IMPress Polly
08-22-2015, 08:18 AM
In 2009, Game Fly ran the following commercial:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ep8lkKxgKc
Like everyone else, I laughed at the exaggeration. But then I thought about something: "You know what, there's no way that Netflix or Barnes & Noble would ever run an analogous commercial for an analogous service." Why not? Because while the Game Fly commercial was obviously exaggerating, there's a nugget of truth about many hardcore gamers...about people like me...contained therein that we all implicitly acknowledged by laughing: other artistic mediums don't produce the same level of anger and volatility in their dedicated consumer base. This, in turn, raised in my mind the question of why we (dedicated gamers) have a reputation for volatility, and that led me to a deeper question: Why do we play video games?
It wasn't the first time I'd asked myself that question. Over the 24 years that I've counted myself a gamer, I've pondered it many times at considerable length. After all, gaming is my favorite hobby, so knowing why people play video games would surely teach me a lot about myself! In my many, lengthy musings over that question, I have come up with only one answer: it's about power. Specifically, it's about the need to feel in control of things. Think about it: What's unique about playing video games? What fundamentally separates the experience of playing a video game from that of watching a movie or a TV show? What is it that attracts so many people more to the former than the latter? It's the ability to control what's happening on-screen to one extent or another! If you don't believe me, consider the fact that professional psychologists consider and treat video game addiction as an addiction to power!
What I'm trying to tell you is that there's a great deal of unspoken pain in the hardcore gaming scene. A lot of us more dedicated players are people who feel that we have little or no control over our own lives, to which end gaming can function as compensation. It can be addicting. I know first-hand, as someone who really has been addicted (by which I mean feeling unable to stop) before. To satisfy our power fantasies, we are, to that end, usually assigned the role of the most important and powerful character in the game and still demand ever more complete control over the play experience. We're so dependent on that feeling of being super-powerful and in control of everything at all times that the absence of that feeling for even on second can set our blood boiling. But is this level of entitlement good for us?
In answer to the above question, earlier this year Jamin Warren ran a pretty good episode of PBS Game/Show on this very topic, which I'll post below. Therein, he argues that things have reached the point where player empowerment is making game content worse. In particular, he argues that it's limiting the range of stories that games can tell and making games so easy that beating them no longer provides us with a real sense of accomplishment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9COt-_3C0xI
In my opinion, he make sound arguments. Combat was a game play mechanic in 76% of the games showcased at this year's E3, for example. Warren points out that the storylines of games that revolve around combat have to (often rather disingenuously) justify all the murder you're required to commit, so the fact that such a large percentage of games use this one approach to play in order to supply us with power fantasies really limits the kinds of narratives that games can offer. I agree with that. Many of the most creative games being made today are adventure games that are utterly non-violent: games like Gone Home and Beyond Eyes (the latter being my new favorite game of the year). Furthermore, it's other, similarly (at least apparently) non-violent adventure titles that I'm looking forward to the most, quite frankly: games like Firewatch and Tacoma that, to judge by their trailers, revolve around solving mysteries rather than around destroying stuff. We need more of those alternate kind of narratives! Storytelling itself seems to take on a stronger role in many such titles, which I think goes to show that combat is often more of a distraction from a game's plot than something that adds to it. (For example, dare to compare how the storytelling in Gone Home feels uninterrupted, in contrast to that of even an outstanding, story-heavy first-person shooter like BioShock Infinite.) Likewise with the ease of play in today's games: Dying in a game today means pretty much nothing since you typically have infinite lives and will only be set back a few feet after say falling off a cliff. That's a far cry from how stiff the challenge level in the average game was in decades past. Indeed, games have been made progressively easier and easier to beat over time, to the point that we expect to beat every game we start now when it used to be considered an epic feat of mastery to beat any game. We've become too entitled to victory for our own good! Victory is no longer fulfilling anymore, or at least not in and of itself!
Warren points out that, furthermore, even within the framework of combat-centric games, there's still room for more diverse experiences that don't one-sidedly revolve around feeding power fantasies. He points to shooting games like Wolfenstein: The New Order and The Last of Us, for example. I could add many others, like the cult classic Okami, in which you gain experience by helping non-playable characters complete tasks in side quests rather than through combat, with most battles being rendered avoidable (even though combat remains a feature of the game) or Sword & Sworcery EP, in which your character becomes progressively weaker as you advance in the game, rather than stronger, finally sacrificing herself at the game's conclusion.
My point is that not everything has to revolve around stroking the player's ego. I definitely think we need more games that don't.
It's not just about diversifying the range of play experiences available to us though. It's also a matter of mental health. The most authoritative body of mental health experts in this country, the American Psychological Association, just this last week released a sweeping new study -- the the most comprehensive one on this subject to date -- finding that there is, in fact, sufficient evidence to conclude that playing ultra-violent games (you know what I mean by that) for extended periods of time on a routine basis tends to decrease empathy and increase aggressiveness and anti-social behavior (http://time.com/4000220/violent-video-games/). (Although to be clear, these findings don't suggest that the type of aggression we're referring to is criminal behavior, so don't draw any premature conclusions about connections to mass shootings and whatnot.) This is another good reason why I think we could stand to have more games that don't revolve around combat in production. For the sake of our mental health, we need fewer games that one-sidedly revolve around defeating others and more than cultivate empathy, I think.
In summation, I believe that gamers today are more empowered than is good either for games themselves or for our own psyches. What do you think? Are gamers too empowered today?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ep8lkKxgKc
Like everyone else, I laughed at the exaggeration. But then I thought about something: "You know what, there's no way that Netflix or Barnes & Noble would ever run an analogous commercial for an analogous service." Why not? Because while the Game Fly commercial was obviously exaggerating, there's a nugget of truth about many hardcore gamers...about people like me...contained therein that we all implicitly acknowledged by laughing: other artistic mediums don't produce the same level of anger and volatility in their dedicated consumer base. This, in turn, raised in my mind the question of why we (dedicated gamers) have a reputation for volatility, and that led me to a deeper question: Why do we play video games?
It wasn't the first time I'd asked myself that question. Over the 24 years that I've counted myself a gamer, I've pondered it many times at considerable length. After all, gaming is my favorite hobby, so knowing why people play video games would surely teach me a lot about myself! In my many, lengthy musings over that question, I have come up with only one answer: it's about power. Specifically, it's about the need to feel in control of things. Think about it: What's unique about playing video games? What fundamentally separates the experience of playing a video game from that of watching a movie or a TV show? What is it that attracts so many people more to the former than the latter? It's the ability to control what's happening on-screen to one extent or another! If you don't believe me, consider the fact that professional psychologists consider and treat video game addiction as an addiction to power!
What I'm trying to tell you is that there's a great deal of unspoken pain in the hardcore gaming scene. A lot of us more dedicated players are people who feel that we have little or no control over our own lives, to which end gaming can function as compensation. It can be addicting. I know first-hand, as someone who really has been addicted (by which I mean feeling unable to stop) before. To satisfy our power fantasies, we are, to that end, usually assigned the role of the most important and powerful character in the game and still demand ever more complete control over the play experience. We're so dependent on that feeling of being super-powerful and in control of everything at all times that the absence of that feeling for even on second can set our blood boiling. But is this level of entitlement good for us?
In answer to the above question, earlier this year Jamin Warren ran a pretty good episode of PBS Game/Show on this very topic, which I'll post below. Therein, he argues that things have reached the point where player empowerment is making game content worse. In particular, he argues that it's limiting the range of stories that games can tell and making games so easy that beating them no longer provides us with a real sense of accomplishment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9COt-_3C0xI
In my opinion, he make sound arguments. Combat was a game play mechanic in 76% of the games showcased at this year's E3, for example. Warren points out that the storylines of games that revolve around combat have to (often rather disingenuously) justify all the murder you're required to commit, so the fact that such a large percentage of games use this one approach to play in order to supply us with power fantasies really limits the kinds of narratives that games can offer. I agree with that. Many of the most creative games being made today are adventure games that are utterly non-violent: games like Gone Home and Beyond Eyes (the latter being my new favorite game of the year). Furthermore, it's other, similarly (at least apparently) non-violent adventure titles that I'm looking forward to the most, quite frankly: games like Firewatch and Tacoma that, to judge by their trailers, revolve around solving mysteries rather than around destroying stuff. We need more of those alternate kind of narratives! Storytelling itself seems to take on a stronger role in many such titles, which I think goes to show that combat is often more of a distraction from a game's plot than something that adds to it. (For example, dare to compare how the storytelling in Gone Home feels uninterrupted, in contrast to that of even an outstanding, story-heavy first-person shooter like BioShock Infinite.) Likewise with the ease of play in today's games: Dying in a game today means pretty much nothing since you typically have infinite lives and will only be set back a few feet after say falling off a cliff. That's a far cry from how stiff the challenge level in the average game was in decades past. Indeed, games have been made progressively easier and easier to beat over time, to the point that we expect to beat every game we start now when it used to be considered an epic feat of mastery to beat any game. We've become too entitled to victory for our own good! Victory is no longer fulfilling anymore, or at least not in and of itself!
Warren points out that, furthermore, even within the framework of combat-centric games, there's still room for more diverse experiences that don't one-sidedly revolve around feeding power fantasies. He points to shooting games like Wolfenstein: The New Order and The Last of Us, for example. I could add many others, like the cult classic Okami, in which you gain experience by helping non-playable characters complete tasks in side quests rather than through combat, with most battles being rendered avoidable (even though combat remains a feature of the game) or Sword & Sworcery EP, in which your character becomes progressively weaker as you advance in the game, rather than stronger, finally sacrificing herself at the game's conclusion.
My point is that not everything has to revolve around stroking the player's ego. I definitely think we need more games that don't.
It's not just about diversifying the range of play experiences available to us though. It's also a matter of mental health. The most authoritative body of mental health experts in this country, the American Psychological Association, just this last week released a sweeping new study -- the the most comprehensive one on this subject to date -- finding that there is, in fact, sufficient evidence to conclude that playing ultra-violent games (you know what I mean by that) for extended periods of time on a routine basis tends to decrease empathy and increase aggressiveness and anti-social behavior (http://time.com/4000220/violent-video-games/). (Although to be clear, these findings don't suggest that the type of aggression we're referring to is criminal behavior, so don't draw any premature conclusions about connections to mass shootings and whatnot.) This is another good reason why I think we could stand to have more games that don't revolve around combat in production. For the sake of our mental health, we need fewer games that one-sidedly revolve around defeating others and more than cultivate empathy, I think.
In summation, I believe that gamers today are more empowered than is good either for games themselves or for our own psyches. What do you think? Are gamers too empowered today?