A Critique of the New Direction Of Gaming

website of game

So lately I have been thinking about what to write about next. I looked at a recent game entitled The Order: 1886. The premise of the game almost seems entirely made up to cater more to movie goers than actual hardcore gamers. The premise is set on a old English city around, yep you guessed it 1886. The story contains a protagonist and werewolves and vampires. The protagonist is part of a rebellion to upstart revolt against the government in place. The story isn't really what I want to focus on. Rather I want to divulge my attention on the actual game-play and the change in how games are being made today.

This game is one of many that feature the long drawn out cut-scenes that develop more on the story line than actual game play. The game plays itself out almost like a movie. The dialogue between characters reminds me of old classic movies that center around Victorian age. I feel as though there has been somewhat of a shift in the gaming community to incorporate more cinematographic imagery to try and cater to the audience. The movie industry has been one that tries to separate itself from video games, though both seem to point to virtual or alternate reality. I feel as thought he gaming developers with this game is trying to do too much in one area and not focusing enough on an area that is most important: the actual gaming itself. The gaming itself is an integral part of the gamer's experience. We can only take so many pauses in between games before we falter or get frustrated. Maybe it has to do with the adrenaline building up before an assault or the nervousness of anticipating an epic boss fight. Whatever it is, it kicks in and never gets to be expelled due to the repeated cut-scenes.

Compare that to what games were like 20 years ago. The early period of video games didn't have much of a story-line. Granted the technology was not nearly as capable of delivering the same type of finished product that is produced now, but even though there still was not really a focus on the story. Games during the early period were made simplistically with minimal detail to graphics, focusing on the core component of fun. Fun is ultimately the main goal for many game developers. To create a game that is enjoyed by a community is considered to be successful.

Side Note: Here is a link to a website which goes into depth about the game (review).
(also to note, the game looks beautiful, easily one of the most visually pleasing games to ever grace the gaming platform.)

As I return back to the game The Order 1886, I wonder if this new take on movie dialogue and less emphasis on actual game play content is going to push gamers away from future endeavors in the gaming world. The Order 1886 was a highly publicized and hyped game, receiving coverage from E3 (a popular gaming convention featuring the newest games to hit the market in the future). Critics have been harsh and have also recognized the shortcomings of the game play and the obvious attention to graphics and cut-scenes. Do not get me wrong, when I first saw the game I was also one of the many who was anticipating the game to be groundbreaking in its graphical delivery and masterful storytelling. Instead I ended up after seeing and demoing the game a bit, a lackluster game that falls short. I applaud the developers trying to push the boundaries, but in doing so they should make sure to keep game play experience as a forefront. Hopefully the video game industry in the future takes a good look at the flaws the game suffered and focus on them to deliver an even better game in the future. I also hope that the game developers do not forget to focus on making sure the game is ..... well a game and not try to make it something that it is not (movie-esque) which I felt The Order 1886 unfortunately did.

10.9 Million Dollar Prize Pool

As I continue with the trend of video games for this blog, one aspect to look at is the professional side of video games in popular culture. I will begin by talking about the rise of tournaments from players trying to obtain top scores to tournaments last year which had millions of dollars in prize money. So according to Kotaku, the first known video game tournament was held at Stanford University. This tournament featured the game SpaceWar, with the first place prize being a year subscription to Rolling Stones....  (no consolation prize for second place either, though there was free beer).You can read more about it here. Also here is a picture of the game which is played on a outdated piece of technology:

 For your information, a yearly subscription of Rolling Stones in today's monetary value is $29.95 according to Amazon. That isn't too bad considering that back then there weren't digital publication of magazines and people actually read physical magazines. Still even if you were to move the time value of money on that 1970's subscription of the Rolling Stones to today it wouldn't be that much. Prize pool in video games is a way to tell just how much the growth of professional video games have grown in recent years.

Now fast forward 42 years to 2014. I've mentioned before about the game League of Legends. You might be asking why i am bringing up this game. The reason i bring up this game is because of the prize pool which was 2.1 million dollars. Lets recap what we have so far. 1972, winner gets 12 issues of a magazine worth 30$. 2014,first place in League of Legends Esports video game tournament gets 1,000,000 dollars which is equivalent to 3333 subscriptions of Rolling Stone Magazine. Quite the leap, but that isn't even the jest of things. Yes of course with prize money there is going to be a tax on it, 40%-50%, but still even with a split of 1,000,000$ which will be split four ways, each person is going to be walking home with a 100,000$+. The funny thing is, this isn't even the largest prize pool for a video game tournament in esports history. That record belongs to the International Dota 2 event of 2014. This tournament had a prize pool of 10.9 million dollars (the Compedium is a fancy name for the championships of Dota 2)!!! First place received a grand prize of 5.6 million dollars. Millionaires were literally made during the grand final day. An interesting thing to note about this is that the part of the tournament was funded by the Dota 2 community. An innovative feature for fans of the series was the use of Compendium, which allowed fans of the series to purchase special prizes with a portion of the money contributing to the overall prize pool of the Dota 2 tournament. The benefits of this increase is the benefit reward strategy of being able to actively contribute to a company that you support while reaping in the added benefits of in game items. League of Legends has commented about this idea saying that "they were not concerned from a business perspective because they want to keep the prize pool at a amount that has the opportunity to grow over the years. This point of view is respectable in the sense that they don't want to alienate their fan-base by having down years which could apply if the community didn't contribute high amounts each year. The competition between these two games to of "whose prize pool" is good for everyone. It brings competition and driving forces into an already growing industry.

Essentially what I am trying to get out of this is the idea that the community itself is one of the main factors of why the video game industry is so successful. The gaming industry is one of the few industries which allow its fans to make an impact on the overall success. Free to Play, another recent strategy allowing people to "purchase" the game for free. I am sort of rambling at this point but this point is definitely not one to overlook in the future. The argument of whether to offer a game at a retail price or allow for people to purchase it for free will have an effect on whether the game will be successful in the future. Adios.

Sexism and Video Games?

     For my next blog, i wanted to tackle the controversy recently surrounding sexism in the video game industry. An example of sexism is the recent GamerGate escapade that is ongoing.  For those of you that do not know, Gamergate is  "an online movement ostensibly concerned with ethics in game journalism and with protecting the 'gamer' identity" according to gawker. The recent issue was somewhat shocking to myself because among the other video gamers around me, none really talked about this issue. A basic history of the Gamergate controversy and why sexism is involved revolves around the story of Zoe Quinn, a female game developer who developed a game called Depression Quest. You can try out the game for free here. I was one of the brave few who ventured to the website to try out the game. Basically you point and click dialogue boxes as events unfold on separate page windows. Zoe Quinn's game immediately drew criticism from the gaming community, initially because of the context of the game. You don't have any sort of game mentality (example of this would be something like vehicles or guns or puzzles to solve or a open world to roam). Instead you only have the text in front of you and the music which plays throughout the game. Another reason why she received backlash is due to her perceived notion of depression. People did not appreciate the fact that she made a game that dealt with a sensitive topic that resonates deep within the gaming community. 

     Now here is when the issue gets interesting. A group of "gamers" united under the hashtag #Gamergate, which is a reference to actor Adam Baldwin's twitter response tag to  critical videos of Quinn, the developer of the game Depression Quest. The group attacked a number of females including Brianna Wu and Anita Sarkeesian. Sarkeesian is a feminist who critiqued the sexism felt in the game community. Subsequently she was threatened by the Gamergate community and had to an event because of the possibility of harm. The irony in this idea is that while females were targeted by Gamergate for advocating the idea of sexism in the video game community, male figures who spoke out against Gamergate were not specifically targeted. One prime example is Chris Kluwe who is a professional American Football player. When he spoke out against the issue the GamerGate community did no pursue him like they did Quinn and Wu. There is no specific reason why they didn't target male figures who were opposed to the ideology of GamerGate, but speculation is that it was because they were male. To some this would count as an act of misogyny.

     The reason I bring this up, is the fact that this issue surrounding misogyny. Sexism in the gaming industry is a topic that many people consider to not exists. To me there are themes of it in the real world, especially when people threaten female game developers.I feel as though as video games grow, this issue will have to be dealt with. To me there is obviously a issue if people keep constantly bringing it up all over social media. More so if sexism is something that is an issue in the video game community, then for it to be dealt with in the future. I also urge the gaming community to take a look at what they say. If we think about what we say it may have a better impact than just blatantly saying your going to kill them. Video games were something that is fun, the passion , the social interaction and the entertainment is something that needs to be preserved. Not trying to be a white knight or SJW (social justice warrior) by the way. Also the game is not that great (talking about Depression Quest).