Since When Did Playing Games Become Work?

Dragon Age Origins: I bought it not so much for the fun as for studying the morality system.

I ordered Dragon Age Origins from Amazon last week.  Now I am not a real big role-playing fan but I do play them from time to time.  In fact I usually buy one role-playing game (RPG) per year.  I played Oblivion in 2006 and Mass Effect in 07.  I never finished Fallout 3, so I stayed away from the genre until Mass Effect 2 came out earlier this year.  I guess Dragon Age could be my RPG for 09. Whatever.

Somewhere in the midst of checking the US Postal Service website for the status of my package, I began to wonder why I was so intent on playing this game.  I then realized that while the game only mildly appeals to me (I prefer sci-fi RPGs), I am fascinated by the morality system and the choices presented in the game.  I know if I can get my hands on it I can probably use the content as the basis for a study, a paper, or at the very least some good blogging. That’s when it dawned on me: I play games for research and not for fun.

So then I started debating with myself, thinking “surely I play other games just for fun.” What about NCAA Football 11? I play that game every day, but it is also research.  I’ve already blogged about dynasty wire and social media.  I sent some tweets about the power of the press in that game. In fact I started tweeting about the social aspect of the game before I even picked it up from Gamestop. And while eating breakfast this morning I tossed about an idea about getting users to create more stories to increase the hype and tension before big games and therefore make online dynasties more realistic. That would make for a fascinating study.

Well then perhaps I play Mass Effect 2 just for fun. That’s no better.  After all that adventure provided inspiration about death in games, cultural hegemony and racism.  I even thought about blogging on how the game treats the disabled in the “Overlord” DLC.  So much for that.

Worse still, I bought Red Dead Redemption to see how Rockstar went about developing the narrative.  Fable II was only an exercise in studying the morality system and how NPCs would react to my in-game decisions.  I got great information, but never finished either game.

I think something is wrong with me.

I see more than Tomb Raider's Lara Croft. I see body image and media effects.

It finally dawned on me that my gaming only serves as a platform for my research.  Even when I think I am just having fun or relaxing, I suspect that somewhere in the back of my mind I am taking mental notes for my next project.  I would not be surprised if the gaming I’ve been doing these past few years (Mass Effect 1& 2, NCAA Football, Dragon Age, Tomb Raider Underworld, Gears of War, GTA, Modern Warfare 2) will provide a wealth of potential projects to work on after my dissertation.   And so here I sit with research ideas about male body image and the use of drama in video games floating around in my head.  Even now I have a blog draft about the perseverance of hyper-masculine heroes in games such as Gears of War. In an age where Lara Croft looks more like a women and less like an adolescent fantasy we still have Marcus Fenix who exemplifies the typical ultra-macho, super-aggressive male role model.

And so my brief self-reflection has led me to the conclusion that my days of gaming just for fun are gone and they aren’t coming back.  That pastime has been replaced with the need to explore game content for hegemonic messages, changing player identity in the face of moral choices, and genre-blending trends in the industry.  I used to joke that studying games gave me an excuse to play them.  Now I think studying games is my sole reason for playing. How my (gaming) world has changed.

Cultural Hegemony Within the World of Mass Effect, part 2

Last time I wrote about how the organization Cerberus challenges the hegemonic rule of the Citadel Council in the Mass Effect franchise.  This time around we explore some of the finer points of cultural hegemony and how some different readings of ME point to inclusion of hegemony in these two BioWare games.

In ME mythology, the Council was originally made up of the Asari and the Salarians.  The Turians were allowed to join after they unleashed the genophage on the violent Krogan, thereby keeping them in check due to the new genetically controlled birthrate. Humanity joined the council after the Battle of the Citadel (as Sovereign’s attack came to be known).  Both times the race that saved the Citadel from demise  became a member of the ruling council. In the world of Mass Effect, the most relevant challenges to hegemonic rule are a) those great threats that come from the outside and b) an uprising so strong that the regular fleet cannot prevail.

In the case of the Krogan Uprisings, the Citadel nearly destroyed itself. After all, they enabled the quick-breeding Krogan to escape the confides of their predator-filled home planet and as long as they could defeat the Rachni and win the Citadel’s war, the hegemony prevailed. However with the end of the Rachi War, the Krogan population ballooned at an alarming rate.  Hence the genophage and the Turian seat on the Council.

Humanity of course took the lead in fighting the Reaper Sovereign. Again we see the Council recognizing that a race was now powerful and influential enough to pose a threat if left outside the political inner circle. And so humanity became the fourth race represented on the Council.  Any member of the human race might think that, like the Turians, mankind had now reached the pinnacle of galactic government and thus had “arrived.”  Not Cerberus.

Perhaps if humanity had gained its proper position in the power structure after that battle, Cerberus would have ceased its operations.  However the Illusive Man believed that human interests were still not being served.  Why would he think that?  Let me refer back to cultural hegemony theory for a few hints.  Specifically, I will reference the Artz and Murphy book Cultural Hegemony in the United States.

These two writers remind us that the messages, ideas, and ideals of the dominant class are transmitted to and adopted by the marginalized (or oppressed) classes.  If we apply that to Mass Effect, it is reasonable to assume the ideologies of humanity are not transmitted via the extranet (Mass Effect‘s Internet) and to the masses.  We only get snippets of information while playing ME1 and ME2, so we don’t know if Shepard’s interactions with reporters are for the human press or the galactic press.  Likewise, the brief reports the player hears via “galaxy news” in ME2 could be customized for just for Shepard, just like the advertisements on the Citadel are personalized ala Minority Report.

Second, we know that hegemonic concessions must look like real progress for the oppressed classes. Otherwise they have little or no effect.  Genuine interest is an illusion that often times is enough to placate the oppressed enough to quiet cultural, economic, or political unrest.  We know that in the real world that having women on the Supreme Court does not automatically mean fair and equal treatment for both sexes; nor does having Barack Obama as President of the United States ensure that African-Americans now have equal access to economic, cultural, and political power.  So can we say that (in the Mass Effect universe) having David Anderson on the Citadel Council guarantees all of humanity’s concerns will be addressed?

We still know too little of the Illusive Man’s motivations to be sure, but it could very well be that he has recognized the power of hegemonic rule and knows that humankind must still fight in order to gain power. And so he has adopted an “end justifies the means” mentality.  We know from playing the two games that Cerberus has raised some hackles with both the human Systems Alliance and with the Citadel.  We also know that many in the Alliance do not trust Cerberus.  Even Ashley Williams, a self-professed xenophobic, berates Shepard for joining the Illusive Man when the two meet on Horizon in ME2.

But for all that, Cerberus seems more of a nuisance and a headache than a threat to rule of the Council races.  In ideology, the Illusive Man and his organization appear to be conscious of humanity’s actual place in the galaxy. Yet in practice, Cerberus by itself cannot pose any true challenge to that order.  And whether the writer’s of Mass Effect realize it or not, that is right in line with cultural hegemony theory.

The Human Condition

I’ve come across a lot of research that states how games must evolve in order to grow into true entertainment media (read: art).  In writing my dissertation, I cam across a series of videos about game design.  This one speaks about storytelling in games. Note: All the videos in this series are informative, funny, and all are right on point with their messages.

I wrote last time that games are on the cusp of becoming art.  And I do realize that “art” is subjective to say the least.  Well in order to be considered art, a game must effectively address the human condition.  We need to care about the characters and what happens to them.  This applies not only the main character, or the person I play in the game, but also to the non-playable characters (NPCs).  A good example of this concept can be found (almost) in Mass Effect 2.

As many gamers know, in ME 2, you can either import your character from ME1 or you can create your own hero. Your character, Commander Shepard, can be male or female.  You can also select one of three back stories for your hero. As you play through the game, you choose if your character will align with paragon (good) or renegade (evil) actions.  There are benefits to leaning one way and not straddling the middle.  I find I have become quite attached to Karen Shepard thanks to multiple trips through the two games.

In addition, in ME2 you have to recruit a team for a suicide mission.  However each person you add to your team has issues and so you soon find that need to criss-cross the galaxy on “loyalty missions” so that each teammate will not be distracted when final mission starts.

These missions reveal a lot about each character, and depending on what choices you make, can also lead to that character’s death at the end of the game.  Of course one of the purposes of these missions is to get you to care about each character. For example, your first officer, Miranda Lawson, must rescue her younger sister from her estranged father’s agents.  During the mission, we learn a lot about Miranda’s motivation for kidnapping/rescuing her sister years ago and the relationship she has with her father.  However a single loyalty mission is not quite enough to make me really care about her death, if that should happen.

Rather what needs to happen, and what developer BioWare is usually good at, it getting different NPCs to interact with each other during the mission.  The world of Mass Effect is so large that players spend a great deal of time moving from place to place, sometimes in combat, sometimes in exploration. For each mission, you take two team mates along for companionship and to aid in combat.  There are brief periods where your team mates will speak on different subjects.  These however are great places to have extended conversations about things both great and small. The problem with this is that with the different combinations of teammates available, hundreds of lines of dialogue would have to be recorded for the multiple pairings if the writers wanted players to get to know these people better.  That is a difficult, though not impossible task.  BioWare has shown it is willing to go to extra lengths to inserts as many lines of dialogue as possible.  Game developers need to realize that it is in those stolen moments that real characterization emerges.  While ME 2 makes a good effort, more is needed.  Unlike movies, where the viewer can experience everything, the branching nature of the role-playing genre means that players will never encounter some places and scenes.  That’s okay.  There has to be enough there so that I feel like I can’t wait to get to the game to see what happens to Karen, Miranda, and the others.  Once developers can combine that human condition with high production, good voice talent, a superb script and memorable game play, then we researchers and critics will be in a better position to say, yes, this game is art.