Reading11: Trigger Warning

Oh video games. For all the good that you can and have done, and hours of beauty and joy that you have brought to millions, so often you end up the scapegoat blamed for so many of the problems we see in the world. In all honesty, I never really know what to say or think about many of the social issues tied to, well really anything. I feel like the problems are things that I need to be aware of as I go about my day, and I am not one to invalidate how another feels about one thing or another, so I know it is important to stay informed as to what can be possibly problematic. 

I cannot say much of anything to the effects or lack thereof of games on gun violence, or violence of any kind. Much of the research I have seen to this point has been, at best, inconclusive and often disproves the correlation, but the public opinion is still vehemently in support of the idea. That sort of dissonance is always incredibly irritating to me, the clinging desperately to what you want to believe in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Addiction is a more interesting problem, if only because it is something that games could do something about, but are at times designed to do the exact opposite. As this becomes a more serious problem, with more and more cases reported every year with more severe consequences leading to pretty morbid presentations in History of Computing classes, and there are hundreds of instances where people spend tragic amounts of money, it seems clear to me that something needs to be done here. And fortunately, steps are being taken in regard to this. Governments are stepping in and putting the same restrictions to many games as are brought on casinos and other forms of gambling. And if certain sections of the gaming world want to continue down this path and become more casino and less art, more of these systems of checks will need to be put in place. The ESRB, in its current state, is alright when in comes to keeping kids from being able to buy games they shouldn't be playing, though there are easy ways to take advantage of that system, but is not built to handle cases of microtransaction addiction. In cases like this, a sort of gaming commission needs to step in and monitor activity similar to that of a casino. 

In my eyes, games are mostly a product of a lot of these social ills than they are a cause for them (although I suppose their is an argument for a sort of propagation of the problem). Sometimes, games try to act as a cure for social problems, trying to connect people and bring positive experiences and give examples of good representation and strong meaningful characters and experiences. Other times, games try to calculate how to best keep people clicking and giving more of their money. The latter is, for me, a significant problem, and has kept me growing farther apart from the gaming culture. But hopefully things can turn around with some of the push-back from the community with some of these practices, although if people continue to pay up in the way they have, there is no reason for studios to make any change.

Reading10 - eSports

One of the best things about video games has always been that you can show off how much better you are at it than another person. This is why we have ranking systems and online sharing and all these other features to be the very best, like no one ever was. In recent years this has taken a bigger twist, to the point where the competitive nature of some of the most popular games becomes a spectacle of itself, and eSports are on the rise. Turn to ESPN2 on a slow news day and see League of Legends matches between some of the highest-ranked players in the world. The EA Sports Madden Ultimate League apparently has its own subsection on the WatchESPN app. Ultimately, I am in support of the growing eSports movement, and have enjoyed watching some of these events.

Way back when, I think around 2006, I was first exposed to the idea of playing video games competitively. Growing up, I really only played single-player (and still do to this day) and the only competitiveness came from wanting to have a story that one-upped that of a classmate or friend. But on some slow weekend in baseball season, as I was absolutely not going to watch baseball, I stumbled upon an ESPN showing of some Madden 2005 tournament. It was a crazy show, with surprising focus given to sort of reality show elements in almost equal part to the gameplay. I got super invested in players who used systems that I liked, or tried to play in what I felt was the best way and wound up watching some 6 hours that one day. And it is good fun, I think, to see people who are so passionate about something, no matter what it is really, and do it extraordinarily well. There is a sort of artistry to mastering a game that is similar to the artistry that goes into creating it. More recently, some of the eSports communities have grown bigger than short tournaments for cash prizes and have become a profession. My favorite of these is pictured above, the eMLS cup. In this case, the real professional football clubs in the US and Canada have signed top-ranked players and supporters of their teams to eSports contracts, providing them with sponsorship in exchange for their representation of their brand. This kicked off (no pun intended) just a few weeks ago at the PAX East convention, the first time all 19 of these now professional EA Sports FIFA players came together to bring to their club a piece of pretty legitimate silverware. The show was really enthralling, and I wound up being more invested in these games of FIFA than I was in the actual game of real-life football I had on the TV. The surprisingly full crowd, the commentary from former MLS players, and the incredible skill of these people playing the same game I have put hundreds of hours in was really incredible.There's a sort of meta-game to these sorts of eSporting events, and with so many different ways to build teams and play the game each match brought its own excitement.

As much as I enjoy eSports and so many others seem to as well, I don't think this is a thing that needs to get much bigger than it is. I think it is great when this sort of thing stays in its own chunk of the market, with passionate fans and invested spectators coming together to enjoy something wonderful. However, if this were to try to grow too much, and to attempt to become "legitimized" to the level of an Olympic sort or something of that degree, I don't think I would enjoy it as much. In the same way that many people harp on the classification of chess as a sport, should the eSports community attempt to garner that same sort of respect, their would be enormous push-back from especially vocal groups that would take much of the joy out of the thing. I love that eSports are a thing, and that they are growing in their own market, but I would hate to see it go the way of some of the larger sports leagues, where excessive media coverage and repeated scandal take the joy out of the games being played.

Reading09 - Modern Arcade Reflection

Once such a large part of the lives of particular groups of people, arcades now are few and far between, and often not very popular. I remember fondly time spent at Chuck E. Cheese and other kid's play places where video arcade games won you tickets to exchange for different toys and such. There are also some great bars where the old arcade cabinets combine with craft beers to make for truly delightful occasions. On the whole, however, I struggle to see how these games matter at all in the larger scope of gaming. The products themselves are by and large inferior to a free app you could pull up on a phone and considerably less than the modern PC or console title. As more of the gaming peripherals come into the home, the arcades cease to have purpose. For awhile I would have argued that there is charm and value to arcade titles. Many employ unique and interesting game mechanics, and unique input tools that could not be experienced anywhere else, and can be used to push the boundaries of how we are able to play games. But as technology has developed, more and more the uniqueness of arcade cabinets lessens and most of the same, and many far superior, experiences can be had with any other sort of gaming, and without the need to be tied to a particular geographic location or the need to shell out rolls and rolls of quarters.

I could be incorrect in my assessment, of course. There are personal biases that keep me from getting much of anything out of the arcade experience. In a lot of ways, it seems similar to why I do not enjoy bowling, and it seems little coincidence that the two activities often appear side-by-side. Personally I do not see any reason that many of these arcade are failing. Sure, a lot are kind of gross and not terrifically maintained, and Strikes and Spares did not do a lot to fight this line of thinking I already had, but even places like DisneyQuest, a massive video-arcade "indoor theme park" in the Walt Disney World complex are failing to keep up with the technical superiority and entertainment value provided by modern games. There may always be a market of kids who want to win that remote-controller helicopter and drunk twenty-somethings going buck wild at Dave and Buster's, but every year it seems like arcades are less and less important to smaller groups of people, and I cannot think of anything that could be done to turn that trend around.

The best thing an arcade can be now is a social experience, and no longer really one of technical intrigue or gaming prowess. Good times can still be had with a great group of friends around a cabinet trying to one-up each other's high scores, with everyone sort of back-seat driving, shouting their best strategies or trying to trip up the player, but I do not think that the arcade is really a part of the gaming world anymore, and honestly that is not necessarily a bad thing.