Post #9 (Why Skyrim is So Great)

I haven't played Skyrim in a while, and I'm starting to feel like I really want to. Lately, I've been asking myself why I like playing this particular game so much.
In "How To Do Things With Video Games," Ian Bogost gives a number of reasons why this game appeals to me.

Firstly, one of my favorite things about Skyrim is the texture of the game. Although the Skyrim world "remains imprisoned behind the glass of our televisions and our monitors," it still is vibrantly rendered enough to immerse me in that world (82). I am engaged because I can believe the gamescape laid out by the game designers.

Another reason I like this game is due to what Bogost calls "kitsch," or "the overt application of convention" (83). Like his examples of kitsch games, the Skyrim world is based on a sentimental idea of medieval life- life before cars, planes, and industry. The player gets to roam the land, maybe on horseback, and explore beautiful wild vistas. Skyrim also aligns with Bogost's idea that "kitsch was always meant to be displayed" in that achievements can be posted on a gamer's Steam or PlayStation profile for the world to see (87).  In a way, even the virtual weapons and armor that players amass through game play act as the "virtual trinkets" Bogost claims "might help realize the video game equivalent of Kinkade's million-sellar art" (88). As a player, I appreciate amassing the trinkets offered i the game; it lets me measure my success and creates new goals for me to achieve.

Finally, Skyrim allows me to relax in the way Bogost associates with "lean backward" media. No, I'm not sitting back on my sofa eating Cheetos. I lean forward and click buttons to avoid sudden death by Blood Dragon. Game play is engaging, challenging, but accomplish-able. This is contradictory to Bogost's claims. But if I want to take a long walk through the pretty wild lands of the Skyrim world, just for fun, I can at any time. Occasionally, a saber tooth cat will ambush me and I'll have to defend it. Yet something about vanquishing the foe is immensely satisfying and deeply relaxing in a way Bogost does not understand. Bogost believes calming games can only achieve total relaxation by being "leaning-back" games; however, why can't an adventure game combine both? I believe Skyrim offers both excitement and relaxation in a way Bogost hasn't considered. Besides, I don't want to play a relaxation game all the time, I want mixed elements of relation and engagement.

The refresh rates of screens (the medium) on which video games are broadcast already wire our brains for engagement and excitement; Bogost needs to go read a book if he really wants to achieve total relaxation.

Post #8 (Bogost and Empathy)

In chapter 2 of Bogost's book "How To Do Things with Video Games," Bogost offers a weak argument for what he calls empathy games. These games feature "feeble characters [who] do not wear shoes anyone wants to wear" (Bogost 23). The idea that such games such as Darfur is Dying causes empathy in players is true.

But my question with Bogost is: who plays these games? Are they really making a big difference, as Bogost seems to believe?

The Darfur is Dying Wikipedia page claims that the game was made in 2006, over 8 years ago. Apparently, only 800,000 people have played this game. Only 800,000 people with access to the internet (which is only about 16% of the Worl's population which is nearing 8 billion) have played this game, and "received" the empathy resulting from game play.

I haven't even heard of the games Bogost lists, united by their objective to create awareness and empathy. Bogost argues that video games can inspire empathy, which I agree with. However, I doubt such games will be able to do well enough in the video game market to spread the empathy around enough for people to make a change.

People who play games and run in circles where they'll have heard about Darfur is Dying may not be willing to download the game in the first place. Honestly, I wouldn't be interested. To me, there are other ways to gain awareness. I don't want to spend time playing a game about a world problem I'd rather just read about; I don't need a game to feel empathy towards the Rwandan genocide. But back to my original concern with access.

Most gamers have internet (leaving out 84% of the world). Gamers play video games they find intriguing. Perhaps it's the game's artwork, characters, plot line, weapons, power-ups, or game world. Perhaps the story resonates with the person and they feel engaged and devoted during game play. These gamers tend to avoid games like Darfur, as Bogost states. He says "critics may argue that frail situations are not fun," and I agree with these critics. They just aren't fun. Gamers like to feel powerful, to live lives rendered impossible by reality. Games allow people to choose to experience challenges, characters, situations, and places that don't exist outside virtual reality.

So there's got to be another reason 800,000 people have played this game.Online, I found a place that lists people who've played this game. On this list is none other than Kanye West. So maybe one of the reasons people have played this game is to enhance their public image. I wouldn't put it past Kanye West.

One teen player of Darfur, John Keenan from Pennsylvania, said, "I'm a gamer, but I don't know how I really feel about making a game out of what's going on. I mean, I don't think you can get a real experience of being a Darfurian refugee by playing a game on the computer" (Vargas).

I completely agree. Such "games for change" may have the purpose to promote empathy for real-world events, but in reality, not many people have played, or are willing to play, them. One website that promotes Darfur is called "5 Fun Games with a Higher Purpose," which just goes to show that gamers mostly just want to have fun.

I think it's actually a little sick to use something as horrific as the Rwandan genocide for a game. One of the reasons it bother me is due to the fact that Games for Change is not just promoting games that promote empathy for current and past events. On the website, I found that they just came out with a game called Uplifted, with the tagline reading, "play and feel happy." Like most game companies, Games for Change is partly in it for the money. It's hard for me to trust the integrity of companies I haven't heard about, and that have top-notch websites which look expensive to maintain.

 I like the idea of creating empathy for issues, but I disagree with Bogost that video games are the way to go about it; at least not until more people gain access to the internet. Yes, Darfuris or the Rwandans "deserve our empathy," but if we have to have fun at the expense of the beneficiaries of our empathy, then we may be going about this all wrong. Are we commercializing the horrific tragedies of people other than ourselves? Are such games respectful of the victims of these events, and have they truly helped?

Games are separate from the "reality" of the events; the best graphics and game play cannot change that. Sadly, such issues such as genocide do not "turn off" with the press of a close-window button. We need to make sure we're fully aware of these situations, not just gaining impressions of them that fade quickly after the game is quit.

#4 (Environments and Story Arcs)

McLuhan has a few main ideas about environments: how they were, during the time of print technology, and how they are now, during our age of electric technology. "Environments are not passive wrappings, but are, rather, active processes which are invisible," he states (McLuhan 68).

 McLuhan also believes that "anti-environments, or countersituations made by artists, provide means of direct attention and enable us to see and understand more clearly" (McLuhan 68).

So what is an anti-environment? Simply something "that raises the unconscious environment to conscious attention" (Alice Rae).

In Jonathon Degann's Game Theory 101 the most important component of a successful game is Story Arc. That is, a beginning, middle and end which turns the game into an "adventure in which the players and the pieces are characters." I don't think this is hard advice to follow; in fact, I think most people enjoy a good story, which typically has a story arc.

If McLuhan is correct, then video games themselves are environments. Many of them are antienvironments, like the Stanley Parable, a game that directs the user's attention to itself as a video game. So what could our environments in video games, combined with the story arcs (or lack thereof, in few cases) tell us about our society right now? Increasingly, games like the Stanley Parable mock the established, invisible environmental rules established for first person games. We can see an increase in antienvironment games, which play with environment including such accepted, basic rules such as Story Arc.

Perhaps we have started to understand the rules we have created for our video games, for our virtual realities. Perhaps we are moving into new territory, developing games which question the environments we have created, allowing us to "see more clearly" our real-world, offline environments.

It may be a stretch, but I wonder if by manipulating the environments in video games, we are beginning to become aware of the invisible, "active processes" in our world now. Maybe manipulating our virtual environments will show us how we can change the environments in our society today.