What do the years 1996 and 2010 have in common?

I didn't buy much from them. I'll explain in a bit, but first, news about myself:

I graduated from Full Sail. I was also the Advanced Achiever for my class, which is a combination of honor roll and class president (neither of which the school officially has). So now I am, quite literally, a Master of Game Design - I'll even get a shiny piece of paper that says so in six-to-eight weeks.

So, with my newfound post-school free time and official mastery, I've begun gearing up for my NAWTS project over the past few days - organizing my games and doublechecking the spreadsheet for missed entries (of which there were a few). Since I was mucking about in the spreadsheet anyhow, I decided to do a little more statistics with it.



The video games I own, grouped by year of release, with a best-fit second-polynomial line overlayed.

 In general, this graph's best-fit curve - and thus, its general trend - follows the curve I expected it to: it goes up every year, and begins to approach a steady asymptote (which appears to be about 17-18 games per year). I start out not buying many games, and as I grow up (remember, I was born in 1986), I acquire more and more resources that I put towards video games - but at some point, I'll hit satiation, which is why the best-fit curve levels off instead of flying straight up into infinity.

For the record, the best-fit line is a second-polynomial curve - I just wanted to observe the most general trend; I can see the ups and downs from here, thanks.

Speaking of those ups and downs, it's pretty clear to see that the graph doesn't actually 'fit' this best-fit line very well. The most important thing to remember in dealing with those lines is that this data regards the release dates of the games I own, not the date I purchased them: if I buy a used video game in the year 2006, but the game itself was first released in 2003, then it goes in the 2003 column. Another thing to note is that the whole of the data comes from my own memory, and as such may well be incomplete, especially when it comes to earlier games for less popular systems.

Still, that's probably not enough to account for everything in the chart. Perhap the biggest, most glaring issue is the year 1996. Seriously, what happened there? Even if I was just buying used games throughout that year - which I'm pretty sure I wasn't, since at the time I would have been a Electronics Boutique shopper and not a Gamestop or Funcoland shopper - that doesn't explain why I didn't go on in later years to buy used games that were released in 1996. In fact, the only video game I own that was released in 1996 is Super Mario 64! I'll grant that it's an impressive, sprawling game, and that it could well have occupied me completely, but it only came out in the fall of that year alongside the Nintendo 64 itself.

As with all questions in life, my first step is to turn to Wikipedia. Sure enough, they've got a lot of info ready for me already on video games in 1996. Apparently, that year was a big one for new consoles - the Playstation and Sega Saturn had just launched, and the N64 was about to drop. It's not that notable games weren't released - Crash Bandicoot, Tomb Raider, Diablo - but they just weren't games I was interested in at the time. I remember a number of games from that year, too, like Super Mario RPG and Mega Man X3, but these were games that I rented multiple times instead of purchasing.

The next biggest dip is, surprisingly, this year - 2010. This also probably has similar explanations, mainly being that I was deeply involved with school for the vast majority of the year. Even though I did buy a few games upon graduation, they were all older titles, either used or on Steam. Also, because games released this year haven't had much of a chance to be turned in used or find their way to the clearance bin, I haven't had the extra oomph of a really low price to push me to buy more of them. Additionally, I didn't have many of the consoles of this era: I only just picked up an XBox 360 on Black Friday (really Saturday), I still don't own a PS3, and my Wii is back at my parent's home. Obviously, without the consoles to play freshly-released games on, I'm not going to buy many games.

Finally, what's up with 2003? It's a huge spike, especially over the best-fit line. It's likely explained by the fact that a number of systems hit that I picked up very quickly: the Game Boy Advance, the GameCube, and the Playstation 2. Between buying titles at launch and buying used titles later on, for three prolific systems, it's easy to see why I got so many games from that year.

Still, it's cool to see some reflection of my game-buying habits in graph form - and remember, this is a reflection, not a direct measurement, because it looks at a game's release date instead of the date of my purchase.

Some thoughts on the NAWTS Spreadsheet

I got bored, so I figured I'd take a look at the NAWTS spreadsheet, and maybe play with statistics a little. The first thing I looked at was the ESRB ratings for the games I have listed, and below are the percentages of my total gaming library for each ESRB rating.

% Games rated E 45.06%
% Games rated E10+ 8.70%
% Games rated K-A 7.91%
% Games rated T 18.97%
% Games rated M 6.32%
% Games lacking rating ("-") 13.04%

The first thing that jumps out at me is the large number of E-rated titles I've experienced. 45%, really? If you include the K-A and E10+ games in that category, it jumps to 61.67%. Almost two-thirds of my gaming history have been appropriate for small children to play!

"T", being the equivalent of the movie industry's favorite rating PG-13, makes up the next-largest category, about 19% of my gaming history. Of course, I've been gaming longer than there's been an ESRB, and that's part of why the "lacking rating" is the third-largest category, making up roughly 13% of the population of my gaming history. Finally, no matter how you slice it, "M" is the least populous category on my shelf, with only about 6% of my gaming history devoted to it.

So, that's interesting and all, but where does it stack up in terms of all games ever? Unfortunately, I can't find data on all ESRB ratings ever. But I did find data on all ESRB ratings for the year 2009, from the ESRB's own website, which I've borred wholesale, below.

Taken from http://www.esrb.org/about/categories.jsp

Surprisingly enough, I match up pretty closely. Six percent of all games were M-rated, 18% T-rated, 60% E rated... Now, the 16% E10+-rated doesn't match up, though that rating only came into existence in 2005, so that may explain why it's underrepresented in my collection. Assuming 2009 is a representative year, and assuming the 13% of unrated games would have been rated according to this representation (which would give about another 7% to my "E" category), then my gaming colection is, statistically, in ESRB terms, completely average.

This is a long way of saying that my gaming history is, statistically speaking, pretty normal and average. I don't know if that's upsetting or invigorating...

For a much deeper look into how ESRB ratings are spread out across different platforms, this article serves quite nicely.

To Repurpose th' Bard in Iambic, and then for One to Ponder its Meaning

All the world's a game,
And all the men and women player-char'cters:
They have their spawn-points and their weaknesses;
And one man in his time is many-class'd.

...

As much as I would love to continue the quote repurposed, I'm tired and my mood ill-suited to creativity. I actually do feel that the world is game-like; rather, my favorite construct for dealing with the world is to consider it in video-game terms.

Take social situations, for example: A person has a Charisma ("CHA") score, which can be modified up and down by various factors, like self-grooming, fashion, even the room's lighting. One person (the player) has an objective; say, to sway a person to his point of view and to take action based on that view. There's some manner of chance involved: no matter how good or bad the situation is, the end result can still surprise you, and this is represented by a Random Number Generator ("RNG"). The other person has some level of social inertia against this idea, representing a modifier to whatever number the RNG comes up with. Finally, the player's goal has a certain innate difficulty to it, represented by the number to best.

Now, so far, that's not video-gaming, that's D&D. Fair enough. But video games feature one thing that D&D does not: strict, pre-programmed dialog options. Every dialog can be represented by a 'tree' of things the player can say, the other person's reaction to it, and what the player can say in return, as far as any programmer or script-writer cares to take it. When confronted with a social situation, attempting to look down the dialog tree beyond your current branch or node is useful. So, too, is the idea that there are only a few real choices in a given social situation in a given moment: while you could, in reality, say anything, generally you only have a few reasonable options, and immediately cutting those potentially infinite options down to a small subset of reasonable ones can help to process them quickly, since, like in many games, there is a time limit to this.

The construct of life-as-video-games is useful elsewhere, but I'll leave this example on its own for tonight. I bring it up now, however, because I feel that it helped me make a bad situation survivable for myself and a few others tonight, and in the long run.

Pokewalkin'

I got my girlfriend Pokemon SoulSilver a few days ago, as an early birthday present. She's played one of the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games, thinks Pokemon in general are adorable, and loves old-school RPGs, so I figured it'd be a good fit for her. I forgot about the Pokewalker accessory that comes with it, though I remembered, after purchasing it and seeing it in the box, that I had thought it kinda silly when a friend showed it to me back when HeartGold and SoulSilver first came out. (If you weren't aware, the Pokewalker is a pedometer that you can load a Pokemon from your actual game into in order to level it up, 1 EXP per step; you can also catch additional kinds of Pokemon and find a wide variety of items on it, both of which would be difficult to do in the early parts of the game.)

So it's a little surprising to me that it's been so fun to mess around with it.

Now, a caveat: I enjoy going out for a walk. Yes, I live in Florida right now, and it's incredibly hot and muggy and unpleasant outside, but even so, I enjoy a good stroll. So, when I use my girlfriend's Pokewalker, I'm actually walking with it. As an additional caveat, I was a big Pokemon fan back in the day - in fact, the original Pokemon Gold is my favorite version, hands-down. So, in retrospect, I'm basically a big ol' mile-wide-bullseye for Nintendo here.

But this isn't my copy of HeartGold, or my Pokewalker, it's my girlfriend's. And that actually made it more fun. Not just in the sense of, "it's someone else's toy," but because I can use it to help my girlfriend out. By catching Pokemon she couldn't catch for many hours of gametime, and finding useful items for her, I'm helping her playthrough without disturbing the sanctity of her saved game; for any couple, this is an amazing arrangement and one that should be much more commonplace.

Also: The Pokewalker reflects a growing trend, reflected in the video below, by Jesse Schell.

http://g4tv.com/videos/44277/dice-2010-design-outside-the-box-presentation/#video-48439

He talks about how games are encroaching on reality, and how eventually, every game will have a portion in reality that translates into increased power or access within the game. While I think he goes a little bit far in his end-game scenario, mostly for reasons of balance and inter-corporation co-operation (though his presentation is hilarious and well worth the watching), he is, basically, describing exactly what the Pokewalker does: By doing things in the real world, you become more powerful in the game world.

Not only does the Pokewalker allow you to interface reality with fiction, but it also encourages 'good' behavior - in this case, walking and getting exercise, although the Pokewalker's instructions say that it won't work well if you're jogging or doing other non-walking activity. It's as if the game is actually encouraging kids, subtly, to go outside and play; something parents have been wishing video games would do effectively for the past 25 years, if not longer.

Because of this, and Nintendo's overall goal to tie their game systems to the idea of healthy lifestyles (see: Wii Fit, Boktai, among others), I would not be surprised to see a similar accessory become standard issue for whatever comes after the 3DS or the Wii - something similar to every gaming snob's prized cause, the VMU. A little pedometer that can have game mechanics loaded on to it from a specific game, then wiped and re-mechanic'd for a different game, but always able to read your daily step count, or heart rate, or BMI, or galvanic skin response... You get the idea.

And given how much fun it was for me to play with the Pokewalker, I hope the console manufacturers do, too. I wouldn't mind walking around and collecting Star Bits, or Missile Upgrades, or gold pieces, or whatever else the games I play would want to give me for being a good, fit person.

8-Bit Worldview

Most people relate things they experience to things they've already experienced; this is normal. Some people relate things they experience to fictional experiences they've had, such as books or movies. I'm pretty sure that's normal, too.

I view the world through the eyes of the games I've played.

Partially, this is because of my own focus on gaming - while I've also read a ton, and watched my fair share of movies and TV, I can't exactly say I haven't put a lot of thought into the "how" and "why" of video games.

Partially, though, it's because it's a darn useful way to look at things. No other media could so easily have taught me the concept of "left" and "right" as did Super Mario Bros. In fact, I taught my girlfriend the same method - she has problems keeping "left" and "right" straight without thinking about it for a second - and it's helped her remember which is which much faster than before.

Not to mention "Link to the Past" and the cardinal compass directions.

But I've learned more from videogames than just directions and other simple concepts. I've also used that paradigm as a way to interact with people. I'm introverted, not terribly so but enough that it can be tough to initiate a conversation or pipe up and say something. Video games, however, teach a worldview that encourages extroversion: It's always a good idea to walk up to every NPC in town, and talk to them, because they will always say something worth listening to (if it's not actually helpful, it's often immersive, or at least funny). In fact, in many games, the only way to advance is to talk to people without being prompted to. This may be bad game design nowadays, but back in the day such invisible event flags were pretty standard.

It's also taught me about working in groups. In my younger days, I often hated working in groups because I'd be the one smart kid in the group who'd want to actually get the work done. Many games discourage this, by presenting challenges that require multiple people (with varying skillsets!) to overcome easily. However, a smart player can still overcome many of these challenges with a single character if that character is overleveled, with a broad range of skills - and I very much try to be an overleveled person with a wide range of skills, thank you.

Finally - finally for now, at any rate - it's taught me to keep working, if only just a little, after a job is done. There's always the chance of post-game content, or of an ending not being a 'true' ending, or of a treasure left behind in a fully-explored area. Unlike all the above, this is a lesson that I'm still working on incorporating into my everyday life... But actually making a game, through my school's Final Project, seems to be a gauntlet of nothing but object lessons in this.

Not that that's a bad thing. I may not have to learn all the lessons video games have to offer, but I do feel a compunction to level them up regularly.

Paddling, and what it meant for the Wii.

I just got back from Downtown Disney with my family. We visited their five-story arcade complex there, and played a variety of games, very few of which the average gamer would have in their home. One of these, and I forget the name, was the one where you're in a inflatable raft, and you're sent to a river in the distant past to go see dinosaurs just before the extinction-level event occurs.

There's no score to keep, but it actually is a video game and not just an "interactive experience", whatever that difference might actually be. There are meaningful in-game decisions to make: the path branches at several points, each with different dino-events occurring for you to gape at. There are obstacles, mostly the cliff-walls of the river, and there are consequences to your in-game actions - you can be "splashed" by actual jets of water, and the raft is constantly bucking from the action on-screen. There's even a goal, in that the faster you go through the river the more you get to see before time runs out (and from the map displayed at the game's end, it looks like there are a few large areas at the end that my family didn't get to in time); however, I don't think the goal is the point, given how low-key its existence is.

But what's most salient about this game/ride is the controller. Instead of buttons, D-pads, or analog sticks, you have an oar. It has skateboard wheels attached to the end of the blade, so that when you row, the wheels contact the airbag that supports the raft, and you get some resistance to your movement - the motion of the wheels is what the game registers, and it moves your raft down the river accordingly. Now, this is a control scheme that might be familiar to people who go canoeing, rafting, or are otherwise regularly on the water without engine or sail... But for the average person, gamer or no, it's completely new and different.

My father doesn't play video games, I've played them for years and years, and my siblings play less than I but more than my father. But they all enjoyed the experience immensely, at least in part because of the new controls, because it leveled the playing field and made the game an experience where my father wouldn't be frustrated at the technology and want to quit. In short, because we all sucked equally, it was more enjoyable for all of us.

(Now, to be fair, other things are at work here: the game has a very simple and understandable premise, with whatever limited gameplay mechanics it has hidden from player view completely, which aids the new controls in leveling the field from gamers to non-gamers, for one. For another, the physical feedback of the raft bucking and the oars getting resistance on the 'water' made it more intuitive. Thirdly, it was a completely co-operative game, which generally helps ease frustration. And so on.)

So, I would argue that the Wiimote does something similar for people who are new to gaming: because it was, at its release, so new and different from what the average gamer had years of experience with, we all sucked pretty much equally at it. Being at the same (low) skill level made co-operative and competitive play more fun for people new to the system, who would then go out and buy their own, to either get practice in or simply to share the newbie experience with others.

Obviously, not the main reason the Wii exploded into money, opening up a new segment of the gaming market. But I'd say it was at least a contributing factor.

Let's Play: For Professors

Note: Consider this a "first draft". There won't be many citations in this essay, at least not at the moment. But I'm hoping that eventually I could whip it into a more promising shape... Right now, though, this is just an idea I've had for a while that needed to get on paper.

Definition time. Do you know what a "Let's Play" is? It's someone sharing their experience of a video game, with their own commentary on top of it. They can include radical new takes on a game, information on content that was cut from the game, or just thoughts and observations (not always on the game in question). They can be either recorded video of gameplay with audio commentary, or screenshot reproductions of important moments with textual additions.

You can check them out here.

Definition time over. Thesis time now!

Now, the "Let's Play" format (hereafter, "LP", or "LPs" in the plural) is fun to read, but that's not why I'm writing this post. The point I'd like to make is that LPs represent a crucial step in the acceptance of video games as a critique-able, interpret-able art form. Rather than simply being a run-through of the game for experts, or a walkthrough for those stuck in playing a game, they offer a few things that have been available for more conveitonal art forms for years, but have been lacking from gaming: a way to experience the work in general without putting in inordinate amounts of time, a way to provide additional information about a work in context, and a format to provide and foster artistic interpretation of a work.

Consider a book, movie, or a piece of music. In all of these cases, it does not take someone a large amount of time to experience the work once; however, it will of course take many such experiences to truly digest the work and know it well enough to discuss it in a scholarly fashion. This is also true of video games. The difference, however, is that unlike the majority of books, movies, and pieces of music, they can require upwards of 80 hours for a single playthrough, a single experience. In addition, most games have multiple paths to take, all of which may be necessary to see the work from all angles and begin to know it well enough to discuss in a scholarly manner. This does not even include those games that have no well-defined (or, rather, have a user-defined) end-point, for which there can be no approximation of play-time beyond the statistical.

Now, a Let's Play does not substitute for experiencing a game first-hand. In either its video or text-and-image format, it cannot convey the feel of the actual gameplay, much as a video of a play does not convey the emotions of performing in the same play. What an LP can do, however, is greatly shorten the time it takes to experience a game the first time, from that typical of video games to that more typical of movies or books. When an LP covers the salient plot points, items of interest, and background information of a game (not to mention material that might not be included in the game itself, such as cut, exclusive, or paratextual content), it allows a scholar to experience a game for the first time. This, in turn, allows a scholar to more quickly dive into the game-as-text itself, now being at least familiar with its important parts, and not having sunk half of a month of work into simply reaching and defeating the final boss - and this allows a scholar more time to work on a scholarly view of the work, and lowers the bar for entry, allowing more scholars "in".

As has been stated, a Let's Play allows a scholar to see not only the text of the game itself, but also material that, while not part of the game proper, may provide further elucidation on a game's themes, or perhaps information as to the author's intentions. When an LP splices in cut content, they allow a scholar to see that cut content as it "could have been", in the context of the game as a whole. When they add official information that is not included in the game ROM, such as passages from instruction manuals and strategy guides, they not only can clear up things made unclear in bad translations or the LP writer's choice of path, but also provide a quick reference for further investigation; that is, more sources to investigate.

And when a Let's Play includes the LP writer's commentary, silly or scholarly, they perform the work that critiques of literature and textbooks on art have done for decades: interpretation of a work, which is itself a foundation on which one can build further critiques and investigations of a piece of art. While a typical LP covers the entire length of a game, from beginning to end, this means that, while comprehensive, they often leave plenty of room for further work: interpretations of individual scenes, game mechanics, and other portions of games as unconnected from the rest of the text. An LP writer often invites others in his or her community to contribute to the work, in the form of their own commentary, or interpretive artwork, or even competing LPs; in this way, each LP is itself a boiling stew of jumping-off points for further work. Finally, a good LP is always a fascinating read on its own merits, apart from the game it examines - and as a good read, it is itself a text that could prove worthy of interpretation and examination.

Since a Let's Play produces the foundation, support, and even the simple interest and time to invest in a scholarly work on a video game, it seems that they are, in fact, a critical step in the acceptance of video games as an art form, as they provide so much towards the experiencing and interpreting of games.