘sackperson’ in LittleBigPlanet, the players become more personally attached to their creations within the space of the games that they create.  The space of LittleBigPlanet is essentially a haven for creative and diverse players interested in creating, discovering, and playing new and innovative games.

Mike Roth

World of Warcraft (WoW): Outdoor Play in the 21st Century

Game companies produce many of the games consumers play. They hold much of the power of which games consumers can buy: “the creation of narrative space has primarily been the purview of those in power” (Pearce), which would predominately be the white, male programmers pitching their ideas for games. With such a singular group pitching game ideas and then making them, “[the] result is that certain types of games […] and […] game spaces have tended to dominate the field of games” (Fullerton 1). What white, male programmers want, white, male programmers make, and as such,“digital game spaces have been strongly gendered towards male constructions of space and play” (Fullerton 1) since males make what they know to be fun.

What people know to be fun, they are inclined to get their ideas from the playtimes they had as children, remembering their youth. Traditionally though, male and female play styles are different. When young children are playing, boys are more likely to see adventurous, outdoor play expanding over large area, and girls are more likely to stay closer to the house and enact pretend types of domestic or shopping play (Jenkins 336). Growing up, parents tended to have different ideas of what was acceptable play for boys and girls: “Historically, in the non-digital playground, girls have been spatially constrained in their play activities”, and “boys are typically allowed to roam farther than girls” (Fullerton 3). The people creating games remember these socially constructed play styles and find fun in what was acceptable for them to find fun in. Games are an attempt to recreate the enjoyment they had as kids: “Feinstein’s comment embraces some classical conceptions of play […] suggesting that video game play isn’t fundamentally different from backyard play” (Jenkins 332), and for games like WoW, it is not different. WoW idealizes the type of play acceptable for young boys: being adventurous and playing in huge, outdoor areas. WoW is mostly having the player avatar running/walking/riding/flying over large spans of outdoor areas and players spend very little time in indoor areas.

However, even with such a strong male participation in a game like WoW, there is a stronger showing of women than many other computer and console games: “One genre where we see growing participation from women, although they still represent less than 20% of the typical gaming population, is [MMOGs]” (Fullerton 7). This could be due partially to the fact while the female game play mechanics are not valued, they are still placed in the games, however inadvertently: “[exploration] usually produces a fraction of the ‘experience points’ of combat activities, suggesting that what is high-value play pattern for women is of less value to game designers” (Fullerton 7), and “socializing, also of high value among women, is seldom scored and sometimes inadvertently penalized” (Fullerton7). Exploration and socializing are of low value in the game, but WoW still accommodates this player type which draws in females. Because of the game’s MMOG nature it is hard to not be able to explore all the indoor and outdoor areas as well as socialize with other players within the game. Added to this, “what cannot be argued is that it fulfills a deep need in contemporary mass culture – particularly in the United States – for a human-scale, pedestrian experience of immersion in a three dimensional narrative” (Pearce). The need to ‘get away’ from their daily life is shared by both males and females and is provided for in the fantasy setting of WoW.

All of the play types digital games present are a construction of the type of play in power in the current culture: “The ways in which humans understand and represent space are social constructions that serve as a barometer of a particular culture and time” (Fullerton 2). But culture is a fluid thing and tends to change with the times. If the line between the social construction of males and females slowly blurs, the demographics for games and the games created may change as well

~Kate Rosier, gtg779x~