Announcement!

While !Finished has a new home!

From now on all new posts will be available at http://whilenotfinished.theirisnetwork.org.

The IRIS Network publishes Cerise Magazine, keeps a directory of women game bloggers, and hosts several blogs as well. It's also an amazing community, and I'm excited and proud to be contributing to it through doing interviews for Cerise and now blogging about games.

I hope y'all will join me there~

Dear Developers

(This entry is part of the July Round Table at Man Bytes Blog. Check out the other entries here or via the drop-down menu at the end of this wall o' text.)

I will probably not make it through your game if I have to play any given boss or section more than three times.

I don't play games to be frustrated, and in my mind, when I'm playing a game, any frustration that lasts for more than five minutes can't be "good" or "motivating" frustration. I will never play N+, or a hardcore roguelike. Wanting to break something--most likely the expensive piece of electronics in my hands--is not my idea of a good time. When a review says a game is "punishingly difficult," I direct my browser elsewhere. When I get frustrated, I take a break from the game--sometimes for good.

There are plenty of games that I claim to enjoy or even love that I have not finished. Odin Sphere, Dragon Quest VIII, Shadow of the Colossus, the original Legend of Zelda, the first two Metroid Prime games, and more all sit stagnant in my collection, and every time I get the urge to play one of them I remember the frustratingly difficult section that made me stop to begin with.

Instead of the challenge, I play games for the experience. The story. To immerse myself in a world crafted by a team of creative and technological minds. I want to discover, to relax, and to have fun. Part of what makes games such an interesting medium is that people get different things out of them, and experience them in different ways. The best part? All these ways are equally valid.

Two games I'm currently playing are Assassin's Creed and Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. I'm not particularly far into either, but even so, I can tell you which game I will get completely through and which one I will not. (Hint: it's the one with an easy mode!)

So please, include that easy mode. It's just considerate.

The Lesser of Two Evils: Altair and the Assassin's Creed

When it comes to Altair, protagonist of last year's most polarizing game, Assassin's Creed, I'm torn between adoration and disgust. On the one hand, Altair is a total badass who can run across rooftops and climb church towers with ease. On the other, he is really not so nice a guy, even aside from the whole assassin thing.

It's clear Ubisoft put a lot of focus on the free running system (which, by the way, is pure fun) and the animations that go along with it. The animations in particular convey a lot about Altair: he moves with confidence, even arrogance, and runs, leaps, and climbs with the grace of a skilled athlete. Upon reaching a perch high above Jerusalem, Altair crouches on a thin plank like it's no big deal. He's like a cat; he even swaggers a bit when he walks.

All of this goes quite some way to endear him to the player (or to me, at least). Yes, he's a cocky little bastard, but he can clearly back up all that talk.

And yet the game constantly reminds you that, while (in the first three missions, which is as far as I've gotten) Altair's targets are clearly evil men--the first brutally stabs and murders an innocent man in the middle of a public square--Altair himself is merely the less evil of the two. The evil side of our murderous protagonist is shown through both not only in cutscenes, but through certain game mechanics as well.

It is made clear off the bat that Altair doesn't think much of the Creed, one rule of which states that assassins must not kill innocents, when he murders an old man in the opening scene of the game. Soon enough, the assassin leader demotes Altair (losing most of the sync bar and his weapons) for breaking the Creed and causing a lot of trouble. Altair isn't phased; the leader and the men at the Assassin's Bureaus scold his continued arrogance and disdain for the Creed.

Altair's violent personality is reflected in the options available for interacting with the people of the various cities he travels to. Of particular note is the game's somewhat troublesome treatment of the homeless beggars.

Women beggars (they are all women, as are the citizens you can rescue, which strikes me as very strange, not to mention unrealistic) are placed in certain areas of a given city, and when Altair enters that area, they will run up to him and harass him for money, prevent his movement, and draw attention to him by loudly telling him about their poor starving family.

At first I felt bad for them, but as they became more and more abundant and really began to impede my progress, I just felt annoyed. The only options given to the player to deal with them are to gently push them out of the way if you're not in a hurry, or if you are, kill or beat them. You can't give donations (another odd thing, given that you can pickpocket "thugs", though for knives, not money).

That the violent reaction, however, falls in line with Altair's character: the arrogant killer we're supposed to be rooting for. The game defies expectations by not making the protagonist a noble rebel killing off truly evil men who deserve what they get, and the gameplay is not conflicting with the story here, which is good. Every other investigative option given to Altair thus far is violent, with the exception of eavesdropping, but that's easy and it comes at no cost to Altair at all (whereas giving alms would cost him money he could spend on weapons and whatnot). As disgusting as it is, this is our protagonist through and through. (That said, I would like to see Ubisoft take a different approach to this in future installments.)

So I want to like Altair, with his effortless skill and arrogant ways, but I can't, because he's only slightly better than the men he's sent to kill. Of course, having only finished the first two assassinations, I'm looking forward to seeing what character arc (if any!) occurs as the story progresses.

Games I'd Like to See: Fire-Breathing Edition

I'd really like to play a good dragon game. Drakan was all right, but the controls went counter to every other flying game out there. And we all know about Lair. Why do we keep asking "When will we get the Citizen Kane of video games?" when what we should be asking is "When will we get the Dragonheart of video games?"

While we're asking these silly hypotheticals, I think "Where is the Watchmen of video games?" is a much better question than either of the ones above. Or have we gotten our Watchmen already? What would that involve?

How the World Ends

(Contains some vague spoilers for the first third ofThe World Ends With You.)

The World Ends with You for the DS is, like its PS2 cousin Kingdom Hearts, very much a game about friendship and teamwork. While both games deal with this theme in a way that's fairly heavy-handed, only in TWEWY does it result in one of the most unique RPG combat systems in a while.

As a quick overview: combat in TWEWY, an action RPG, takes place on both screens of the DS. Neku, the protagonist, fights on the bottom screen and is controlled using various slashes, touches, and taps of the stylus. Simultaneously, Neku's partner--for the first third of the game, a fashion-loving girl named Shiki--fights on the top screen and is controlled using the D-pad (or A/B/X/Y buttons for lefties). For Shiki, the combat involves the player hitting directional buttons to follow a path to one of three cards in order to match three cards at the top of the screen; when three cards are matched, a Fusion attack--a flashy team-up attack that damages all enemies on-screen--becomes available.

What really makes the battle system a team effort between the characters is the light puck, a ball of green light that gets passed back and forth between Neku and Shiki like a sparkly tennis ball (or the magic projectiles volleyed between Ganondorf and Link in many of their epic confrontations). In order to send the light puck to their partner, the player must inflict a certain amount of damage before the puck fades away. Continued volleys increase each character's attack (some enemies can only be damaged when the character has the light puck) and net more experience points at the end of battle. The light puck simultaneously adds depth to the already intricate battle system, streamlines the dual-screen combat by giving the player an idea of which screen to focus on at a given moment, and emphasizes the game's theme of teamwork and friendship; it contributes to both gameplay and story.

In TWEWY, the two characters fighting together actually communicate with each other, calling "I've got this!" and "Good job, Neku!" as the light puck bounces back and forth. This natural battle-chatter is something you don't realize is missing from RPG battles until you hear it done well.

In a larger sense, the characters become stronger as the relationship between them becomes stronger. As Neku and Shiki face greater obstacles and stronger enemies, they bond over their shared hardship and learn to trust each other. By the end of the seven days of the Reapers' Game, Neku and Shiki are close friends and promise to meet each other after the Game ends. It's rather elegant that the gameplay reflects and emphasizes this growing relationship, unlike many games where, because of gameplay design decisions, the player can choose to act in a way that is completely different than what the story dictates the character(s) should be like.

June 2008 issue of Cerise!

... is out! The theme is Heroines and Villainesses.

Check it out, it's my premier issue as an interviewer~

Liking Something Sexist Doesn't Necessarily Make You Sexist

I had to comment on this because I am dismayed and disappointed by Leigh Alexander's thoughts here, and surprisingly impressed with some of the Kotaku readers.

Alexander does two seriously unprofessional things in this post: 1. Puts words in Samhita's (of Feministing) mouth, and 2. Attacks Feministing, both without addressing the actual issue here: that GTA IV is a sexist game. And it is, there is no doubt about it.

However, enjoying GTA IV doesn't make you a sexist. Here is where Alexander's scramble to defend the game comes in: she's not a sexist--she's a woman, in fact!--and she likes GTA IV, so it must be okay! Yeah, no. First of all, she writes, "Are those who enjoy [GTA IV] misogynists? Feminist interest blog Feministing certainly thinks so..." which is totally inaccurate. Samhita didn't say anything of the sort. Where did Alexander get this from?

Example time: I enjoy the Phoenix Wright games, which contain, among other issues, a male gaze-rife portrayal of one of the female characters. The second game also has a racist portrayal of a Native American. Does enjoying Phoenix Wright make me sexist or a racist? Of course not. But I'm not naive enough to pretend the games are an equality fest.

Alexander brings out the usual arguments against criticisms of GTA IV (all of which avoid the real issue)--the Mature rating, the social satire aspect, the idea that the game just reflects real-world sexism. It's imitating life, huh? If that's so, where are the male prostitutes? Where are the male strippers? Why are there no women with personality? If the game is "about choice", then why can't you date a man, or hell, be friends with a woman? Why are all women potential dates, and therefore potential sex partners? Surely there are plenty of men--even mobsters--out there in the real world who have female friends they don't sleep with?

Alexander goes on to say:

To call misogyny here is divisive, actually, implying that the treatment of women needs to be elevated above the treatment of any other group – as if “woman” were a separate, special "race" with a unified mind. We aren’t, thank you.

In fact, with all due respect for the feminist community, demand for that sort of favoritism seems to breed resentment – perhaps even the very resentment that GTA IV provides the framework to explore. Just who are those large-breasted logo silhouettes on Feministing's website supposed to be giving the middle finger to, anyway?

First of all, if you think feminists want women to have special treatment, you're incredibly off-base. Go read the Feminism 101 blog. Feminists want equality, not preferential treatment for women. And the treatment of people in this game is not equal between women and men.

Secondly, totally avoiding the subject while criticizing the Feministing site? (The logo is a reclamation of the mudflap girl, by the way--much like Bitch Magazine is a reclamation of the word "bitch.") Not a good way to make an argument. It also angers me because the online gaming culture is already so anti-feminist that Alexander's comments just reinforce that mindset. There are definitely things to criticize about Samhita's post, but attacking her and the site is not the way to go about it.

The complaint is that the game reinforces the misogyny already well entrenched in our culture. Just because other things are worse, just because that's the way it is, just because it's a game, just because it's supposedly satire, just because Samhita didn't play the game, doesn't make it not sexist. In fact, there are people out there who played the game, enjoyed it, and found it sexist! Hey, here are two of them!

I applaud Kotaku commenters KcP and badasscat for their eloquent points.

So relax, Alexander, you're not a sexist for liking GTA IV. You're a sexist for denying that the game is at the very least problematic.

Now That It's Out There, It Seems So Obvious

Reading this brief but insightful post at Man Bytes Blog was like a sudden epiphany. It makes so much sense! (In short, Corvus says that it's a character's relationships that make them interesting, not the traits of the character themself.) Thinking about my favorite characters in popular media, I've been able to apply this idea to every single one.

Phoenix Wright, for example, is a lovable but somewhat forgettable character on his own. It's the trust in his clients, his brotherly affection for Maya, and (most interesting to me) his friendship with Edgeworth that make him an interesting and unique character. (By the way, Phoenix and Edgeworth are totally in love, and if you don't believe me, play Justice for All again and pay attention this time.)

Similarly, for most of the games, Gumshoe is a full-blown "bumbling detective" stereotype (who is also lovable and funny), but becomes much more three-dimensional when his crush on Maggey is revealed.

I could go on all day. Are there any games that involves the player actually forming an interesting relationship with the player? Not ones between distinct characters, such as between Jade and Pey'j in Beyond Good and Evil, but with the actual player, or the stand-in for the player that they control? Mass Effect is the only one I can think of off the top of my head, and even that isn't particularly deep, from what I've heard.

I've always understood that the relationships between characters were something that interested me, but I didn't realize just how important they--as well as a character's relationships with their environment, and so on--are.

Quick note: I'm trying to play through Majora's Mask so I can write about it, but so far my game has frozen twice in the middle of Snowhead temple (my least favorite of all of them), and I've lost way too much progress thanks to the damn convoluted saving system, so I'm not sure when I'll get to write about that. Hopefully eventually.

Setting and the Physical Language of Puzzles

I'd like to clarify my use of the word "should" in the last post. Game areas should form a cohesive game world iff this is a goal of the game design. Functioning worlds (by which I mean worlds that appear to have feasible ecosystems, economies, etc. within the fiction) are not important or necessary for all games, certainly; it's not a good idea to try to limit possibilities here. For a game that seeks to immerse the player in its world and/or story, which very many games try to do, the world should make some sense, or it will detract from the immersion.

To go back to my Metroid Prime 3 example: would MP3 be a better game if this imposed interface were more blended into the world, if it made more sense for those spherical crevices to be there in the first place?

I'm not convinced it's even possible. One gameplay component of Metroid Prime is the puzzles, and to have a good puzzle, you need to set up the physical language that the player interacts with and can "read" to solve the puzzle. The different devices in Metroid Prime, for example: the player sees a small glowing circle and learns, from the tutorial and from doing it over and over, that when they see one of those circles, they're supposed to turn into a ball and drop an explosive in the hole. In this sense, puzzles in Metroid Prime are simply a matter of reading the symbols.

(Similarly, The Legend of Zelda develops its own language with the player: the player learns that a certain target will stick to the hookshot; how far Link can jump or if he has to use the hover boots; what rocks can be blown up with bombs; and so on.)

The point is, if the various technologies on each planet were more unique and made more sense, it would obscure the puzzle language that is very clear the way it is now. If that were to change, at minimum it would be the same problem with a thin layer of paint over it, causing some frustration for the player while not enhancing immersion at all. At the extreme it would cause gameplay that requires the player to relearn the same simple activities at every planet, and not allow the player to reuse knowledge from the last world, limiting the player's sense of advancement. So in this case, making a more "immersive" universe in this sense would be detrimental to Metroid Prime 3's gameplay.

I get the feeling the environments in Metroid Prime were designed more for cool factor than immersion, which is totally fine by me.

Settings in Games Overview

In online discussions I keep bringing up how I want to see more variety in game settings, and I will be going into the topic more in-depth in the future, but I wanted to talk about it a little because of this recent post at MTV Multiplayer: Game Diary -- May 7, 2008 (a comparison of The World Ends With You and GTA IV and how they evoke a sense of place).

First off, I can't wait to get my hands on The World Ends With You. Everything I've heard sounds fantastic.

But anyway, place. Too often, games reuse the same old--or at least very similar--settings over and over. They tend to fall into three categories:

1. The War-Torn Future. These games tell us that our descendants will have nothing to look forward to but martial law due to alien invasions and/or interstellar war. Think mostly-deserted planets with ruined buildings and/or military outposts. Recent games of this setting can be easily identified by the gray-brown pallette and "grit". Setting of many a first-person shooter.
Examples: Halo, Resistance, Gears of War, Doom, Frontlines, Mass Effect.

2. The War-Torn Past. World War II, usually.
Examples: Call of Duty 3. Lots more.

3. Ye Olde Fantasyland*, or Fake Medieval England. Forests and quaint villages, along with castles and horses and knights and princesses.
Examples: Fable, Lord of the Rings, The Elder Scrolls, Final Fantasy I.

Many major franchises fall into one of these three categories (funnily enough, games actually set in the present or near past are not that common). Some notable exceptions are the later games of the Final Fantasy series (I haven't played the middle ones and the first one is definitely #3 above), X and XII in particular. Both had unique environments that were part of a cohesive world, which operated on its own as well as being essential to the plot. This brings me to my next point:

Unique visual environments are important, but game worlds shouldn't be a patchwork of levels sewn together by necessity of gameplay. The areas should form an operating world, and moreover, this operation should have some bearing on not only the plot but the characters and the way they interact with and look at the world--their world. This is essential to create a game world that feels cohesive and immersive.

To give an example of an exception that falls just a bit short, the various worlds in the Metroid Prime games are beautiful and unique (especially in Corruption), but in every area it's the same switches and round slots that Samus interacts with while exploring. Why should beings that look like insects have machinery operated by detonating a bomb in a spherical recess? And why should this same technology exist on all the planets? That just doesn't make sense.

It's not something that bothers me while I'm playing, but in the end it does undermine the worlds that have been created. The visual style, atmosphere, and architecture of the places all go a long way to telling something about the inhabitants of the planet, and yet it's as if someone imposed an interface onto the entire universe so that Samus can interact with it. Which is exactly what really happened, because it's a game. The immersion is wounded. (But would Corruption be a truly better game with better immersion? Hard to say; this is something I'll address in the future.)

That's all for now; I'll be revisiting this topic several more times in the future.

_____________________________________
*I know I've heard this phrase before in reference to fantasy novels, but upon googling it I must attribute it to Shawn Elliot at 1UP (fantastic article, by the way--read it!).

A Brief Summary of Sexism in GTA IV

(... with informative links! Last updated: 6/1)

As someone who is completely in favor of games as a recognized art form, and who will be attempting to critique games with that mindset in the near future (I swear), I feel compelled to call out sexism in video games when I see it. And nowhere in video games is it more blatant than in GTA IV.

First, some facts:
-- I am not in favor of having the game banned or otherwise censored. Free speech and all that.
-- No, I haven't played the game. But the things I bring up here have been confirmed by people who have played the game, or by gameplay footage. Along with that, I can only actually point out things that I HAVE confirmed happening, so there very well may be more.
-- I am well aware of the style and history of the GTA series.
-- I do not think GTA IV will cause healthy, balanced adults or teens to go out and rape women/shoot cops/whatever.
-- I do not think the game is completely void of redeeming qualities. For example, the graphics are very nice.

The game world of Grand Theft Auto IV is an environment of misogyny. The most grievous evidence of this is the sexualized violence against women, though other details contribute. Together, the evidence suggests a deliberate attempt to create a world that devalues women and reinforces misogynistic attitudes.

Sexualized Violence Against Women
In GTA IV, the player character can pick up prostitutes, have sex with them, and then kill them. Even if the sex isn't rape, which hasn't yet been confirmed as something that can occur in the game, murder just after sex is still sexualized violence. In GTA IV, the player can only do this to women. There are no male prostitutes and the player cannot have a boyfriend. The only characters the player can commit sexualized violence against are female ones. That is misogynistic environment.

Further, the game presents the mature subject matter in a very immature way. Suggested further reading on this point: "Mature vs Mature" -- Man Bytes Blog.

Lack of Female Characters with Depth
The only major characters in GTA IV are male. The only female characters in the game are nameless Liberty City inhabitants, prostitutes, and random enemies. This is a serious flaw in a work of fiction. There is no reason to have no major female characters with as much depth as many of the male characters apparently have.

Other Details
There exists an internet cafe called Tw@, pronounced "twat." Twat is "vulgar synonym for the human vulva, vagina, or clitoris, and is used as a derogatory epithet" (Wikipedia). It's not clever or satirical to name a place after a derogatory term for female genitalia. It's immature and contributes to the atmosphere of misogyny.

Also, a female fast food worker asks the player character if he wants a handjob with his burger. Because clearly a female character cannot exist unless there is the possibility of some sexual interaction. The immaturity paints games as something for young teens.

Update: Via Feminist Gamers, an interesting comment by Cola on Feministing about a certain mission in GTA IV, quoted in part (full comment here):

"Just as I was starting to think Niko was really great, I realised he was a moralising hypocrite. Oh, and then he hit a woman he was kidnapping for trying to get away and referred to her as 'the bitch.' Then he hit her again to get her to look at him so he could take a picture of her gagged face to send to her father.

It was really hard to keep playing after that. This woman was portrayed, in contrast to the protagonist, as selfish, shallow, and bitchy. I had nothing but sympathy for her, because she was justifiably scared and angry, but she was being cast as this shrieking whore (she hit on Niko before he kidnapped her)."

Clearly the portrayal and treatment of women in this game leaves a lot to be desired.

The fact that this game is receiving nothing but the highest marks from game reviewers and is being hailed as the greatest game ever made upsets me. Is this really something we want to hold up as gaming's finest? (I can't help thinking back to the analysis of No More Heroes I linked to last post, and how NMH is a direct satire of Western GTA fans.) I realize the game does technically impressive things, but what is it saying with that technology? Isn't that just as important?

General Reading, or People Who Put it Better Than I Do
"GTA discussion... over there" -- Feminist Gamers (with a link to Feministing)
"Some GTA IV Questions" -- Man Bytes Blog
"I've Decided That It's Simple After All" -- The True Confessions of an Hourly Bookseller
"How Can Grand Theft Auto Transition from Base Entertainment to Art?" -- Latoya Peterson, Cerise Magazine (May 2008). Fantastic article, highly recommended.
"Grand Theft Auto IV" -- Scholarly Gamer. A general (but interesting and thorough) critique of the game, but contains some concise examinations of the misogyny and homophobia in the game.
"Oh, right... Grand Theft Auto is coming out..." -- No Cookies for Me. (How did I miss this the first time around?)

Common Defenses
"It's just a game!"
No. Games are creative expressions just like books, movies, and television, and are thus open to critique.
Suggested reading:
"The Problem with That Line 'It's Just a Game' -- Are Our Games Our Fantasies?" -- MTV Multiplayer
"It's Just a Game" -- Feminist Gamers

"But you kill men, too." Or, "Why is killing a prostitute worse than killing a pedestrian?"
The problem is not just the killing. I do not think you shouldn't be able to kill female characters in a video game. The problem is the sexualized violence that is directed only at women, as well as the greater misogynistic atmosphere the game reinforces through other details and the lack of any female characters with depth. The rampant violence is NOT equal-opportunity.

"But sexism is a problem in this game/movie/any and all other media."
Yeah, it is. But right now I'm talking about GTA IV.

"There are no incentives to killing prostitutes."
Yes, there are. You gain health back by hiring them and you get back the money you spent after killing them. That's more incentive than mowing down pedestrians.

"It's not part of the story. Rockstar isn't promoting doing this sort of thing."
Except that they are promoting it by allowing it to happen. Liberty City is not a real world, it is a deliberately crafted piece of fiction; things just don't happen. Everything in the world and everything that happens has to be deliberately allowed by the creators. Isn't it unrealistic how there are no children at all in Liberty City? That's because the game would definitely get an AO rating if the player were allowed to kill children. Developer choice.

On this point, see also: "On IGN's Grand Theft Auto IV Video" -- Cruise Elroy

Every Time GTAIV Gets a Perfect Rating, Suda51 Sheds a Single Tear

Here are a couple of great critiques of video games that I've read recently.

Scholarly Gamer: Reading Call of Duty 4: In interesting yet brief analysis of some major events in COD4. Well worth a read. Obviously, spoiler warnings apply.

Schlagund's Playground: No More Heroes is Not Punk: At least, it's not THAT kind of punk. This article is fascinating and incredibly in-depth. It's also fairly long, and the again, spoiler warnings apply. I want to talk about it but I'm not really sure what to say except that it's fantastic.

This is the kind of thing I would love to see more of and talk about, but more importantly, I'd love to see more games that inspire this sort of writing.

I'll be writing about Majora's Mask in the near future (once I finish re-playing it); hopefully I can approach the high bar that's been set!

(Edit: Why did I think "critiquings" was a word...?)

SIGCSE 2008 Special Session: Games: Good/Evil?

Turns out my first post here isn't actually about games and fiction, but it's sort of close, and it's an interesting topic anyway. And yikes, is it long.

If the reader isn't familiar with SIGCSE, it is the ACM's annual conference on computer science education. A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend the conference in Portland and participate in the student research competition. It was an amazing experience and a perfect capstone to my undergraduate experience.

The special session "Games: Good/Evil?" was one of several sessions I attended. It consisted of a panel of six educators, three for the "games are good" side and three for the "games are evil" side, that each presented his or her opinion on whether games should be used to teach computer science.

As a gamer and a student I was particularly intrigued, but I had mixed feelings going in. My first reaction was to think, "Of course games are good educational tools! They involve cross-discipline teamwork that most Computer Science (CS) projects don't!" But at the same time I was glad my classes had generally not used games as projects because it gave me a perspective on what other things CS is good for: I was already interested in games, but I didn't know about, for example, parsing RSS feeds and traffic simulations, two projects in my CS2 course.

The panel seemed to work off the general assumption that using games in the CS curriculum tended to exclude women and minorities, something counterproductive to movements within CS education toward more diversity in the field, and most of the panelists addressed this issue. I wasn't aware of this beforehand, but apparently getting more women involved in computer science is a huge goal in CS academia.

I won't go into everything everyone said, but here are some highlights from what I remember and took notes on. Unfortunately I neglected to write down the names of the panelists, so I will end up referring to them by number in the order they presented.

The first panelist talked about a summer program in programming for middle schoolers that included both girls and boys; he mentioned how girls enjoyed making games just as much as the boys did, they just made different types of games, such as socially conscious games: one example was a game about breaking the glass ceiling. He went on to say that the summer game development program would be targeted specifically at girls starting this year (cool!). He emphasized the interdisciplinary teamwork required to make a game. Later on, during the Q&A, he clarified that, since there are larger percentages of women in traditional "helping" fields such as nursing, teaching, etc., that showing CS as a "helping" field that can have important social contributions will attract more female students, and a good way of accomplishing that is through serious games. Interesting idea.

The second panelist was against games, and said that using games reinforces cultural stereotypes about computer scientists: that CS only involves "surfing the web, playing games, and hacking", and that computer scientists are loners who have no social skills or concerns and work alone. The first one I can understand as a valid concern, and is something I think the first panelist was also trying to address, in a way, regarding the perception of what computer science is to people outside of the field. The second stereotype confused me, however: is it game development or game playing that is reinforcing this stereotype? The first possibility completely ignores the fact that most games require a team with a variety of skills to develop, and the second perpetuates a stereotype about gamers, so I have to disagree with this one.

The second panelist also pointed out that CS is about more than just programming, such as architecture, interfaces, networks, and so on, although these things also have their place in game development.

The third presenter, who I believe is a former Epic programmer, basically said that the point of using games wasn't to turn out a bunch of game designers but to get people interested in computer science, then branch out into other topics. The idea was to increase enrollment and retain students in order to combat the declining interest and gender gap in computer science. He said that as long as games were presented in the right context, they wouldn't exclude women and minorities. I was glad this was brought up because I thought the underrepresentation of women and minorities in games is definitely a problem, but it's a problem with the industry, and not the nature of games themselves.

The fourth panelist was the only woman on the panel. She started out with how women and girls don't play games; conceding the fact that many women play Bejeweled and the like, but "they're not out there playing World of Warcraft". As living proof against that statement (well, I don't play WoW, but I thought MMOs had atypically high number of female players?), my initial reaction was to get kind of angry, but it is true that most women don't play video games. (Ironically, I had been playing a demo of Meteos on my DS while waiting for the session to start.) She said that games and software as well as game development are male-oriented due to the encouragement of competition--who ended up with the best game? In the end she said that games were only mostly evil, and that she agreed in general with presenter #3, that games aren't bad as long as they are presented carefully in order to not exclude typically underrepresented groups.

The fifth and final pro-games panelist pointed out that games could be useful as tied in with ethics and current events. He used SimCity as an example which, by how the gameplay operates, reflects the developer's views (or some sort of view) on what makes a city good. In SimCity's case, the developer decided that good mass transportation was a quality of a well-functioning city in the game. Why did he or she choose that? Questions like these could be good discussion and provide relevancy for both games and computer science.

The final presenter, who perhaps made the best argument, simply said that there are so many other types of projects--such as mobile or social applications, and others--that have the same benefits of games but none of the controversy, so why not focus on one of those areas instead? Why not, indeed.

Current Systems

My current gaming systems, for future reference. As of 4/23/08:

PlayStation 2
GameCube
Wii
DS Lite

Overview

Welcome.

My name is Alex and I'm a college student (soon to be recent graduate) in computer science.

What I hope to do with this blog is write regularly about video games and, more specifically, stories in and storytelling with video games. I've read some things recently that suggest that games shouldn't be used for telling stories, and aren't inherently a storytelling medium, but I disagree. Why I disagree is something I'll be continually writing about here, as well as examining stories in specific games, and more, to the best of my ability.

In short, I'll be trying to look at games critically, rather than reviewing them.

First up will be a summary and thoughts on a session at SIGCSE 2008 on using games as projects in the computer science curriculum.