Game Changer Episode 1: My Wife Maddie

Sorry this took me a couple days--I left right from our final to family Easter/sister-in-law mission homecoming festivities, but finally here's my video: http://youtu.be/qpEPi1jdWGA

Thanks for a great semester everybody!

Personal Angle on Game Changer

As far as adding a personal element to my final project, the Game Changer YouTube series, the best way might be to use my mother as an interviewee. Growing up, she didn't allow us to have a Nintendo or very many computer games at all. The culture in our house was very much one of reading and playing outside. I was often encouraged to do either of those things with my spare time.

In the past year or so while I've been studying games and writing, I've talked with her a lot about it, but she still is very distant from the whole idea of videogames and doesn't understand much of what I'm saying, I think. Interviewing her for Game Change and teaching her how to use a controller and see the themes at play and how a game can invite you to think on bigger themes and questions just like a good book would be satisfying for me and also add a great personal element to the video if I can pull it off right.

So, while my original idea of interviewing Whitney from Studio C (my brother has a connection) is cool, it wouldn't be nearly as personal. I'm also still not totally sure about her availability and stuff, so my mom might be the easier choice too.

It's a work in progress, of course.

Two Ideas on Awe in Videogames: Paper Treatments

So, ever since Dr. Burton met together and came up with my creative project idea, I've kind of been lost on my paper topic, but I think I've come up with something that will work and that I can get published. I just need to pick which of two angles to take.

FIRST ANGLE

Basically, I want to write a theoretically grounded, detailed look at the specific ways game designers can elicit awe in players. Rather than just listing the ways games can inspire awe, I want to get deep into the techniques used and the psychology employed. I'm inspired by Greg's more theoretically-grounded posts and I want to follow that example more. This paper will read as much like design advice as it will a scholarly paper. I plan on including analysis of specific techniques employed by different games and how those techniques function. Here's an outline of how I expect it to go:

1. Intro
1. Art and awe-discussion on how awe is associated with great art and expression
2. What is awe? How is it elicited? How do games elicit awe?
2. Definitions of awe
1. Theoretical definitions of awe
2. Reasons we've developed awe as an emotion
3. Mechanics of awe
1. Theoretical strategies for developing awe in an audience
2. Examples from other arts that are often cited as great at eliciting awe
4. Videogames and awe
1. Re-examination of theories of awe in light of videogames
1. What strengths does the videogame medium give designers specifically in creating awe in the player?
2. What weaknesses does the medium present, and how can they be compensated for?
2. Examples
1. Wide range of examples of innovative games that have elicited awe in their respective moments, and how they did it--could include work from emotions post here
3. Technology's role
1. How dependent is the medium on its technology to create awe?
1. Examples of games that have caused awe with technology
2. Games that have inspired awe despite technological limitations
4. Story
1. Strengths and weaknesses of telling stories in videogames
2. Strategies for successfully producing awe in videogame narratives, with examples
5. Reasons to cultivate awe in and through videogames
1. Awe, when done right, is both intellectual and emotional, and that's exactly the spot games need to hit to continue expanding their audience and importance
5. Conclusions
1. Summary of given strategies and arguments
2. Final statement of importance of continuing progress of the medium to the wider world of art and culture.

SECOND IDEA

This other idea is actually a paper idea I had last semester while anticipating this class and had gotten really excited about, then completely forgotten until I sat down to write this outline post. I don't know which idea I should go with, though, so I'm giving both of these and asking you all to help me pick.

This paper is specifically on the connection between awe caused by advancing videogame technology and to what extent the actual content of the game is meant to inspire awe. For instance, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was perhaps the most technologically advanced game ever made when it came out, and at the same time, it had an epic storyline involving fighting dragons, saving cities from death, and travelling all around the world. My argument is that so many videogames stories use tropes and conventions of awe because they are also trying to inspire awe through showing off their technology. This is an alternative explanation to why games are so focused on fantasy and violence and escapism--because those things inspire awe, and awe has been an implicit fundamental goal of the medium ever since its inception.

1. Intro
1. Outline argument: videogame content is determined in large part by the implicit fundamental goal of videogames to inspire awe through innovative technologies.
2. Brief history of videogames
1. Give a background on goals and drives in the early videogame industry to show how that created a certain mindset about the purposes and potentials of the medium that still influence designers today
2. Spacewar! and early games--meant to justify computers
3. Pong and the rise of arcades--meant to draw players back again and again through both mechanics and novelty
1. This is why graphics mattered, the novelty enhanced the fantasy, which drew revenue
4. MUDs, the text adventure, and online gaming--first time story was emphasized over technology (no graphics), but introduced idea of online muliplayer gaming, promising awe scales of participation (good for both revenue and player engagement)
3. Modern games have inherited this legacy and continue to push technological boundaries to increase player engagement
1. Each try to couch that technology within the proper epic storyline to merge form and content into an irresistible "mind-blowing" experience that gamers can't avoid.
1. Examples (Skyrim, Shadow of the Colossus, GTAV, etc.)
2. MMOs--blurring lines of fantasy and reality to further inspire awe on both technological and narratological levels
1. Examples (World of Warcraft, Halo community challenges, Destiny, DayZ)
4. The converse is also true
1. Rise of "nostalgia" and "retro" game design techniques has actually inspired the downgrading of the storylines as well
1. Examples (Papers, Please, Rogue Legacy, Braid)
2. This is why "art" games often de-emphasize graphics, because it lets them pull back to realistic and grounded "human" stories that the traditional art crowd has always loved
5. Therefore, the reason game narratives have so often taken the shapes they have is not simply teenage power fantasy, but the tropes of awe that have always been present and a tacit requirement of the medium to justify itself and the technology it's built upon
1. Games beginning to recognize this and break trend to serve new goals
1. The Last of Us, grounded human story, mind-blowing tech, goal of "art" on every level
1. Gone Home similar track (tech not as impressive, but meant to appear realistic)
6. Prediction: as games become less dependent on constantly improving technologies (especially graphics), the medium will break further from the constant power fantasy as the medium will become less concerned with justifying and showing off its underlying technology.
1. Comparisons to film--follows same pattern of epic technology, epic story, had similar pattern of first films having to justify and explain film itself, then were set free to exlore whatever they wanted, now you can make a film about anything
7. Conclusion
1. There's more to the content of games than just power fantasies and ruining our children. The history has dictated a lot of patterns, but the medium will break free from those patterns, and in many ways has already begun to do so.

There are my two ideas. If you made it this far, you already deserve my thanks. Thanks for reading. Also, if you made it this far, please take the extra couple seconds to leave on a comment on which idea you think I should pursue.

Possible Venues

All of the venues I scoped out for my previous possible venues post would be appropriate for either of these papers. If I did the first idea, I would add Gamasutra, a site specifically geared at game designers. If I do the first idea I would likely send a shortened version there. However, I think the venue I will most focus on as I write is Journal of Games Criticism. It has the level of sophistication I'm aiming for as well as the subject matter, and they're pretty new so my likelihood of publication is higher.

Next Steps

I now just need to figure out which idea to pursue. If I do the first idea I'll have to do a lot of research into theoretical backgrounds of things. For the second idea I'll also need to research, but I have a lot of resources readily available on a lot of those things, especially vidoegame history.

With Wondering Awe: Project Prototype

I've been thinking a lot about what I'd like to do for the creative component of my final project, and I keep going back to that phrase, "create the wonder." I've been really impressed with a lot of videos that I've come across as I've been researching awe, and the more I think about it, the more I want to create a video to get my ideas across. One of my central ideas is that while the digital--when used purely as a mimetic tool--conveys only a diminished sense of awe,  its creative and synthetic potential supersedes that of traditional mediums. Though art or writing or music can draw us in and bring us to a state of wonder, film and other more modern media formats have the potential to combine the best of art, music, writing, etc. in a single, unified, immersive work. The wonder of the digital age, though, is that creation of such works is no longer limited to large production studios, especially with vast bases of open content through Creative Commons licenses. Building on this notion, the focus for my final project will be a video that combines original writing (narration), an original piano score, and Creative Commons video clips in an effort to awaken viewers to a new reverence for traditional sources of awe and instill within them a new determination to utilize modern modes of creation to inspire awe.

I've already begun writing out the script, and I've been recording tidbits of music, trying to figure out a general flow for the piece as a whole. I want it to reach a point of climax that is paralleled in the language, music, and video simultaneously, so I've been trying to figure out how to convey that in each medium. Also, I've been going through Creative Commons videos on Vimeo and downloading ones that have moments that I like.

Project Outline: People, Meet Games

For my project of awe, I’d like to do a YouTube channel show (tentatively) titled People, Meet Games. The object of the show is to take a kind of person that normally doesn’t play or like videogames—ideally, they should think they’re useless or pointless or something—find someone that fits that type, talk to them, and then find a game for them that could give them a good experience with videogames and hopefully produce some kind of positive emotional reaction, even awe. Each episode would then be the story of one such encounter, with a different kind of person covered in each episode.

The goal of the show, then, is to provide some solid videogame criticism for a general audience, but in a different light. By nature of how the show is designed, it would always have to be accessible to non-gamer audiences, and thus it would serve the function of widening both videogames’ appeal and understanding in broader culture. Most non-gamers tend to have an antagonistic perspective on videogames, thinking they’re simply a waste of time or overly violent, messing with our brains and such. People, Meet Games would be my attempt to show the world that while many games fit their mold, a great many more do not. It has been my philosophy for a while now that yes, some people play videogames far too much, but most people don’t play them nearly enough. In a world increasingly dominated by algorithmic systems and advanced technology, videogames are the medium born of that world meant to help us understand and embrace that world. Neither the industry nor the world as a whole can afford the stereotypes and misunderstandings to continue any longer. People, Meet Games would be my contribution to that change.

           

Here’s a typical layout of how an episode would go:

1.      I’d introduce the kind of person we’re looking at this episode (e.g. Moms, Lawyers, Gamer Wives, Grandmas, Game Violence Skeptics, etc.) and discuss a little of the history of that group’s typical objections to games. Alternatively, we could look at a specific issue many people have with videogames each week, e.g. Violence, Waste of Time, Kills Attention Span, etc.

2.      I’d introduce the specific person we’re interviewing for the show, and we’d have a brief chat about their experience with videogames (ideally very minimal) and their opinions on videogames, and specifically why they hold such opinions.

3.      I’d introduce the game we’ve picked for the person and talk about why this game is successful and smart (some quick criticism, basically) and then explain why I chose this specific game for this specific person/issue.

4.      Show me and the person playing the game together. We wouldn’t have to play the game for very long, and what we’d actually show could be pretty short, but the point of this part is to see the person reacting to the game and capture their reactions/interactions to watch how they respond and if they’re opinion changes at all by playing the game.

5.      We’d end the show with a little post-game chat about what the person thought about the game and if their opinions have changed at all from when we began.

6.      Finally, if we convinced the person that games are useful and/or relevant and helped clear up their misconceptions/prejudices, I’d end the show by giving the project a point, and each episode we’d show our current “score” of how many people we’ve convinced out of how many attempts.

I would imagine and hope that these episodes are not long at all, perhaps 10 minutes at most.

Here’s a quick overview of how the first episode might go, “Mom, Meet Games”:

1.      A lot of moms in the world are scared of videogames and the effects they’re having on their kids. They’re scared their kids spend too much time with them; they’re scared they’re too violent; they’re scared they’re running their attention spans. In fact, Moms got so worried that parents in California tried to ban the sale of violent videogames altogether, leading to a landmark Supreme Court decision declaring videogames as a form of expression and therefore protected under the First Amendment of the US Constitution. (And some other stuff, but that’s a sample.)

2.      Growing up, my Mom didn’t let us have any videogame consoles and very limited computer games. Recently, she’s loosened up a bit on videogames and let a Wii into the house and helped me get my Playstation 3, but she still doesn’t play much herself. (I’d then interview what my mom thinks about videogames now, why she doesn’t play any, if she’s worried about kids playing games, etc.)

3.      The game I’d probably pick for my mom is Flower. She’s mostly worried about playing videogames herself because she doesn’t know how to use a controller. Flower has the lowest threshold for controller literacy imaginable. Also, it’s a very relaxing and organic experience, and uses technology to actually make us think about nature, which I think she’ll really enjoy. (And some more on the game.)

4.      Some shots of the controller in Mom’s hands, some footage from over the shoulder as we sit and play together, some footage of her actual playthrough with her voiceover reactions.

5.      After playing, I’d  chat with my mom about what the game made her think about, how she felt with the controller, and how she thinks kids might react to the game. I’d then ask her opinion on games in general and if it’s changed at all after Flower.

6.      Of course I’m going to be able to convince my mom; People, Meet Games now has a score of 1 out of 1.