Tag Archives: gaming

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We Have Always Been Here

This anonymous Ask over on the Why I Need Diverse Games Tumblr has already received strong responses from many, but I felt strongly enough to add a short one of my own.

“Geekdom is the only place where socially shunned males can be save and be themselves [sic]”, it begins. Then, the asker attempts to utilize concepts like “safe space” in order to, ultimately, justify attacks and harassment with language that takes a militaristic tone. Couching the defensiveness of a growing mainstream audience in such language is a glimpse of how some folks feel – that broadening the reach of certain types of media belongs to some finite pool of attention that will be bestowed upon those who share their taste. “So when women,” the asker continues, “who exclude them outside geek culture, invade those save spaces and force the scene to conform to their wants and rules they leave the men with nowhere to go. Where can they flee?”

First of all, women have always been a part of geek spaces. A woman is considered the inventor of computer programming. A woman wrote what is regarded as the first sci-fi novel (Frankenstein). Women have been gaming and creating games for decades. One year, a comics shop opened next to my local movie theater. An afternoon matinee and time in the comics shop, especially if I had a few bucks from babysitting in my pocket, was a wonderful way to spend the day. Star Trek movies were even on the marquee at times. I attended dressed in a Starfleet Academy shirt as yes, a socially awkward teenage girl. I liked other awkward geeks, for friendship and romance. We had shared interests, just enough to make it interesting, and just different enough to learn from one another.

After a couple of decades playing video games, growing up with sci-fi and fantasy, and counting Star Trek as an influence on my life, I’m not seeking to ‘qualify’ or gain any sort of geek cred, but others in my life who also enjoyed many of these things were other girls. We have always been here. We’re not invaders, anonymous, and I understand the perception and socialization that leads to ostracism and feeling alone as a geeky person, but try stepping out and defining yourself outside of products you consume.

But anyone, regardless of gender, should have safe spaces, real ones, and using the idea of gatekeeping to attempt to justify harassment just falls apart in the doing. Gatekeeping is simply never okay. It’s a much richer experience to have broader, more inclusive, and more diverse options.You might discover something unexpected or even meet some good, kind, and talented folks with a more open mind. Might even surprise yourself.

There is also no limit on how much art can be created. Only so much of it is commercial. Seek out new experiences, enjoy the art, games, and writing created by other fans whose creative energy presses against their mind, fingers, or very selves, and must simply get out into the world and be born, shared, and lived.  Put down your weapons, including your pride.Art isn’t finite. No one is invading anything. The more variety and more choice we have is a good thing.

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“No Girls Allowed” – Chicken or the Egg?

I wanted to comment on the recent piece “No Girls Allowed” by Lydia Heitman over at Kotaku. Heitman is a woman working in gaming PR. Her take on the PR side of the business in light of the sexism that still goes on made some refreshing points. For all the insistence that gaming is male-dominated and that’s where companies should focus their marketing, it becomes a chicken and egg question. Do women not play as much in certain categories because they’re uninterested or do they not play as much in those genres because they feel unwelcome or are simply not marketed to?

That holds true for recent controversies over not just Duke Nukem Forever, but Brink, which touted its extensive character customization options but featured no female character models at all, supposedly because including them would’ve half-assed the development on all customization options. The message there was simply, “You’re not worth it to us”. Unfortunately, not all signs of being unwelcome are so blatant nor communicated with gamers at large.

There are also focus groups for which women are never even considered for invitation. I understand that there are target demographics for different games, and the audience is not necessarily the same for Hello Kitty Online as for Age of Conan (though in my case, they are). But as far apart as those extreme examples are, they are just that: extremes. Somewhere in the middle, there are many games and potential game ideas that could have much wider appeal than people think at the concept and marketing stages. Developers and publishers are throwing away potential money by ignoring the needs of customers and potential customers. Blatantly saying female avatars aren’t worth the development sink is a slap in the face. It turns me off to anything developed by Splash Damage. Brilliant marketing work there, isn’t it? Any company that says to me, you are not worth even considering isn’t worth considering when it comes to where I send my money.

The default marketing target is usually a young, white male customer. According to the EGSA, the average gamer is now 37 years old, and women comprise over 40% of the audience. There is still a sense of elitism and an insistence on looking down on those one might not consider “real” gamers among pockets of the community at large. If that’s the case when the audience numbers are actually heading toward parity,  when most developers are still overwhelmingly white and male, perhaps there are remants of similar biases among them. The example Heitman uses about the party illustrates that facet of things well.

My sister is seven years old. Whatever she chooses to play shold be open to her, with devs and community willing to listen and respond positively to their female audience members. But the issue is not just applicable to current customers. Games are art to me, but they are also a busess. Part of running a successful business is drawing more customers into the fold. And as Heitman’s piece and examples like Brink illustrate, there are still a lot of blocks to that, whether because those in charge of marketing the games can’t wrap their head around women’s interest in their titles, lingering culture issues, or both. On a somewhat brighter note, most girls now grow up playing games, so the importance of acceptance by devs and by gamers is hopefully something that will be less of an issue in years to come.

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News Media Quick to Implicate Games Again

While reading the news yesterday, this headline caught my eye:

Anthony Maldonado, 9, stabbed to death over video game while visiting family in Harlem

Being a longtime gamer and someone who is wary of the often misguided media sensationalism with regards to video games, I read the story with a careful eye.

The headline and the grandmother’s quote about the boy being killed “over a video game” are irresponsibly misleading, most likely incorrect, and say nothing about the actual root of the problem – which is the lack of responsibility in leaving a child alone with someone known to possibly be violent.

Unfortunately, a lot of people will see “video games” and “murder” in the same story like this and develop or allow their negative views of gaming to be reinforced. I realize that the source the highest of journalistic respectability, but it’s still extremely sloppy reporting.

The information that the young murdered boy was left in an apartment with an older man who, quotes from family imply, was known to
have behavioral problems, is buried way down in the article.

“He was a friend. I can’t believe this happened,” Carlos Juela said. “He doesn’t act right on the street but he always minded his manners in the house.”

If this 25-year old man had a violent or problematic history, what was he doing left alone with a child? Even bringing in the games is completely incidental, but the paper hypes and inflates the role such that one could be fooled, if not reading carefully, that gaming played some role. Also buried in the article — all the way at the bottom — is a positive quote about the child and how he loved his PlayStation. The article itself isn’t negative, but the headline irked me because it’s not only unnecessary, but misleading. Sometimes reporters don’t write the headlines for their pieces, so the fault may lie with the copywriters who might not have read the story in full.

My condolences to the family of little Anthony.

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Why Not “Imagine” Non-stereotypical Games Instead?

Member of the FragDolls and Ubisoft employee Valkyrie posted a rant on her blog regarding the reception of the company’s Imagine series of games, which are aimed at young girls. What follows are my comments on the matter that I posted as a part of the discussion happening over there.

And lets not forget that before these games are even produced the companies set up focus groups to find out exactly what their target audience wants in a game. So it’s not like these companies are pushing these games on girls; they’re creating a game based off the little girls wants, feedback/suggestions.

A few of these games are localized versions of games that have already come out elsewhere. And also, one point that this argument doesn’t address, is one brought up by Alice Taylor over at Wonderland Blog:

Research is a funny thing. If you say to someone, what’s your favourite food, they’ll list three things they love. If you then say, you didn’t list chocolate cake, don’t you like chocolate cake? They’ll say, oh SURE! I love chocolate cake! I just didn’t realise you were asking about chocolate cake.

I’m curious just what these focus groups are like. Are they suggestive, or do they let girls just name what they like? I used to say things like lawyer, pediatrician, and president when I was little and asked about careers. Where’s Imagine:President?

As a woman who got into gaming very early (around 3-4) and loves playing to this very day, it’s almost a slap in the face to even try with these games. They’re so stereotypical. Where’s our Imagine:Science Teacher? Imagine:Archaeologist? Imagine:Lawyer? And whatever happened to just making good games, games that will appeal to those who are interested in the genre they represent, games with good stories, strong characters, or just overall well-made games? Why should there even be an artificially created “need” to plum this niche other than pure $$$? Telling people to blame society is a cop out. Sure, these stereotypes are a product of society, but there’s no need to reinforce them. It’s the same whether it’s Imagine: Babyz or the toy mop and vacuum set that my cousin received as a gift.

The problem is with society, but we are free to speak out on the things we feel might be contributing to the problem. Why artificially separate and  [i]other[/i] young girls by basically saying these games are for you and by doing so, sending the implicit message that ‘these other games are not’?

After all, we did just fine finding our love for gaming without everything being cherry-picked and separated out.

The Alice Taylor blog I was referring to is located here.

As the FragDolls are Ubisoft employees, I don’t think it’s really allowed for them to speak badly of their company’s games, so I doubt that a truly honest discussion can take place over these Imagine titles they had to shill at GameX.

But I’m willing to be proven wrong. While I don’t doubt that playing a game that caters to a girl’s interests (or a boy’s, for that matter) can be a segue into gaming for life, but the question is how do these Imagine games reflect those interests? Is it a checklist, are they suggested to the girls in the groups, is it the matter of the neglected chocolate cake? And if they do such a good job as they claim, why are the subjects they cover so narrow and stereotypical in scope?

All this said, I don’t think that games aimed at girls or boys specifically are necessarily bad. However, being well-made and progressive, without falling into the pit of stereotypes would help. HerInteractive tends to do a good job. I also fully understand that video games are a product, and that they need to sell. And in a world where so many are safe bets and sequels, I know it’s a lot to ask, but I believe good games that don’t stereotype and appeal to young kids are possible.

 

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Sony’s Marketing Dept. Gets it Right in PS3 Ad

At the gym last night, I settled onto the elliptical with a magazine from the community rack. I’m not a regular People Magazine reader, but as I was flipping through this issue from late September, I saw a PS3 ad. The ad features a teen boy who looks to be enjoying himself and a middle-aged woman as his mother next to him, also looking to be enjoying herself. Both had controllers in their hands and looked to be having fun playing.

The tagline that accompanied the ad referred to the recent price drop but also served to be really inclusive. Unfortunately, I don’t recall the exact content, but I believe it was something about the PS3 being at a price that suits everyone.

People‘s demographics skew very female, and range through various age groups, so this was a pleasant surprise. To see gaming not only marketed as something women of any age do, but without the usual attention being called to her as a female playing games. (See the PSP’s recent lavender release with its ill-considered “Girlz Play Too!” tagline and obvious lineup of Hannah Montana and other similar games). Surely there would be some sort of division in the games, right?

Nope. The game selection at the bottom wasn’t even divided into obvious gender targets like so many other ads are. The games were titles like Batman: Arkham Asylum and others. Not a puzzle game or fitness coaching game in sight.

Even though that lavender PSP stuff is still fresh in our minds, kudos to Sony’s marketing department for this great ad!

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Band Hero Features More Female Vocalists

When reading through gaming news on Monday afternoon, I read that the whole setlist of the tracks in the upcoming Band Hero game had been released. I went to take a look to see what songs had made the cut, and was pleasantly surprised to see names of female singers or bands with female vocalists over and over throughout the list.

About one third of the songs in the game are sung by women, and they represent a variety of musical styles. Corinne Bailey Rae is there, as are Janet Jackson, No Doubt, Pat Benatar, and Taylor Swift, among others. While I enjoy playing Guitar Hero and Rock Band, most of the default songs in the game have always been from bands with male vocalists. But in the past few years, these titles have been at the forefront of social gaming, and found fans among both genders. Yet it wasn’t until now that there was a respectable number of songs there from female vocalists. Before, it felt a bit like tokenism. Perhaps seven or eight tracks out of fifty or sixty would feature women. It made it more difficult to find something in one’s vocal range if singing that round.

Maybe they realized the game appeals across gender lines. Maybe it was developers realizing that adding more songs by women wouldn’t alienate or weird out the male players. Maybe licensing came more easily this time around. Whatever the reason, I consider it progress and look forward to playing the game.

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Farewell to The Matrix Online

The game was released buggy, like many MMOs. Yet at the same time, the devs tended to be receptive to feedback. Regardless, the game underperformed in the end, despite the love that went into The Matrix Online. Sales numbers were not as predicted or hoped for, and the number of retained subscribers  dipped very low.

The game had a ton of faults, and a lot of missed potential, but when it comes to who dropped the ball, I would have to place more blame on Monolith/WBIE for selling the property off to SOE. Now that said, SOE put effort into the game but it was never treated as a star property. One might say, with good reason, noting the underperforming history as above. They had to keep profitable.

But MxO was Monolith’s baby and the devs and designers there worked hard on it. They had a good launch strategy, and the first four or five months after release were truly great stuff. Live Events were plentiful, characters would drop in and greet you outside mission areas, the story was immersive and included the players in the action. There were three factions fighting for control, as well as splinter groups. Updates were pretty frequent and robust at first: full cinematics voiced by the original film actors. The events that they held and the LET appearances really helped tie the community together. One really felt like a part of something. But of course, back to those numbers again — it just wasn’t financially sustainable.

The sale to SOE gave the game a longer life, but also a slow death. Fully rendered cinematics gave way to comic book format animation and, finally, to some drawn, barely animated storyboards that were hard to make out. Major characters were killed off or otherwise removed (likely as a way to save money), and there were few development updates.  There were some new spawns and gear, but items from past events or storylines, such as a helicpoter dropping propaganda papers, were left in the game long after the missions for that chapter were over. For the most part, the game just hung on as something for Station Pass holders to jump into now and then.

I doubt there will be another like it for some time — urban, smart, featuring an abundance of modern clothing options and styles, and filled with a mix of philosophy, supernatural elements, lots of places to enter and secrets to uncover, and a very unique playerbase full of extremely dedicated individuals. And in the beginning, the Live Events team played it well, and created the most memorable MMORPG experience I have had so far. It was fun, but sadly, the game did not realize its potential at all.

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Hodgepodge

My latest piece for The Escapist is up. I was happy to see
that it got the lead spot on the homepage for the week. I don’t know how that
decision is made, but it was certainly nice to see. This piece was a bit
personal, sprung out of a little reflection last summer about Silent Hill 4. I
decided to do some further reading on Hispanic female video game characters
only to discover that no one had written it yet.

 

I read an editorial over the summer by author Steven Saylor,
whose Roma Sub Rosa series I read in its entirety last year, where he
said something along the lines of: writers are always advised to write what
they know, but a writer should write the story he or she would like to read.
This was in reference to fiction, but it’s definitely equally applicable to
nonfiction. So I saw an opportunity and ran with it.

 

In other news, I joined Twitter a while back and I’m finally
starting to use it a little bit. At first, all I had was Greg Grunberg on my
follow list, but now I’ve added some other interesting people. What an
amazingly trivial concept, yet such an addictive site. I must say that LeVar
Burton has one of the coolest tattoos I’ve ever seen. It’s an ambigram of his
first name and “Kunta”, a tribute, of course, to his Roots role. Dan Brown may
have brought ambigrams into the popular conscious, but LeVar’s tattoo made them
cool.

 

Finally, the Times Square Virgin Megastore is set to close
in April. I haven’t bought a CD there in a while, but that store holds so many
memories for me. I went there very frequently as a teen, attended signings,
in-store concerts, and sometimes just considered it a throbbing, lively, oasis
where I could drop in to listen to some of my favorite new songs and wander
around what seemed to me quite the cool location.

 

The prices were sometimes a tad high, but sale time was the
best. Lots of gems to be had. Apparently, a six-million dollar annual profit
isn’t enough for the chain’s new owners. The location is set to house a Century
21 discount designer clothing shop. I recall Century 21 liked to advertise
itself as “NY’s best kept secret”. Hard to live up to that when you’re taking a
prime Times Square area location. No matter. If it hadn’t been C21, it would’ve
been another client willing to fork over the cash.

 

Even for this native kid, this store was a destination. Say
what you will about big box type places, but this one going is a loss. I loved
how the jazz and vocal section was so quiet, even though the rest of the store
had loud, pumping music throughout. The last time I was there was for Christmas
shopping last year, and it was still the same chaotic, bright place. And I’m
sure it will remain so until April.

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The Cupcake Loophole

I haven't blogged in a while because I've been busy with a few things, but I always come back to writing.

Made these for my boyfriend's birthday last month:

Picture037.jpg
Picture037.jpg

Yes, they're cupcakes made to look like 1up
mushrooms from Mario games. I borrowed the idea from a shirt over at ThinkGeek. I figured 1up suited a birthday. My boyfriend told me he wanted to keep it low key, and didn't want a big cake (which I've made for him before), so I considered cupcakes a loophole. Luckily, he found the whole thing cute and liked them.

Truth is, I'd planned them a couple of weeks earlier, and I was very happy with the way they came out. I didn't do a practice run, and nor had I ever made this recipe before, but everything was amazingly good. They all disappeared in less than a day!

Picture035.jpg
Picture035.jpg

The recipe for these cupcakes is here. I have a standing request from my boyfriend's mother to make her some now. She asked him to ask me for them after she tried mine. It's cute. I plan to make some, probably this week, and decorate them with little yellow flowers. Something springlike awaits.

Otherwise, not much notable has happened. Been reading and writing a lot lately. Both for fun and professional reasons. Looked into the possibility of going to J-School. Trying to get more of my writing out there as well as nurse a business idea I've been hatching lately.

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Bioware’s Matt Atwood talks PC Release

Mass Effect PC
Mass Effect PC

When a console to PC port arrives with issues like poor optimization or a lack of graphical upgrades, this is naturally, disappointing. Bioware's Matt Atwood, in an interview over at Eurogamer, insists that the upcoming May PC release of Mass Effect will be different:

"We get questions about if we're going to do new content [for the PC
version], but what's the real value there? The game is so robust with
this content. What makes the most sense is to focus on making the
keyboard customisable, increasing the visuals, making the controls very
natural and add things like squad commands and hot-keys for Shepard's
biotic powers and weapons; make those things that, honestly, when
people make ports they just don't do. They just get it going and that's
it. And that's not what BioWare's about."

No new PC-exclusive content is a bit of a bummer, but the rest is still good news. He also touches upon downloadable content planned for both the PC and the Xbox 360:

"We obviously know more than we're ready to talk about, just to be
completely honest with you. But I think you'll see more planets, I
think you'll potentially see more races – you're going to see really
great content."

If you'd like more on the newer, shinier side of Mass Effect, the rest of the interview, along with the accompanying PC screenshot gallery should whet your appetite.