Community, nerdfighters, and games

Recently I've been watching the vlogbrothers, and by "watching" I mean I started with their first videos in 2007, have been going through their playlists, and now I'm almost done with 2011. Now, theres allot of interesting things in that many videos, but the one to talk about first is the nerdfighters themselves.



French the llama, nerdfighters are awesome!
(This pic is from the tumblr of A Film to Decrease Worldsuck)

Sorry, for those who just got confused, nerdfighters are a community that sprang up around the vlogbrothers' videos (and John's books and Hank's songs) and while they are fans, it seems inaccurate to just call them fans. They are, but they're not just getting together and geeking out about a shared interest; they're also raising money for charities, and doing other projects, and having meaningful discussion about many varied topics.

But that's actually what I wanted to talk about: what communities do once they do come together for whatever reason. What really impresses me about Nerdfighteria (the community of nerdfighters) is not just the great things they've done and continue to do, but the values they advocate and the support they provide. Its something my archive binge really highlighted, because in the early videos you can watch the role John and Hank have in shaping that.



Cunning masterminds that they are.

Nerdfighter history, oversimplified
Their channel started as Brotherhood 2.0, where they corresponded through daily vlog posts, and from the beginning there was engagement with commenters, responding to them and making spaces for them. It progressed to creating the "Foundation to Decrease Suck Levels Worldwide" (opening it up) and discussing what a nerdfighter identity meant. Eventually they started supporting these conversations with forums (named "My Pants" for great puns, then later "Your Pants" when it was remade), challenging the community to do things (which they did...and then more significantly), and then  realizing its capability, working with that community to try to make the world better.

So now, they have the events  like the annual Project for Awesome to raise money for charity, Esther-day and the This Star Won't Go Out Foundation (in honor of the nerdfighter Esther, who they lost to cancer). And John and Hank themselves keep making videos that keep people engaged, explain important issues entertainingly, and reinforce the values of the community. Values including empathy and inclusiveness and enthusiasm and initiative and critically thinking about issues or thinking about them complexly, ie not being a jerk, doing awesome things and being excited about them, and geeking out in ways that help understand the world and/or help solve problems. And yes, I'm including understanding yourself as part of the world.

And yes, I'm a big fan of those values, in case that wasn't clear.
(Side note:  this may be the first original image I've made for a post)

 

Too much awesome for one community
But ok, so the nerdfighters self-describedly made of awesome, but what about other communities? Well that brings me to Harry Potter. So lots of nerdfighters are Harry Potter fans (especially Hank), and after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, nerdfighteria teamed up with the Harry Potter Alliance (which reminds me of the Hypothalamo-Pituitary-Adrenal axis every time I abbreviate it HPA, because I've TA'd too many neuro courses) to send relief and supplies. And the HPA has ongoing efforts to increase worldwide literacy.
So that's a fan group that's doing great stuff, too.

So that got me thinking about communities, and that great Wil Wheaton quote that "It doesn't matter what you love, it matters how you love it", and how much benefit people can get and provide from communities, even if its only marginally related to why they originally came together.

And how, particularly with video games, some communities are such positive spaces and some are so toxic.

"Nice to meet you, too"

Now, if you're a game designer, you probably have your own vision for the game you're creating. But if there is any concern for its impact on the world, it seems like the kind of community its likely to attract and support should be considered. I touched on this a bit in the Minecraft post,; how the game itself is going to attract certain people and influence others in certain ways. Minecraft is such a creative space, its probably both attracting creative people who want to make things and make new tools to make things, and perhaps at the same time introducing that kind of mindset to people who hadn't encountered it much before. And you get a community sharing resources to create new things, and plethora of mods and how-to guides.

On the other side of the coin, you look at some of the more infamously "toxic" communities. To reuse some language, from a soulless business perspective these are bad for your game because it scares away new players, new paying customers, and with a soul its even worse for just being a stressful, negative space in people's lives. If the important question is "how are these people are loving these things" the answer is "in a bad way".

But the important questions I have are 1) are there video game communities that are even trying to have the kind of  positive impact nerdfighters are, and 2) how do you make games that  would attract/develop/facilitate/support such communities?

Ok, yes, technically that game has such a community,
but that's not what I meant.

 Let me know what you think in the comments.

photo credit:  gamasutra, Carnegie hall

P.S. in case anyone was concerned about my "nerd credentials", 1) I'd say stop trying to exclude people, 2) I'd point out the bit where Harry Potter reminds me of neuroscience. On my blog thats largely critical and design analysis of video games. That I write as a break from working on my dissertation, in which I'm designing and testing a video game that teaches evolutionary biology. So yeah . . . =P

PC vs. Tabletop Gaming for Characters

As you may have noticed from previous posts, I'm a big fan of tabletop rpgs and board games as well as video games. Now this leads to one of the interesting little tensions I have with discussing video games; recreationally, I don't really play them to explore character or story, but basically just for gameplay. Thats not to say story or character aren't important, or I don't appreciate them. A better story and characters were a big part of the improvements between Borderlands 1 and 2, though both great.

Also 2 had a villain you could really love to hate.

But if I actually want to explore a character, I do it in tabletop. Its just not even a comparison (If you have a good group and Game Master). With a tabletop game, you can literally do anything you and the GM can come up with, possibly on the fly if they're good at ad-libbing. When Yahtzee talked about Fable 2 he made a joke about "Why can't I marry my dog?" and even if you still can't in Fable 2: the TTRPG, you could roleplay out your character meeting with officials and clergy trying to set it up, if that was something you really wanted to explore and the Gm and other players were ok with.

"This is not how the campaign was pitched to me. . ."

As opposed to just not having the affordance, not even having an option. To be clear, I'm not saying Fable 2 should've allowed you to marry your dog; its an example of a GM being able to adapt the game to player interests, rather than letting them explore within more concretely defined boundaries, aka the things programmed in.

Now, within those rules, video games can be absolutely amazing. If I want to hack n' slash, build a base and lead an army, shoot things in the face, pilot a spacefighter, or even explore a world while doing those things, video games can be great.

And ye gods the atmosphere and immersion,
when done right.

Thats the thing though; I'll play those games to do those specific things, because they're great at them. But the characters in those games can only do the things that the designers thought of them doing. Video games are interactive and do let you affect the story and how things happen, but its just on a different scale from a tabletop game, where you can end up going in completely different direction than was originally intended, for better or worse.

This does make it interesting talking about video games as a storytelling medium, though. They still tell great stories, and let you create great characters and affect the world. They have the potential to create really dynamic worlds the shift with your actions. I love watching the medium develop...but right now it just can't compare to a skilled human being pulling on notes and making up stuff on the fly for me.

"Thats right, as the king goes to shake my hand I fireball him. What now?"

What about you?

Photo credit: dogcentral.info, tweakguides.com, ohiobusinesscollege.edu

How the collapse of AAA games would be good for women and marriages (and games)

Ok, that may be overstating it, but if you think about trends in the games industry and their consequences (both in the industry and for consumers) I think there could be some real opportunities ahead. Full disclosure: my background isn’t in business and I’m not really in the industry, but I follow industry news and commentators like other people follow sports and the things they’re saying are very interesting when taken together.

"Well Bob, considering the player stats and design
history, this MMO looks like a big win for Bartle's model

of player behavior"

"...who are you and how did you get in here?"

Games makers big and small
So starting with the triple A games, theres been allot of buzz lately about the “failures” of some AAA games according to their makers that would’ve been great success for anyone else. This was the story for Tomb Raider and Resident Evil 6 and was covered nicely by the Jimquisition. To summarize, 1) companies try to make more impressive game to get higher sales, 2) so they invest more in games and create huge teams, 3) and with those huge production costs, the games need more sales to break even, and 4) to hit those sales goals the games have to appeal to the broadest audience. So companies making the biggest, shiniest games also make the least risky games they can, and need those big sales numbers to break even. Meaning they produce very pretty, but increasingly tired (cause new things are risky) games, and can be a loss even with millions of sales. And this can become a cycle where when they don't "flop" they reinvest in a bigger team for the next game, which has to be more broadly appealing and safe, until the "flop" is catastrophic.

"So according to these numbers, as long as everyone in the country
not working for this company buys a copy of
Generica: War of Battle this quarter, we'll be ok."

Now, thats the worst case when this cycle gets out of control. Its not what all big games are looking like, but it is pattern people are seeing, are worried about. Theres talk about  "unsustainable models" and other gloomy terminology. Some big companies are trying to avoid these issues there with additional revenue like microtransactions or making only franchises, but this story isn’t just about the big companies; at the other end of the budget spectrum, allot of exciting things are happening in the indie or smaller studio spaces at the same time. 

There’s been a building narrative about the rise of smaller game makers, from having more access to consumers with Steam (and other digital distribution) to being able to get funding from Kickstarter. Its been helped by indie hits like Minecraft, where a small group (or one person) makes something that’s way too risky for big companies but finds a huge audience and provides a massive return to its producers.

So there’s a stew of articles floating around about the flawed model of larger studios and the increasing relevance of “the indie scene” and smaller studios. This is great news for getting more interesting games, but I think the really interesting opportunity for smaller studios isn’t just in creative or technical risks, but cultural and institutional “risks”.

What does that even...oh right, I forgot the title of the post.

Current problems
The huge investments aren’t the only factor homogenizing games; at a more basic level the same kinds of people ("childless 31 year old white men") tend to be making games targeting the same audience (boys; see below) no matter what kind of game you’re trying to make. Now, that’s not good creatively, since diverse perspectives and approaches should produce more diverse and richer games, but its actually worse than it seems for two reasons: 1) In the linked article (which I highly recommend you read and will be riffing off of for the rest of this post) one thing you'll notice is that the issue isn’t just the exclusion of women, but the turnover rate. With few notable exceptions, if you want a stable life or family, you get out of the game industry rather than actually staying, so it lacks the benefits of having more experienced veterans. 2) The kinds of people being excluded from production and market targeting ARE MOST OF THE PEOPLE ACTUALLY PLAYING VIDEO GAMES.

What is wrong with you!?

 Sorry for the caps, but this boggles my mind every time I think about it. According to the ESA, the average age of a gamer is 30 and  45% of video gamers are women. Why why why is everyone still marketing to adolescent boys?

 

Don't give me that look; you are and you know it.
This horse is beaten enough.

I’m not saying that the non-inclusive culture in production isn’t at least as big an issue, and I’ll come back to that, but the aggressiveness of this particular stupidity gets me every time. It isn't doing something bad (both in terms of development of the medium and perceptions of it as juvenile) in order to make more money. I wouldn't like that but I'd understand it. This irritates me because it seems to be hurting everyone involved for no reason. (Yes, technically there may be historical reasons and inertia, but its persistence seems dumb). 

You even get stories about how standard focus tests don't include women though we just said they're 45% of the audience of video games in general. Setting aside larger moral issues, I don't understand this financially. Why discount that much of your potential audience, your potential paying customers? From soulless economics perspective its bad, and with a soul that cares about alienating others and stunting the medium, its even worse.

The generous interpretation is that its simple incompetence rather than maliciousness outdated prejudices.

Ok, we get it, its bad, moving on.

The bigger issue is the culture behind those kind of marketing and design decisions, though. A culture where 5% of the programmers and 10% of the designers are female . Where theres no time for family, and the average person leaves after 5 years for another industries (not job, but a different industry). And reportedly the workers' industry advocates don't actually advocate to actually help.
Maybe culture isn't the right word, but something like mindset or institutional expectations. Theres even stories from QA professionals who note the massive shift in environment between games companies and other software (spoiler: other software is a more stable gig).

Thats not a healthy work environment, and its not a good creative environment. 

Its especially bad when it even trickles down to the high school level, and crushes the dreams of female enthusiasts. That story breaks my heart. (After seeing bad cases of burnout in grad school, anytime someone's passion gets crushed out of them it tugs the heartstrings)

Sorry, its about to get more optimistic, I promise.

Ok, so as the links attest, all that badness has been covered other places (and I'm a fan of PAR). 

Putting it together

But how does this relate to the original trend for smaller developers? 

Because again, smaller projects can take more risks, and its important to make sure we're not just talking about creative risks here (though those are important too).

Because challenging these short-sighted, biased practices is seen as a risk. Part of the reason you see the difficulty in focus testing and stories like this (about how games with female protagonists get less marketing money and don't do as well commercially, but those two variables are confounded, confound it!) is because big companies and their investors see changes to those practices as risky. 

Women? I don't know about this.

Changing things at smaller companies or studios is easier (because theres less invested money at stake) and if they're successful, its more likely other small companies will change too. This is the opportunity I think is getting left out of the conversation about big companies and indies right now; its not just that indies have the freedom to take risks creatively, but have  the freedom to take risks organizationally.
The freedom to try to make things there better as well as to make better things. 

Its...so...beautiful....

Ok, maybe it wouldn't be that good, but it wouldn't take much to be better than it is currently.

And you can even see it in some places now: Indies with more diverse protagonists and perspectives. Those encouraging stories are coming out: like the people at Hawken being open and supportive about discussing gender, and places like Nine Dots trying to have a new model of making games without burnout, and allowing its people to have lives outside of work.

So in short, if there is a shift toward smaller budgets and smaller teams making games, it could set the stage for big improvements in how games are made, as well as the games themselves. There will always be a market for some AAA games, but hopefully if the current model for making them does start crashing, some great things could grow out of the wreckage.

Preferably great things that aren't poisonous.

Let me know what you make of all this in the comments.

photocredit: DarkangelX, buttercup festival, advancedaquarist

Prototype 2 and Serious Silliness

As I said when talking about SR3, I enjoyed Prototype 2. It feels enormously free and empowering the way you can run and glide across the city, shapeshift and get the drop on people, and even knock tanks around. You really feel superhuman compared to most people in the game (though there are still enough challenges you don't completely overpower to keep it interesting). Its a blast.

Ok, thats not what I meant, but also like that.

Exploring the freedom and possibilities of that powerset was interesting enough, it even formed the inspiration for my character in a tabletop RPG campaign.

Now, I stopped playing Prototype 2 and can't right now for technical reasons, but thinking on it I was struck by the disconnect between the fun it is to run around and tear up the world, and gruff, angriness of Heller, your avatar doing these things. No, this isn't about "ludo-narrative dissonance" or at least not entirely; its about a more specific issue that applies to other media that the disconnect highlights here. Its about the way Prototype 2 suggests that its makers thought that to tell a "serious" story with "real drama" things have to be dark and negative all the time. Or perhaps its better to say that the story they wanted to tell involved a character who's angry all the time.

"This is my happy face": if you google "happy james heller", even the fan art is always angry.

The flaw in that thinking is especially apparent here because they knew how to make a fun open, game: the game knows players sometimes want to be serious and sneaky and objective focused and sometimes want to screw around and do things just because they can (like rampage or jump as far as they can off buildings) and allows them to do it. However, the story says the character is serious business all the time, and thats why you get this dissonance.

I'm actually less interested in the dissonance between play and story here than I am in the larger ideas that produced that story, namely that to be serious drama, you can't have fun or be funny. Which we can agree is wrong...

...right?

Right??

Silliness and fun are not mutually exclusive with deep, resonant emotional drama. At minimum it can break tension and add variety so the punches hit harder due to contrast. At best it makes everything more real and affecting. Things can be both fun and deeply moving. There are all kinds of examples from film and literature (not the least of which being Up! with its balloon house and talking dogs), but since I got here thinking about Prototype 2, the examples to bring up seem to be Trigun and Cowboy Bebop. After all, I've  hit comics, video games, and TTRPGs previously, so anime rounds out the nerdity nicely.

Anyone who's seen those and compares Heller to Spike or Vash should know exactly where I'm going with this. For those not familiar, Vash is the central character of Trigun, one of the  best gunfighters on a planet of  wild west, and can level city by himself. When not arguing about the value of life with specific villains, he spends much of the series acting like a complete goof.

Well, maybe not complete; Who doesn't like donuts?

Spike is a similarly super-capable bounty hunter in Bebop, but unless in mortal peril or dealing with his past, treats almost everything as a joke. I bring them up as a possible way a game could reconcile the type of grim revenge story Prototype 2 apparently wants to tell with a main character going on easter eggs hunts between missions; characters that present a fun, interesting face and set of behaviors to the world while still being dramatic when appropriate.

"This is my serious face"

Actually its easier for Heller, even if he does start as a revenge obsessed Angry Black Man; this is a guy whose body just got transformed, and is ingesting a jillion other people's memories over the course of the game, so it would make sense to deal with it by behaving oddly. Playing off Heller doing whatever (in non-specific terms, of course) between missions as part of dealing with the massive changes hes dealing with would both be a more believable character than taking it in stride, more in line with how he is being played (by most people, I suspect), and because of those it would have more impact when he does put his game face on for a mission that means something to him.

As it is, all of Heller's lines kind of blur together; his main characterization is "I am angry", sometimes ranging to "I am confused about who to be angry at", so he becomes very predictable and uninteresting, particularly compared to Mercer and Blackwatch's maneuvering. With a little more variety of tone, the dramatic moments would hit harder since there was more contrast and we identified with him more.

I mean c'mon, even Batman knows you have to have a little fun sometimes.

So do you think that kind of characterization would've made the game more of less enjoyable? Let me know in comments.

PS, when it comes to seriousness, I've always liked the quote:
When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up. -CS Lewis


photo credit: prototype.wikia.com, ~ahmedshadow.deviantart.com, imgur.com, lidafilmmaker.wordpress.com

Considering Transmet and Planetary, not paid for by Mr. Ellis

A while ago I thought about it and realized I would say Warren Ellis is my current favorite author. At the time this was replacing Heinlein, who I grew up reading and still enjoy, but I either grew out of it or my tastes changed, as happens. I really enjoyed Transmetropolitan, Planetary, Global Frequency, the start of "The Authority", Stormwatch's "Change or Die" series, Freakangels, and later Supergod and Black Summer.

Also Nextwave. Definitely enjoyed Nextwave.

Now, when considering which of those is my favorite, something interesting happens: my gut response is to say "Transmet is the best, but Planetary is my personal favorite". I'm saying it, so clearly I agree, but it sounds weird even to me. So I'm going to try to put it in a way that makes sense. (If you haven't read them, here are some summaries.)

I think the reason I make that distinction is that it feels like Transmet is richer and the story and themes have more impact, but I enjoy Planetary more. I like the feel of it, the way it reimagines and appreciates old stories, and all the way it is and is not a superhero story. And the motto resonates with me.

Anyone on the internet should know how true this is,
but people pretends its not all the time.

That seems to be the core of it; I evaluate Transmet as being higher quality in many ways, but I still enjoy Planetary more. Its that disconnect of a movie critic that can tell you the best made film they've seen, and the B-movie they always love to watch. Not that Planetary is bad, of course. Planetary's characters are great and compared to comics where "Reed Richards is useless" the impacts on the world here are so refreshing. But the way Transmet builds the world, develops the characters, and while it explores how truth, power,  society, and government relate is so well done.

I think you get what I'm saying.

So Transmet feels more significant, but I enjoy the rollercoaster of tones and subversions in Planetary. What about you? Any "favorites" where you're comparing apples and oranges  and don't have one answer?

photo credit: agilityfusion.com