Quick: Do you have egg on your face?

Posted on 18/11/2008 by Denis Farr

Due to gracious linking by many sources (among them Maggie Greene and N’Gai Croal), a useful conversation has occurred concerning my post on Gendered Violence. These conversations and blurbs (Nariko and Kate Archer had been brought up by Groping the Elephant and Tyris by Dan Bruno on the same day I posted via Twitter) have provided me with many examples which I will attempt to further study in the weeks/months to come.

While I can not promise a quick look into these games (my free time is becoming exceedingly rare with a very recent change in careers), they are on my queue and have been pushed up in that list.

The females of which I have been made aware (or of which I have been reminded) stand as follows:
Rayne (BloodRayne)
Nariko (Heavenly Sword)
Kuniochi (Nightshade)
Kurenai (Red Ninja)
Tyris (Golden Axe: Beast Rider)
Cate Archer (No One Lives Forever)

There also stands the example of survival horror, which I feel probably has a very intriguing look on the subject matter, but in a vastly different light.

Thank you for the examples and conversation.

If you have your own opinions on these females, please, relate them to me.

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Body Gaming

Posted on 17/11/2008 by Denis Farr


This weekend brought to my attention a fact that I had not fully pondered, but one which I’d argued in the past: gaming is a community activity.

It started Saturday. After a four hour rally against the hate legislation that passed in order to redefine marriage as only between man and woman and restricting adoption rights on November 4 (a rally which saw us marching down the middle of Michigan Avenue in Chicago–with police support, I might add), I grabbed a bite to eat and headed to a gaming meeting to which I’d been invited by the Wordsmythe of Elements of Meaning.

During the evening I learned five new tabletop games: Bang!, Red Dragon Inn (I, naturally, played Zot the Wizard who has a rabbit familiar named Pooky–in essence, a psychotic and alcoholic Vorpal Bunny), Ca$h and Gun$ (with the Yakuza expansion), Zombie Fluxx, and Family Business. The entire evening was very social, saw many stories being shared, personalities being displayed, and left me feeling quite comfortable in a brand new atmosphere among a room full of strangers. While I tend to lean on the side of extroversion (who’da thunk?), even a room full of complete strangers who all know each other can be off-putting when written down on a piece of paper (or typed in the forum for Gamers with Jobs).

Games are not quite like a party or other manner of social gathering, however. This is a (for the most part) friendly competition, in which you as a person exist as the person behind the cards, figurines, or other gaming paraphenalia. What is being presented is a distilled form of yourself, and yet remains very telling. Wordsmythe requested people read the flavor text in Red Dragon Inn and I already knew that I’d have to set Once Upon a Time in front of him at some point to read his reaction to the ludic and literary structures therein present. One chap was wearing a shirt that read, “I heart shotgun zombie,” in pictogram; the same gentleman who brought Zombies!!! and its expansions to the group and discussed his experiences with the Left 4 Dead demo. I immediately knew I could ask him my college gaming group’s entrance question and receive a decent answer, “The zombie apocalypse has occurred; you have one weapon. What is it?”

We ended the evening playing Rock Band (I learned to play the drums, and my already hoarse-from-protesting throat attempted the vocals with mild success) and discussing both Dungeons and Dragons and the old Sierra and SCUMM adventure games. For a stereotypically anti-social demographic, we seemed to get along rather well and were very socially adaptable people.

Fast forward to Sunday evening, where I headed to Guthrie’s Tavern. I was not aware of this pub before last night, but it has a whole cabinet full of games which the patrons could play. Heading to the back room, I met a prearranged (via Gay Gamer) group. Watching a game of Space Munchkin, I met a whole other group of people and shook hands with upwards of ten people by the evening’s end. This evening saw me learn two more new games: the German board game Hexentanz (translated Witches’ Dance, based off Walpurgisnacht) and Spank the Monkey, which is full of inuendo, as you would expect, but has a very literal interpretation of its presentation (you win the game by spanking an actual fictional monkey).

There was a group at another table playing multiplayer Mario Kart DS, another playing Munckin (default), and then I was presented with an invitation to a Dungeons and Dragons group. Anyone who’s gamed long enough can probably attest to the wonders of what happened to me this weekend. I met a dozen and a half people at least, and was never placed in a socially awkward situation–instead finding fast friends and comfortable discussion, chatter, banter, and laughter among a group of people to whom I had no previous connection beyond very superficial internet contact.

Then it dawned on my Sunday evening, as I rested my still aching muscles from the previous day’s march: everywhere I have lived I have encountered this group of people. People who may have rather different personalities, backgrounds, and might never have met outside of this one hobby and/or passion. As soon as I stepped on Wabash’s campus, I was presented with friends who played a slew of games, ranging from video to card to pen and paper to role playing to drinking to many others (a selection of four of us sans heads are pictured above). Within the span of a month we became close-knit friends and then branched out and accepted other gamers on campus, sometimes forming together and often conversing. Everyone in that group also happened to either become a theater major or minor by our graduation (many with no previous plan to do so; we theater folk are infectious, I warn you).

Because my family often moved, there was no close connection with the grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Instead, family friends were always fellow gamers. I’ve known a wide array of people just because there is no one demographic that flocks to games. The definition of game is so broad and encompasses so many different styles that it is little wonder it attracts such a broad sample of people. Even looking among the blogosphere, it is astonishing to realize how much diversity there actually is within the community (if not the games themselves).

Even my single player experiences these days are shared via phone with a quick call to Cap’n Perkins and (as this Sunday saw) two hour conversations about Fallout 3 alone. That’s not to mention describing and conversing about these experiences in forums, blogs, Twitter, and instant messengers.

So, here’s to you, gaming community, for providing a great social lubricant.

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So what?

Posted on 14/11/2008 by Denis Farr

Welcome to the another edition of Fanny Fridays (shamelessly inspired by Grant Morrison’s Lord Fanny character from The Invisibles). These weekly posts examine the mirror of gender and sex that occurs between our culture and videogames. This episode? In which our intrepid blogger explains his position.

I joked via Twitter last night that writing posts on gender feels like some hidden away taboo akin to a drug habit, once I start, my mind can keep the habit fed for hours and post after post. In my situation, I am a male writing about it: people will (and have, especially with–for Americans–an androgynous seeming name like Denis) assume I’m female. I just so happen to be queer: duh, that’s the only reason I care about it. There’s also the fact that I’m writing about things I generally don’t see being taken to task. We gleefully rip into depictions of sexy females, but how dare I be critical of the few outstanding female game characters we have?

My approach to gender might be a bit odd to some. Part of my degree is an area of concentration in the nebulously named Gender Studies–and this coming from an all-male institution. This wouldn’t really be noteworthy except for the fact that such institutions, on a collegiate level, don’t really exist anymore (depending on whom you ask, the U.S. has two or three). It was a fight to even get inclusion for the area of concentration before I ever attended (they would not accept it as a minor), and if I need to tell you how a classroom discussion at such a place differs when no females are around, I could spend days regaling you with examples and stories of wildly varying conversations. I don’t believe I ever had one female friend visit me on campus who didn’t at least feel some tinge of misogyny (more so than usually present on college campuses).

Explaining to my German family what gender studies encompasses is not exactly easy–it doesn’t even translate into a manageable phrase. Most people assume that this means women’s studies, and that I must be a dyed in the wool, pansy feminist (as opposed to the lesbian, man-hating type). The frequent question would be a simple, and damning:

So what?

Reading over my posts this past week, I’m reminded of such criticisms. It’s half true. So what?

The truth is, in the realm of media we consume and to which we have a response and engage in critical discussions and thought, my observations aren’t really all that odd. In films, we also have our tropes for the female character. If she isn’t in a ‘chick flick’ or romantic comedy, this means that a female protagonist is scantily clad, asked to jump around screen in tight latex, leather, or form fitting material of your choice. Why even bother pointing this out in games when it is so present in every single other medium?

Females aren’t very present in the videogame industry? Neither are they equally present in films (name more than five female directors and I call you an aficionado), the list of top-selling authors, the art world (see: Guerrilla Girls, whom I had the fantastic opportunity to meet at said all-male college), comic books, and I could go on. Here in the United States, a hotly contested issue is the fact that females still make less to the dollar than their male counterparts.


Given all this, why even bother pointing it out in videogames? Isn’t that a bit redundant? In almost every argument I make, I carefully select words and take a slight peek into different genres. What about female characters like Sylvanas Windrunner or Sarah Kerrigan? I plan on looking at such examples, actually, but I feel here is where I would likely pull out the ages-old adage my German professor would lovingly tote (in German), “The exception only proves the rule.”

This goes doubly true for the LGBT community in videogames, especially in regards to anything but gay males. While I can theorize over the sexuality of Link (this was a common conversation with my friends in college), we are woefully under- and misrepresented in games. Again, look at television, film, literature, and you’ll see much the same. If it isn’t niche targeted, we’re generally not there or presented as entirely sexual beings. I don’t want games to go there, much like when I gag whenever reading what constitutes most of contemporary gay literature (I’m sorry, Christopher Rice makes me cringe, and it just goes mostly downhill from there). There isn’t much progression in pursuing a niche community, unless you have nowhere else to turn. My large distaste for coming-of-age novels comes from reading the same coming-out tale over and over in various LGBT literature–you can only beat the horse so many times before its health depletes, and at that point it is like unto Aeris, where no phoenix down can save her.

Everything I just said? Say it again for class and race, and you’re getting the picture.

Where does that leave us? Why then do I question these things if the conversation is already happening in other places?

Voice. Adding conversation. Wishing to see a medium progress. Not believing that we should accept a trickle down cultural model that once it happens elsewhere games can then follow. Why should the gaming industry be a follower if it is an innovation by itself? Whenever I have to defend my decision to play videogames to someone, I point out that magical ingredient games have that most other mediums lack in any sufficient manner: interaction. It is common for us to want to interact with someone with whom we identify every so often. I don’t want the world to be entirely populated by gay people and women, but I would like to see them more than I presently do. Our world is rather rich because of its diversity, and if we are creating worlds in games, I see no reason for that world not to be rich in what it can present to its players. Unfortunately, it’s also a great source for strife and conflict (which can actually be utilized for game purposes).

The good news is that hope is on the horizon. Now that gaming is becoming something people recognize as a major industry, we are hurtling into the spotlight. I’d rather not see us without the proper cue cards.

So what?

Because I can. Because there is an audience. Because like with any medium, we should always be moving forward, and not just in our technical capacity. Because, only in conversations can I learn where I have myself overlooked things, and can we build a more comprehensive picture of what we do have.

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Sugar and spice

Posted on 13/11/2008 by Denis Farr

Brinstar’s post on Star Wars: The Force Unleashed gave me more to chew on than just the level of violence and gore to which we (don’t) subject women in games; I began considering a comment she made about the protagonist of this title:

I also honestly don’t see why Starkiller couldn’t have been female. The character of Starkiller is pretty much the standard, boring white male with hardly any personality to speak of, which is typical for videogame protagonists. Since he had no personality to start with, they could have had this character be a woman just as easily as a man. The only reason you don’t have a choice for gender is because yet again, male is the default and female the afterthought — or not considered at all. There’s no valid reason why Starkiller couldn’t have been female. Rather than start off with male as a default, they could have decided at the very, very beginning that Starkiller was a woman.

In response, I stated:

Do we hold this to be true of our female protagonists in games? I personally see someone like Samus Aran as an empty void into which we project our own desires, but she seems to have been dubbed a sassy, no-nonsense type of woman. Most other females attempt to have a distinct personality one way or another, though. Perhaps we are left with the perception that females can’t let their actions alone speak for them very often?

It’s certainly true for the majority of advertising that women appear, men act. A man is defined by his actions, not by his physique alone. Someone like Fabio is considered a joke not only because he was primarily fabricated as a female fantasy with romance novel looks, but because we never really saw him do anything beyond be (subjectively) pretty. It is not enough for a man to appear muscular–after all, we laugh at the big cuddly giant with a pipsqueak voice, and normally pair him with a mental disability or make him safe for children.

With female protagonists who take the center stage (I will address ensemble casts later, as I realize I’ve mostly kept these discussions in the realm of the homosocial), we’re more often given a story, a personality, and given background. These are interesting characters. While I could just write it off as women needing to appear and therefore needing to foreground their presence, being given less to actually do, I don’t think this is fully fair or the entire answer.

This is a matter of saturation and identification. The gamer demographic that plays more violent or physically body conscious games tends to still be taken as male (it may well be, I never pay attention to ‘sample’ sizes), so having them identify with a male is considered an afterthought. It is easier to place in a bland and flavorless male and assume that a male demographic will take up the reins and fill in the gaps. We tend to assume that when a male plays a female character, he is busy ogling her, not identifying with her; this is supplemented by the stock MMO response, “I don’t want to stare at a dude’s back all the time.”

To introduce a female protagonist then means that she cannot be a slate on to which the developers and writers expect the players to write the assumed his self. Even with Mirror’s Edge, the senior producer Owen O’Brien stated in a Forbes article:

“I find it’s wearing a bit thin and [is] kind of childish,” Owen O’Brien, the game’s senior producer, says about the typical portrayal of gals in games. “I wanted to create an action hero who happened to be female–but could just as easily have been male–who wasn’t trading on the fact that she was a sexual being. I was trying to create a character that was aspirational but attainable…[without] gravity-defying breasts.“

“Besides,” says O’ Brien, “Faith fits perfectly into the role of a hunted runner far better than a man ever would. If she were male,” he says, “players would have immediately entered shooter mode–hunting for bigger guns and better armor–instead of relying on Faith’s speed and agility to disarm or dodge opponents.”

If Faith were male, we, the players, would apparently expect big guns and better armor that does not care if it hides the figure of the protagonist. Sadly, while I believe this is a correct assumption, I’d rather be broken of a bad habit than have it encouraged. Armored females are also not very sexy, unless said armor is contoured and illogically revealing.

With all the story and animated shorts that were preceding Mirror’s Edge’s release, it looks very different than another EA title, Dead Space. Isaac seems very much a blank character on to whom we can write much, beyond his love interest being in danger. From the promotional materials and gameplay footage I have seen of the two, Faith emerges as an entity, whereas Isaac seems a side note to the action that takes place in the game. Most of the non-gameplay footage does not even focus on him–the plot around him is of larger importance. While this is largely indicative of their respective genres as well, could we have had a female Isaac in a world that did not center on the protagonist? Would Faith be as interesting if she only displayed her parkour skills?

Promotional material for Faith gives us her backstory. The parkour is one aspect of the game, but EA is really pushing hard to make sure you know that the game has not only a female, but that she is fully dimensioned. It also takes away the temptation to ogle her, placing you firmly in the shoes of a first person perspective. Parkour itself could not define who she is, otherwise she would be male. She cannot be defined by her actions alone, whereas we can drop in many faceless or droll soldiers whom you can control into a battle field and don’t feel the need to provide them with compelling backgrounds. Though this is not to say that such males cannot exist (they certainly do–right next to their blank counterparts).

Instead, I believe what we’re seeing ties back into saturation. If a female is to make it into a game, she either needs to be sexy or have a compelling story in order for her to sell copies of the game. She needs to push: a. forward her story, b. up her mammaries, c. for either children or a lover. Again, as Brinstar stated, “…male is the default and female the afterthought…” If we create a male protagonist, this character is expected, and there need be no reason for anything beyond his appearance. Females? They need justification to be in a (man’s) gaming world.

However, if this means that they can become more memorable than their male counterparts years down the road, I’m all for pushing forward some love for these game women.

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Gendered Violence

Posted on 11/11/2008 by Denis Farr

I largely feel that when adding a female protagonist into a mostly linearly plotted game (read: no emergent gameplay; nor creation of your own character or characters that aren’t fully developed, instead being ciphers to ludic pleasure), the whole tone of the game changes. Not because I want it to do so, but because whoever may be designing the game designs it with different expectations, and brings their own societal biases (don’t worry, we all have them). In the past, I’ve already discussed how we perceive females as the weaker sex in terms of physical activities, and this means we normally give them a more full range of emotions and make them less blood hungry. Due to my previous post and then reading Brinstar’s review of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and her comments of the sex selection of the game, I want to now explore the exploration of how violence is shaped by the sex at hand–particularly that of the few female icons we do have in games.

I don’t know about you, but even growing up with a very pro-feminist mother, I was raised in a world that told me I was more predispositioned to violence than my female counterparts. Somehow that magical Y chromosome donated by my father meant I could at any instant turn into a bloodthirsty killer; it was up to me to determine whether this was as a soldier for a proper cause or as a madman who’d just gone off his rocker. Males are told that as XY bearers we have the inherent ability to carry out a battle, to wage war, to shoot a gun, and to take another human life–in the proper context.

Contrast this with the way I saw many of my female peers raised: they were caregivers, morale boosters, supporters, pleasers, and had the ability to create a new life. We are not comfortable with the idea that a female who is capable of producing life also has the ability to take away said life. In a world that often is painted in stark binary terms, it does not offer a cohesion of principle and clearly categorized worlds. This is why we have problems justifying and accepting bisexuality and intersexuals as a society at large.

When either sex adopts the supposed incongruities of the opposite gender, comedy frequently follows. Here is the norm, here is the norm subverted. Isn’t that a barrel of non-intersexed monkeys!

This, then, gets into the question of one’s belief on how gender is created in a particular sex. Do you believe that this is because of the chemical workings of the chromosomes that dictate how we react and our particular behaviors? Or, perhaps you believe that we are placed in an environment that fosters these behaviors and reinforces them so that when we rebel against them, we show equality of the sexes is actually possible? Nature versus nurture, folks. Essentialism versus construction.

While I am a large believer in Judith Butler’s assertions that gender is a role we adopt, a mask in which we feel comfortable presenting ourselves as the appropriate sex to our society, I do not believe in pure binaries, and believe the truth may be closer to a point somewhere in the middle. This does not shake the fact that if you ask the average person the difference between gender and sex, many will believe the two largely interchangeable. It certainly is in videogames so far.

When we are given a female protagonist such as Jade or Faith, the game becomes less violent. Suddenly gone are headshots, gore splattering all over the place, the walls dripping with the blood we forcibly ejected from our opponents. Putting a female face on a videogame spells out the fact that this game is less violent, gory, and more palatable for the female sex (unless survival horror). Even the violence performed by Samus Aran falls into Nintendo’s realm of not being gratuitous or gristly (however, so does Link’s). Survival horror sees its fair share of female protagonists, fighting supernatural or scientifically altered non-human beings. This fits into what I see as females being okayed to fight against less-than or not-quite humans.

As I stated yesterday, we don’t often see the emotional reactions of our protagonists to the violence they inflict, and when we do, it’s usually from female quarters. Yet, we’re to believe that suddenly a violent act inflicted on someone with whom we are familiar in the game world should tug at our heart strings, be it Jenny from The Darkness or Aeris from the oft maligned Final Fantasy VII. Violence against females is supposed to bring a reaction from us, which plays on our society’s need to protect its mothers, sisters, and daughters. In The Darkness we come a step closer by portraying Jackie’s response to his changing humanity, but violence is the solvent to almost everything, with one important exception through which he is guided by Jenny’s voice. His reaction is more focused on the symbol of his violence through the Darkness, however–not directly to his acts.

Contrast this with Lara Croft, who has a very strong reaction when she kills her first fellow human. Again, violence against non-humans is seen as fine, but if a female suddenly fights her own species we’re told to pause. Something important happened here! We don’t give this pause to our male protagonists. Killing is an everyday occurrence for the most part. Normally we have to dehumanize the foes for our females in some manner, and even then, the deaths are quite frequently not visceral. Why?

The answer, I believe, is two-fold. We want to believe females not capable of such acts. We do the same with serial killers as I’m seeing occurring with our females’ foes, often painting them in mystic tones and making them less than human–no human could do this, erego inhuman. At the same time, the draw of a female protagonist is also to play the market in a heteronormative fashion: appeal to the male libido and assure females they can play as someone of their own sex. The female gaming market is growing, especially in the cases of The Sims, Harvest Moon, and other such titles. These are generally non-violent games (give a tool to anyone and they’ll manage to play around its original intent), which grows the expectation we’ve been given in general society: females are not violent.

Which is a lie. Reading bell hooks’s Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics, I was reminded of a fact we often overlook: just as many cases of domestic violence are perpetrated by women against their own children. These are often either ignored or not reported, so it becomes difficult to navigate that terrain, especially when children are not given the tools or rights to speak up on their own behalf; to believe females are generally pacifist and have little capability of violence or prefer such is very likely just a fallacy in which we like to believe. We just prefer the idea of a father who is abusive physically and a mother who may be more critical with her words–this makes sense to us.

Therefore, to just place a female in a game is not to provide equality, as it quite frequently comes with a caveat. We should not ignore the society that shapes us as human beings, including our diversity. We do need to step beyond the boundaries which we place on ourselves, however. It is one thing to acknowledge and make us aware of what may have shaped a female in attaining the skills she has, but it is another to say that she is not as capable as a male at certain tasks, or has to be sexualized to achieve the same goals. That does not mean I wish to see G.I. Jane the licensed game, but it means that it may be time to be more creative and acknowledge truths with which we may not be comfortable. How about more games where the male is the non- or less violent entity, as I’m sure many of us see Faith; alongside this, provide females who can give us grisly deaths and are not the villainess?

Would we accept such? (Thanks to Groping the Elephant for the link.) Should that stop us?

Edit: Many examples have since been brought to my attention, which I explain (slightly) further in depth here.

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Thou dost not protest

Posted on 10/11/2008 by Denis Farr

Dan Golding of Subject Navigator brought up a point that has played back in my mind quite frequently over the last four years (the amount of time I have been a vegetarian). Being a vegetarian opened up my eyes to a lot more than just what I consumed and the labels of the foods I eat (you would be surprised and possibly disgusted at how meat and its products pervade everything): suddenly, I was aware of my previous pacifist tendencies in connection with how much violent media I personally consumed and experienced (as opposed to how much of it was present). I believe I’ve come to the conclusion that until we admit it to ourselves, we are likely to ignore these obvious contrasts because they don’t align with our views.

For four years I was also the roommate of another vegetarian gamer. The games in our dorm room and later apartment in Chicago were typically of the violent sort. I’d watch him play Resident Evil 4 and Metal Gear Solid 3 numerous times, while he’d plop on the couch and watch me through Devil May Cry 3 and Final Fantasy XII. While we would also play games like Katamari Damacy and Dance Dance Revolution, it struck me as odd that two vegetarian, pacifist, and generally easy-going chaps like ourselves could lose ourselves so quickly in this medium of extreme and/or repetitive violence. Videogames weren’t the only ones, either–violent films often catching our attention and making us giggle with glee (yes, one of us is straight, and yes, we both giggle).

However, I’ll go ahead and say it: films are different. Without the interactive element, watching Kill Bill, Vol. 1 does not make me feel complicit in the bloodshed that occurs. Instead, I watch with, admittedly, a certain fascination, but from the removed stance of piecing together the cultural signifiers, plotting out the revenge motif, and noting the portrayal of the feminine in this role (yeah, I don’t watch movies on dates unless I know the person is willing to discuss it). Even while watching, I can disagree with her methods while being morbidly curious. It also usually lasts all of two hours before I can move on and go about my life. Unlike videogames, there are also plenty of films that don’t have many violent elements to them at all; at least physical, we could easily discuss how violence has infiltrated even the more demure films.

Currently I am sixty hours into Fallout 3 (thorough much?), and being a sniper, I have seen my fair share of either heads flying off into the distance or very meaty, if also watermelon-y, explosions in every direction. It reminded me of various artistic movements to see meat as its own medium and has made me pause at times to wonder at what I was doing. I’m quickly realizing that completing Fallout 3 without any or considerably little violence performed is an extremely unlikely event, unlike its predecessors. Though let’s be honest, I never played the games as a pacifist anyway.

How many games actually do offer non-violent methods of completion or are non-violent with which to begin? Of those that offer a non-violent completion, how many could be assumed by someone not familiar with the game through previous playthroughs? For the other category, I can think of examples such as World of Goo, Animal Crossing, and others of that ilk, though I’d be lying if I didn’t turn around, look at the titles on my games shelf, and cringe at the incriminating evidence. I doubt I’ll be giving up violent games any time soon, which, like it did with Golding, makes me wonder how much I actually believe in my pacifism.

There is very little doubt that I’ll ever enact such violence; I may occasionally envision violence against someone in a flash of anger, but can count on one hand the number of physical altercations in which I’ve involved myself (all but one with my brother, and all while I was under sixteen). Do the games then speak to a hidden desire? I find this difficult to actually believe, as these flashes of anger with a desire for violence are rather sparse, and they usually last all of a few seconds’ time before I move on to dealing with the anger. Violence (and/or sex) permeate our every day lives in many cunning, albeit frighteningly so, methods.

However, these games are, to put it simply, fun. We enjoy them on one level or another. The question that has begun interesting me would be whether or not this would reflect itself in real life, rather than affecting real life. Do our avatars enjoy this violence? In many cases, they are given personalities which align with an affirmative, though I’m questioning this with the games where I create a personality. With problems soldiers face upon returning home to a normal life, I also wonder what the longer effect of this on our avatars is. We often see the goal of game completion the ending of a menace, but we haven’t seen many, if any at all, games that make us question the return. Michael Abbott questioned this return not too long ago, though for a different purpose.

Games, much like any artistic medium, usually give us a sliced out portion of a larger whole. We can have our avatars go on a massive killing spree in the name of jingoism or extreme loyalty to some ideal and accomplish his or her goals, but when does the reflection occur? Are we as a culture ready to ask these questions? What happens when you have no one left to kill and are suddenly left with the thoughts of what you’ve done in contrast with the life you may now lead? Perhaps I want games to explicitly ask of me the questions I find myself uncomfortably pondering, because there’s certainly a plethora of issues there to face.

P.S. While I used an image of a PETA demonstration, I frequently find myself disagreeing with their methods.

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Between two pixels

Posted on 07/11/2008 by Denis Farr

Welcome to the another edition of Fanny Fridays (shamelessly inspired by Grant Morrison’s Lord Fanny character from The Invisibles). These weekly posts examine the mirror of gender and sex that occurs between our culture and videogames.

Not surprisingly, the issue of gay marriage has been on my mind this week. It saw me go from the contact buzz that was Chicago on the eve of November 4th to the devastating crash later that evening when looking at Proposition 8 in California and two similar measures in Florida and Arizona. This then had me thinking on similar issues in games.

I don’t believe in the institution of marriage as it relates to government, which is why my reaction to Tuesday evening’s events caught me by surprise. That being said, given the opportunity to marry in games, I normally take it; games don’t traditionally depict marriage as something that the state recognizes (we don’t have to sign legal documents to validate these marriages), but something that is an extension of love or a profit to our characters. So, imagine my disgust when I realized in Sims 2 that Denis Sim could have a civil union with his partner–not a marriage like his heterosexual sims. I promptly quit the game and refused to play it for months (yes, I’m a Sims junkie). While it is a step in the right direction, it seems a woefully misguided one. Especially as it would appear that this would just put more work on behalf of the programmers; they put in more work to leave me feeling insulted.

However, gay marriage in games has been happening for quite some time, in varying degrees. In reading the linked to Gamasutra article, I was reminded of my experiences with The Temple of Elemental Evil, and then Fallout 2. Both Dene Carter (from Fable) and Tim Cain (from Fallout) had interesting ways of presenting how this option came to fruition in their respective games:

“It was not so much a question of overt inclusion as a reluctance to remove something that occurred naturally in the course of creating our villagers’ artificial intelligence. Our villagers each had a simple concept of ‘attraction to the hero.’ We’d have had to write extra code to remove that in the case of same-sex interactions. This seemed like a ridiculous waste of time.” –Dene Carter

In a slightly different vein, prompted by the inclusion of actually being able to choose the sex of one’s character:

“A big part of the ‘Fallout’ series was that we wanted it to be as open-ended as possible. We had no way of knowing whether you were going to be a man or a woman, so we decided to write all the different dialogue combinations.” –Tim Cain

The option of marriage seems one that would more frequently appear in an RPG. These games tend to provide choices and customization of one’s character. Therefore, this often includes the option of choosing one’s sex and then creating AI for character and NPC reactions to each other; one has to put in more work to be exclusive. Placing restrictions that don’t make much sense would create a jarring reality. You mean I can’t marry this person who is attracted to me? Oh. Wait…

It intrigues me that in these games, we rarely see a government mandate on marriage. Usually we spend our time pushing forward to somehow woo our beaus. While I’m sure there are many players that take their options and choose the more advantageous one, there is also the glimmer that we can either make a decision as a reflection of our own desires, or to further the story as we see fit. In Fallout 2, this is laced with a certain sense of humor. A farmer has a son and daughter; regardless of your sex, if you sleep with either one, you are forced into a shotgun wedding. While the father was slightly offput for a moment when my male character slept with his son, he insisted that I not impugn his honor. There is a small ceremony, but in the great wastes, nothing truly holds you to this wedding other than your own honor (and the possible loss of karma if you kill them all).

From a conversation I had with Corvus, Fable 2 takes this a step further: not only can you have hetero- and homosexual relationships and marriages, but each NPC has a sexual preference (including bisexual). This is a step beyond even the Sims, where every person is defaulted to a bisexual status. There are even some who take offense to same-sex relationships in Albion v2.0 (though Corvus assured me this was the exception, not the rule). I have to say, this has me both intrigued and actually solidly swung the game into a must-buy. Therein lies the groundwork for an actual culture and system where love and relationships have meaning, rather than either a linear progression or blank slate in which everything is possible, giving no weight to the actual choices. In reality, I have had to tell females that I have no interest in them, and been told the same by straight men. This happens.

That being said, I feel fairly safe in saying that it may be a while before we have a non-queer targeted game that presents us with a homosexual protagonist who is either already in or is pursuing a relationship. Kratos can have his family and King Graham can search for his queen, but we have not yet reached even sexual maturity in videogames, let alone being able to portray a gay relationship out of which one cannot opt. Which is where the problem ultimately lies. One can often accept a heterosexual marriage or relationship, even when it does not proffer a hint of on-screen sex, because that sex often begets children. There is also the fact that a heterosexual relationship can be seen as purely platonic by some. In contrast, gay sex is ultimately considered hedonistic and sinful, and a gay relationship automatically brands the issue with sex. Now we’ve introduced the concept of marked/unmarked into the politics of relationships.

This is not just games, however. Will & Grace brought gay characters to a non-niche audience, but made them safe and without relationships that actually were portrayed on screen. Brokeback Mountain was acceptable as a film in which the relationship was not allowed to be pursued and ended with both parties being ‘punished’ (all too common in LGBT films). Given these examples, I’m actually surprised that games have made even more progress than other media mainstays when we’re often considered puerile man children whose bigotry is heard across Xbox Live speech. Here’s to hoping Sims 3 doesn’t cram a union down my throat again.

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Take me out to the video game.

Posted on 05/11/2008 by Denis Farr

The Family That Plays Together This month’s Round Table invites us to talk about our families today and the role that playing games has in our relationships with them. Whether you play video games with your children before bed, card games with your parents on the holidays, continue to meet up with your siblings for regular death matches, play couch co-op with your spouse, or argue with them all about your World of Warcraft addiction–this month’s topic is on the importance, or impact, that gaming has on your family relationships.

I don’t speak of my father often. If one is astute, one will notice that I will mention my mother specifically and sometimes refer to the nebulous term parents, but never my father specifically by himself. My relationship with him could be described as sour at best–I haven’t exchanged words with him in over three years. The last time I saw him, I meowed at him as a farewell, a habit of mine at the time that he hated. I’ve always been a bit too quirky (he would say annoying) for him.

When last we did speak there was only one safe topic for us: videogames. Simply put, we did not have much common ground in interests or philosophies, and I tended to annoy him with my bookish and theatrical ways. What we did share was a history, though. Little five year old Denis would sit on the floor next to his father in Heidelberg and watch him play Midwinter II or any of the large number of SSI Dungeons and Dragons Gold Box series. There still remains a poignant memory in my mind of being six and alternating watching him play Sid Meier’s Pirates! (the original) while pretending to be chased by a witch because I was harboring a Jewish boy my own age. As long as I didn’t correct his spelling when he played those old parsing adventure games, this was a rather amusing method for us to spend time around one another. In fact, I cannot really recall any other time I spent with him alone.

My mother and father had different gaming tastes. There was some common ground, but the shooters, military themed games, and strategic warfare type were commonly in my father’s category. I happened to have gathered all of their tastes (sans soccer simulations), so I would grow up playing both of their game preferences, and watching them rather frequently. With my mother, I would often engage in conversation after, but with my father there was this mutually agreed upon silence.

What makes this particularly curious to track is the fact that when I started high school and became involved with theater, I was commonly not home. The times I did spend home were spent writing papers, completing homework, learning lines, or playing games myself, not watching my parents. It was around this time that the relationship with my father became particularly strained–our differences were becoming more apparent without any particular common ground. Even when I read his books, there was rarely any discussion gathered from such quarters. He was very much one to enjoy a medium without any desire to further explore it beyond the instant of interaction. As I believe is apparent by the existence of this blog, he and I are of different minds.

In fact, I can only imagine his, or his family’s, reaction were he to know about this site. His feelings toward me were always mixed: disdain for a queer son, but proud that I was the first in his family to graduate with a degree; proud of my grades, but less than thrilled with my course of study; glad to see me independent, but not happy with the less-than-traditionally masculine way I went about it. Sports were never a consideration in our family; no one played them, though my father would occasionally play his soccer simulations. Therefore, the only ways I could prove myself masculine in his eyes were to play similar videogames (check!) and be straight (failed). The last time I spent any time around him, the only conversations we had consisted of either the games we were playing or his poking fun at my recently adopted vegetarianism.

Gaming became a source of tension in my family for a while. After my father left the military, it became apparent that he would prefer to spend his hours lost in a MUD, rather than work. My parents had a computer room, and my brother and I knew better than to approach it for some time. To say my father was addicted to videogames would probably be entirely too apt. It’s served as a reminder of what I cannot let myself become in my own life, even if I binge here and there.

While my first inclination when I saw this topic was to discuss how my brother and I will trade gaming stories and news via messenger, or my mother and I will discuss the sexism inherent in her treatment in MMOs still to this day, it is curious that I happened to decide to explore this particular relationship. I think I can say without any pause that were it not for videogames, my father and I would not have had any relationship of which I could even begin to think fondly. Perhaps had we either continued to play games together (with the exception of myself, my family managed to bond over a particular World of Darkness themed MUD), or had I continued to remain my silent vigil of his habits, we’d still make attempts at speech. Unfortunately, when certain events turned to rip my family apart, it was already too late–videogames or no.

Please visit the Round Table’s <a title=”Round Table Main Hall” href=”http://blog.pjsattic.com/corvus/round-table/”>Main Hall</a> for links to all entries.

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Vote! Vote?

Posted on 04/11/2008 by Denis Farr

If you are an American citizen, I highly urge you to vote. While I can’t pretend to be without my bias in this particular election, I just believe it’s generally a good thing to exercise the rights you have. Don’t like McCain or Obama? There’s always Barr representing the Libertarians, McKinney for the Green party, Nader for the Independents, and a handful of others. You have options, whether or not you believe them to be plausible.

As I was walking the three minutes to my voting location (no lines!), I recalled one of my favorite turn-based strategy games of all time: Master of Orion. This game struck me not only because of the numerous archetypal races from which you could select, nor the ability to build your own ships, not even the fact that you could utilize espionage for both terrorism and technology burglary, but the fact that every twenty-five years (measured year/turn) the races would convene to have a Council Meeting. During this meeting, it was possible to win by being elected High Master of the Universe (spiffy job title that) with a two-thirds majority vote. It’s one of the few games I’ve played where I can be elected to a position of power (barring those about elections themselves).

This, in turn, made me question the role of a sovereign or president in most games. In Fallout 3, while listening to the Enclave Radio frequency, President Eden will give forth information that he was elected, though this remains a dubious statement (not far enough in the main plot to tell you any more, so no spoilers here). In many games we are faced with a few options concerning the rulers of these worlds:

  • Evil Ruler: The ruler who is either in cahoots with the villain of the story, or the villain him or herself. This can take the place of a demented king or queen, an opposing kingdom, someone who wrested control from a previous sovereign forcefully, or any number of such activities. Any such situation also gives the possibility of a shadow ruler merely using the throne as a puppet for his own machinations, or the likelihood of another race (usually demonic in nature) questioning the authority of the natives of a world in governing themselves.
  • Distressed Sovereign: Here we have the ruler in jeopardy. This is where princesses get captured, kingdoms have been cursed, the status quo has been disrupted by an assassination and the next in line has to be found, and other such quests. These rulers tend to provide you with a quest of some sort; when of this nature, the quests tend to be rather important to the narrative, affecting the outcome of the world, or your situation at the very least. Fantasy games tend to favor this manner of quest heavily, as it provides a simple quest giving measure.
  • Sage-like: This one does not seem to occur as often, but occasionally you will find a ruler who merely wants to serve as a listening post for you, giving advice, and sending you off in the right direction. These are normally jovial, boisterous older men or mystical women (read: witch or enchantress) to whom you can return for guidance in a matter. They’ll welcome you, provide you with trinkets to aid you in your quest, a place to rest, and then send you on your way. In this situation we are most often faced with rulers of either an abstract ideal or a small band of people sequestered away in the world, rather than a larger nation or kingdom.
  • Rebel (with a clause): Here we have a very common and popular role of a leader, the one leading a charge against the tyrannical or overbearing status quo. This is when you get interesting cases of kings of one nation joining the cause (Final Fantasy VI) against an empire. In fact, this is the one central theme of most of the Final Fantasy series, if I were to choose one that isn’t aesthetic (think what they do with hair): you are always in an underground or rebel faction against an evil empire, corporation, or pretender to world rulership.

Of these types, the last one really intrigues me, as it is the one in which we most often see the player participating when in RPGs. Videogames seem to be feeding a desire to rebel against the system that threatens liberty. This becomes especially intriguing when one considers the restrictions already placed on these options for the most part. More often than not, we have no option to join the opposing side, instead casting our lot with bringing about freedom, prosperity, and the future of our children!

Are we really doing anything of the sort? While we are being given more options as games progress, we rarely really cast votes on whom we wish to see in power. Instead, we seem stuck in what Foucault described in the introduction to his History of Sexuality as an insidious power that is able to exist because it allows us to feel subversive in some manner while still keeping us within the confines of acceptable behavior. Power that wishes to not be disrupted does not flaunt itself, nor does it make itself visible. In this case, we are left supporting a power structure of a linear plot whereby we have no real choice, or left with either/or options, putting ourselves in a binary situation, whereby our vote seems polarized and unlikely to actually satisfy (why hello, Republican and Democratic attention-whores).

However, this is hardly surprising. Games are still largely presenting linear plots; when they are not, they tend to be limited by constraints such as time, how far along we’ve progressed in the medium, budget, and mechanics. We are starting to see more strides being taken in emergent gameplay, where a player has a different choice. One can simply not play by the game’s rules, for instance, thereby abstaining from the vote (which may just be cast in the direction of finishing the game or dying/reloading). While I have not played a turn based strategy game in recent years beyond the Heroes of Might and Magic series, I do think I’ll have to poke about and see how many offer a system of opting out of warfare and conquering by way of diplomatic voting.

Which leads me again to reminding everyone to go cast a ballot for the candidate of your choice. There are also many other offices and measures out there on which to vote (Illinois’s being that of a Constitutional Convention), not to mention the meddling of putting in restrictive marriage amendments into some states’ constitutions.

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Have you talked about talking about gaming?

Posted on 03/11/2008 by Denis Farr

In the same trip to London where I saw a slew of great and mediocre (though not absolutely horrible) theater with my theatrical peers, I had the opportunity to visit the Tate Modern. There are two rules I try to follow whenever visiting a large city: go to a contemporary art museum and see a performance. Sometimes the two go hand in hand, but I try to make them separate experiences. During that trip, in 2004, the Tate Modern had one exhibit that struck a visitor while walking past Turbine Hall: The Weather Project by Olafur Eliasson.

The exhibit was phenomenal. It is rare that one actually perceives the world in decreased color variation–suddenly the world was cast in orange and yellow, myself included. There was a barrier I could cross and see my blue shirt, versus when I stepped into the full effect of being in the exhibit. Impressed by the experience, I purchased an associated badge that read: “Have you talked about talking about the weather today?” Weather is one of those ‘safe’ topics of conversation. Weather is your go-to, I have nothing else to say conversation piece. More importantly, as per the badge, when we ponder why this is, our meta-conversations ecome a way of perceiving and being aware of not only what we talk about, but why and how it shapes what we view.

Since I’ve started blogging here, I’ve played games slightly differently. While just reading the blogs I might have noted things here and there, but now whenever I play, I can’t help but step outside of the experience every once in a while just to note what I’m doing. For instance, I’ve logged over thirty hours in Fallout 3, taking my time by stealthing around; if I can’t play a mage, my go-to is the stealthy rogue. The game may take longer, but I also enjoy it, as I can just stare at the environs and listen closely to what’s happening around me. While this is nothing new, the fact that I noticed it is.

In a more definitive sense, I’ve started taking notes when I game, writing down when something intrigues me, or disappoints me. This reminds me of when I attended classes and had a few friendly arguments with professors when I refused to write in texts themselves, instead keeping a notepad with my notes (I cherish books and refuse to besmirch them). What I am left with is a trail of impressions on which I can think back immediately. One matter of which I’ve been cognizant is not wishing to disrupt my game, so this usually occurs after I’ve put down the controller or gone back to my desktop.

I’m rereading a lot of my gender and critical theory texts, and am putting notes next to some of my game observations (though not all of mine have to deal with the ‘literature’ or ‘gender’ of the game at hand). What I’m finding are interesting correlations and ways to view this medium. I’m not finding conclusions, however–nor do I desire to do so. This weekend I was linked by Kotaku, which led a few other sites to link to me, and one comment that would occasionally occur was that I did not have a ‘point’ or overarching thesis to my arguments.

Yep. That’s right. Normally I find correlations and want to point them out, put them out there for debate, and see what others say. Maybe I missed something. Perhaps someone has an example that can turn the discussion in a different way. Whenever I use more than one text and use a general theme, instead of examining one specific work, I hope that there is an example out there for me to explore. I obviously have a bias, which I don’t try to cover, but hope that others can bring theirs into play as well. Very few of us can be entirely objective.

We’ve been discussing the variety of gamers, primarily those that are vested in the act of keeping up on these blogs and news sites for industry news and reviews versus those who buy perhaps a handful of games a year and don’t look to have the latest innovation, so long as they have a solid game; what of those of us actually writing these posts, however? Not only are we engaging in conversation, but we’re probably falling prone to blogging syndrome, where we encounter something and immediately think on how we can make a post on the subject matter. In my seven years of blogging thus far, I found myself doing this at one particular time in my past to the point of distraction, so that I had to wean myself of the habit. If anything, this points to a hardcore/casual divide (with which I don’t necessarily agree, playing many ‘casual’ games myself) beyond just the way we game.

The question then becomes of whether or not I’m succumbing to that danger here. Thankfully I feel no urgency in posting all my notes at once. I have a backlog of ideas on which to think and plan on doing so, but often find myself waiting for an opportune moment and time to actually explore the idea. There are also many times when I have an idea and wish to go reread some Butler, Foucault, Faludi or other text I may have read in the past, or wish to read in the future, thus putting that particular piece on hold. Others are usually dependent on something someone else posts or a similar experience in a game I may be playing now and find it the perfect way to approach the topic.

In the back of my mind though, I am fully aware that this is not the majority gamer’s experience, nor should it be. However, the community of gamers is vastly growing to include not only a variety of gamers, but much like with film, comics, music, and other disciplines, it is curious to note how we’re quickly becoming varied in our approaches to the medium itself. Some may just want news; others wish to explore deeper literary themes; perhaps the artistic stylization some games present; how does our culture reflect in terms of games, and what can that tell us through an interactive medium; how are games having an impact on us?

Have you talked about talking about gaming today?

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