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Verrat in fünf Akten: Der Skandal als Werbeeffekt in der Spielebranche
kollisionsabfrage.net

Die soziale Überwachung
grindthatauthority.de

3x Multiple Choice - Erzählen und Entscheiden
videogametourism.at

Mechanics And The Message In Kentucky Route Zero « PIXELS OR DEATH PIXELS OR DEATH
pixelsordeath.com

Love and darkness: A series of letters on relationship games
polygon.com

Investigation: A Video Game Studio From Hell
kotaku.com

10 Jahre Second Life
fm4.orf.at

Systemizing the Supernatural: Why Are Fantasy Games So Stagnant?
indiestatik.com

against saving, against aspiration
malvasiabianca.org

The Arbitrary or Authored Loss of Control against Perfect & Natural Avatars
loseyourway.net

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Verrat in fünf Akten: Der Skandal als Werbeeffekt in der Spielebranche

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Verrat in fünf Akten

5. Juni 2013

“Jeder Skandal hat seine Wurzel in dem absolut sicheren Gefühl für das Unmoralische.”

Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900), eigentlich Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills, irischer Lyriker, Dramatiker und Bühnenautor

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Marketing lügt. Immer. In der Gaming-Welt hätte Pinnochio´s Nase diese bereits mehrfach umrundet. Grundsätzlich gilt: Je kostenaufwändiger die Produktion, desto länger der Zinken. Doch mit dem gestiegenen Aufwand der letzten Jahre reicht es offenbar nicht mehr aus, Pre-Render-Filme als Spielgrafik zu verkaufen, versprochene Features auszulassen oder in hohen Tönen von neuen Maßstäben, gar Revolutionen zu schwärmen. Das Publikum härtet ab, größere Geschütze müssen aufgefahren werden. Da verwundert es wenig, dass künstlich erzeugte Aufreger nun mit einer gewissen Regelmäßigkeit einen festen Platz in der Vorberichterstattung für sich beansprucht haben. Call of Duty hat seit dem ersten Modern Warfare ein solches Element, was mit jedem weiterem Sequel sowohl obligatorischer, als auch deplatzierter wirkte. Jüngst wurde eine geschmacklose Büste einer verstümmelten Frauenleiche, Pardon, eines weiblichen Zombies mit Bikini diskutiert, die einer Sonderedition von Dead Island: Riptide beiliegen sollte. Und auch bei dem Reboot von Tomb Raider wurde lange, wirklich lange vor der Veröffentlichung des eigentlichen Spiels über eine Vergewaltigungsszene diskutiert, die noch nicht einmal im Spiel als solche auftaucht.

Ein künstlich erzeugter Skandal ist ein Verrat an den Anstand oder guten Geschmack. Manchmal sogar beides. Aber es ist ein kleines Verbrechen, das sich auszahlt: Die öffentliche Echauffierung bewirkt eine effiziente Mundpropaganda, die sogar Personen erreicht, die sich per se vorher noch nicht einmal für das entsprechende Spiel interessiert haben. Die Entourage ist dabei entscheidend, und diese ist bei Videospielen bekanntlich noch verhältnismäßig klein. Über die Diskussion über den Sexismus in Videospielen etwa weiß die gesamte spielende Gemeinde unabhängig von der individuellen Meinung seiner Mitglieder weitestgehend Bescheid. Ein durch das Marketing geworfener Stein in den überschaubaren See erzeugt Wellen bis zu den äußersten Ufer-Bereichen. Von der Leichen-Büste hatte jeder gehört; aufwirbelnder sind die Schwingungen aber selbstredend bei populären Titeln, die ohnehin eine grundsätzlich höhere Aufmerksamkeit bei Medien und Rezipienten besitzen, wie es zum Beispiel bei Tomb Raider der Fall war.
Außerhalb der Spielergemeinde ist der Effekt so gut wie gar nicht spürbar. Aktive Feministen beispielsweise bekämpfen zunächst die Zustände in wichtigeren Lebensbereichen, etwa Beruf oder gar Religion. Ein verzerrtes Frauenbild in Videospielen, das sich im geringsten Fall in einem zu offenherzigem Top einer gut ausgestatteten Lara Croft manifestiert und im schlimmsten Fall die Frau zum Objekt degradiert, ist da – Anita Sarkeesians lobenswerter Bemühungen zum Trotz – nur der kleinste Dorn im Auge. Das ist schwer vorstellbar wenn das eigene Leben stark von Spielen geprägt ist; aber viele Menschen können – und dies sei hier völlig vorurteilsfrei festgestellt – aus dem Gedächtnis heraus kaum Mario und Luigi voneinander unterscheiden.

Der Tenor in den anschließenden öffentlichen Entschuldigungen suggeriert ein Versehen. Ein Fehltritt, den „man so hat nicht kommen sehen“, da man ja „das Beste für die Fans“ tun wollte. Tatsächlich sind Marketingmenschen entgegen der weit verbreiteten Meinung weder weltfremd, noch müssen sie sich mit den Produkten in irgendeiner Form selbst identifizieren. So viel Abstraktionsvermögen verlangt die Professionalität in diesem Beruf. Viel warme Leidenschaft für die Gestaltung von Werbung bedeutet gleichzeitig eiskalte Kalkulation von Aktionen und Reaktionen: Formulierung des Signals, kontrollierte Aussendung, als auch die Beobachtung des Echos in von Blogs und Presse berührten Bereichen auf diversen Socializing-Plattformen. Messerscharf und rücksichtslos.

Das Marketing nutzt auf diesem Wege die prekäre Lage aus, in der sich vor allem kommerzielle Online-Redaktionen befinden: Um mehr Klickzahlen zu generieren, werden nicht nur die noch so erbärmlichen Fetzen an Neuigkeiten oder die diffusesten Gerüchte veröffentlicht, sondern schon kleinere, potentielle Reizthemen werden mehr oder weniger subtil skandalisiert. Aus einer Mücke wird ein Elefant gemacht, in der Hoffnung, der Kommentarbereich möge sich aufblähen und das Link-Karussell durch Twitter, Facebook & Co regelrecht rotieren.

Und es funktioniert öfter, als die menschliche Vernunft eigentlich zulassen sollte: Ob Videospieldesigner über ihre Kollegen monieren, ein Publisher noch vor Release Pläne für Zusatzinhalte verlauteten lässt oder schlicht ein Termin verschoben wird: Wer nicht unmittelbar mit einem Kommentar unter einer Meldung Stellung bezieht, erzählt es zumindest weiter. Es herrscht ein unglaubliches Bedürfnis im Menschen gut informiert in seiner bevorzugten Interessensgruppe aufzutreten und einen Disput nicht nur anzuregen, sondern am Ende gewissermaßen sogar zu dominieren. Wer keine Meinung hat, ist aus der Runde raus; daher ist es im Zweifelsfall sogar von Vorteil, einfach eine zu adaptieren und sich der Mehrheit anzuschließen. Die Kombination aus Presse und dieser Sorte kompetenzeifernder Leser macht es dem Marketing in der Latenzphase einfach, einen Skandal sorgsam zu formen. Aber für ein Schlüsselereignis müssen die Vorbereitungen dazu noch nicht nicht aus eigenem Hause stammen: Die Sexismus-Debatte kam vor allem durch einen Trailer zu Hitman: Absolution ins Rollen, der eine Reihe von Auftragskillerinnen in sexualisierten Outfits zeigte, die äußerst brutal von dem Protagonisten umgebracht wurden. Für die Marketingabteilungen von Square Enix war es also ein leichtes die Lawine mit weiteren Brocken zu bestücken. Den Berg hinabrollen würde sie ohnehin.

Schon fast trivial dabei: Skandale, ob bewusst oder unbewusst erzeugt, wurden in den letzten Jahren vornehmlich an Spielen beobachtet, die ohnehin an ein erwachsenes Publikum gerichtet waren. Aufreger und Debatten über Gewaltdarstellung oder sexuelle Inhalte sind für den Werbeeffekt schon insofern progressiv, als das fortlaufend immer mehr von dem potentiellen Zielpublikum Wind von dem Produkt bekommt. Damit umgeht eine Agentur sogar die Problematik, die durch anstößige Anzeigen entstehen könnte. Auf heikle Aspekte eines Spiels darf schon aufgrund des Jugendschutzes nicht direkt hingewiesen werden. Durch einen öffentlichen Disput innerhalb der Spielergemeinde wird diese Hürde allerdings auf perfide Art überwunden. Schließlich tragen keine offiziellen Stimmen einer Firma die Informationen weiter, sondern sie gelten lediglich als Stichwortgeber. Das Renommee bleibt intakt, und trotzdem wurde bei Interessenten deftiger Unterhaltung die Aufmerksamkeit geweckt. Das gilt vor allem für Spieler, die noch nicht volljährig sind.

Klingt die öffentliche Reaktion ab, so hat die Abschwungphase begonnen. Aber selbst über den Release eines Spiels hinaus lässt sich die vorherige, brisante Etablierungsphase allerdings noch verlängern, in dem einfach etwas mehr Öl ins Feuer gekippt wird. PR-Sprecher oder Entwickler kommen in Interviews zu Wort, beziehen Stellung zu Vorwürfen oder gehen auf den allgemeinen Tenor der Rezensionen ein. Die Autorin Rhianna Pratchett verteidigte zum Beispiel auch nach der Veröffentlichung von Tomb Raider vehement die Gestaltung ihrer Version von Lara und zog den Vergleich mit anderen Spielen. Die angebliche Vergewaltigungsszene wurde durch die Berichterstattung zu diesem Zeitpunkt als Schwindel entlarvt, doch Pratchett hält trotz ludonarrativer Dissonanz an den bewusst eingesetzten, auf sexistischen Klischees beruhenden weiblichen Schwächen in der Charakterzeichnung fest. Es spielt keine Rolle ob sie tatsächlich von ihrer Arbeit überzeugt ist: Die PR hat jederzeit die Entscheidungsgewalt darüber, welche Aussagen von der Autorin veröffentlicht werden. Ein Segen, wenn sie vor laufender Kamera tatsächlich glaubt, was sie sagt. Oder man es zumindest so inszeniert.

Irgendwo zwischen diesen ganzen Inszenierungen gibt es auch Skandale, die niemand wollte. Hart getroffen hat es vor einigen Jahren das japanische Survival Horror-Spiel Rule of Rose des Entwicklers Punchline. Hinter der Fassade eines düsteren Märchens beschäftigt sich das Werk mit kinder- und sozialpsychologischen Hintergründen mehrerer junger Mädchen in einem Waisenhaus. Pubertät, sexuelle Annäherungen, Mobbing, Tierquälerei. Keines dieser Aspekte wird plakativ als Effekt eingesetzt, wohl aber subtil in der Handlung angedeutet. Die bloße Nennung der Begriffe „Kinder“, „Gewalt“ und „Videospiel“ in einem Satz hat aber Franco Frattini, den europäischen Kommissar für Justiz, Freiheit und Sicherheit, dazu bewogen eine Kontroverse vom Zaun zu brechen, die dem Verkauf des Spiels das Genick brechen sollte. Weitere Stimmen von offiziellen Stellen wurden laut, u.a. forderten drei französische Polizeibeamte zur Beschlagnahmung auf, da man im Spiel dazu getrieben werde „to rape, beat up and kill a little girl“. Wie sich später herausstellen sollte, gab es keinerlei solcher Szenen oder Implizierungen, aber der böse Leumund wurde bereits erlangt.

Nach mehreren öffentlichen Debatten und Forderungen nach Verboten brachen Sony, Atlus und 505 Gamestreet ihre Kampagnen in Europa und den USA ab. Beschmutzen wollte sich schließlich niemand mit einem Spiel, das nach öffentlicher Meinung Kindesmisshandlungen enthält – völlig unabhängig davon, ob dies der Wahrheit entspricht oder nicht. Verkauft wurde das Spiel nur in vereinzelten Ländern, erlangte in Deutschland eine für Horrorspiele nicht ungewöhnliche Einstufung ab 18 Jahren und gilt bei Kennern wegen seiner Parallelen zu Wedekind´s Frühlings Erwachen und Guillermo del Toro‘s Pan‘s Labyrinth als gutes Beispiel für gelungene Dramaturgien in Videospielen. Aller guten Absichten zum Trotz wird das Spiel aber vor allem wegen seinem Eklat in Erinnerung bleiben. Punchline, die schon mit dem ambitionierten PS2-Spiel Chuvlip aufgefallen sind, verschwanden nach all der Aufregung selbstverständlich von der Bildfläche.

Als letzter Akt steht die Rehabilitationsphase, in der der Konflikt zumindest aus der Sicht der Medien verschwunden ist. Aus den Augen, aus dem Sinn, sozusagen. Die Kritikerstimmen von Tomb Raider und die Verkaufszahlen von Call of Duty sind nur zwei berühmte Beispiele dafür, dass ein Skandal in der Vorberichterstattung selten negativen Einfluss hat, oder diese gar stimuliert hat. Während in einigen Büros daraufhin die Sektflaschen geöffnet werden, haben die eigentlichen Entwickler einige Herzanfälle überstehen müssen: Über ihre Köpfe hinweg wurde entschieden, ihr Kind von der denkbar schlechtesten Seite, streng genommen sogar einer Lüge öffentlich degradierend zur Schau zu stellen. Auch wenn zum Schluss die Kohle stimmt: In den Träumen verwegener Gamedesigner-Romantik hat man sich das sicher anders vorgestellt.

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Die soziale Überwachung

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Kolumne

Die soziale Überwachung

Stellt euch vor, dass euer Medienkonsum nicht mehr privat ist. Für manchen klingt das nach Zukunftsmusik, tatsächlich ist es stellenweise jetzt schon möglich. Dank Tools wie Last.fm, auskunftsfreudigen Apps und sozialen Netzwerken wissen wir heute allzu gut, was andere sehen, hören und lesen. Selbst bei Videospielen ist das der Fall: Spiele auf Facebook poppen ungefragt in unserer Timeline auf, Xbox 360 und PlayStation 3 geben offen darüber Auskunft was wir tun und die kommenden Konsolen werden wahrscheinlich unseren Konsum noch detaillierter in die Welt hinausposaunen.

Auslöser für meine Gedanken an dieses Thema war ein Kommentar bei einen Artikel bei Superlevel, wo dem Autor vorgeworfen wurde, den besprochenen Titel nicht gespielt zu haben, weil er nicht auf seinen Steam-Profil zu finden ist. Die Redakteure wiesen darauf hin, dass man Games auch über „Review-Versionen, die nicht an einen Account gebunden sind […], das Ausleihen/Mitbenutzen von einem Steam-Account von einem Freund, Steam-Presseaccounts, mehrere eigene Steam-Accounts“ spielen könnte.

Ich persönlich fühle mich dadurch an eine Situation vor zwei Jahren erinnert: Ich lieh mir von einen Freund das frisch erschienene „Shadows of the Damned“ und „Duke Nukem Forever“ aus. Bei „Damned“ spielte ich rein, sah meine Meinung bestätigt und lobte es auf Twitter über den Klee. Dann ging es mit dem Duke weiter (Ein Spiel bei dem ich übrigens in der Anfangszeit von G.T.A. einen riesige Parodie auf seine Entwicklungszeit bastelte). 2008 galt Duke Nukem Forever als tot, 3D Realms hatte sich überschätzt. 2011 hauchten 2K Games und Gearbox den Titel neues Leben ein und veröffentlichten es nach vierzehn Jahren Entwicklung. Dementsprechend war ich wie der Rest der Gaming-Welt gespannt und spielte es den restlichen Abend. Dann kam von SpielerEins:  „du hast ca.45 gespielt und dann – weil es so cool ist ?! – erstmal doch dukenukem weitergespielt eh? pack mal lieber was aus“ Nicht cool, Digger. Und das noch garniert mit einen Diss an meine Unboxings. Es folgt eine Diskussion. SpielerEins und ich haben uns heute immer noch superlieb (auch wenn er mir nicht mehr auf Twitter folgt), aber trotzdem ist das etwas was ich ihm krumm nehme.

Jetzt abgesehen von Fehden gegen ehemalige Spieleblogger: Wie sieht ihr das Problem der „sozialen Überwachung“? Sollten wir alle den Stecker ziehen und zurück auf die Bäume klettern? Oder sollten wir in die andere Richtung gehen, jedes kleinste Detail unseres Lebens öffentlich machen, um in Datenmüll zu verschwinden? Vielleicht ist es gar kein Problem und ich sehe nur die negative Seite der schönen, neuen Welt?

Währenddessen stellt euch vor, eure Kollegen würden euch am nächsten Tag auf der Arbeit auslachen, weil ihr gestern in einen Anflug von Nostalgie „König der Löwen“ angesehen habt. Stellt euch vor, dass eure Hipster-Mitbewohner Blickkontakte meiden, weil ihr heute morgen aus, ähem, „reiner Neugier“ Katy Perry auf euren iPhone gehört habt. Stellt euch vor, eure konservative Freundin macht Schluß, weil ihr, als sie nicht zuhause war, einen Porno mit Sasha Grey angesehen habt. Stellt euch vor, ihr werdet als Spielekritiker gedisst, nur weil ihr eure Rezension geschrieben habt, bevor ihr das Spiel durchgezockt habt.

Foto von NASA

von PlayStar, 1 Jun 2013

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3x Multiple Choice - Erzählen und Entscheiden

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3x Multiple Choice - Erzählen und Entscheiden

Narration versus Gameplay, Erzählen versus Erleben, Narratologen versus Ludologen - es ist so etwas wie die älteste akademische Fehde der Game Studies, und ich selber finde mich, je mehr ich darüber nachdenke, immer weniger darin zurecht. Dem Erzählen habe ich jahrelang die Treue gehalten, in den letzten Jahren zog es mich eher Richtung Gameplay, und jetzt, anlässlich dreier ganz unterschiedlicher kleiner Beispiele, betört mich wieder die Macht des Erzählens, die Suche nach der Antwort auf eine Frage - das, was Neil Gaiman, im Vorwort zu Stories so treffend the four words nannte:

“…and then what happened?” The four words that children ask, when you pause, telling them a story. The four words you hear at the end of a chapter. The four words, spoken or unspoken, that show you, as a storyteller, that people care. The joy of fiction, for some of us, is the joy of the imagination, set free from the world and able to imagine.

Spiele, als interaktive Medien, erlauben uns nun bekanntlich, nicht nur gebannt zuzuhören, wie es denn weitergeht, sondern selbst zu entscheiden - und das hoffentlich, um mit Sid Meier zu sprechen, auf interessante Art und Weise. Im Folgenden dreimal die Freude am Erzählen und Entscheiden - am Erzählen durch Entscheidungen, jedes Mal anders. Keine Reviews, und auch keine vollständigen Analysen, sondern drei kurze Umkreisungen: The Yawhg, Save The Date und das große Kentucky Route Zero.
I.
The Yawhg ist ein seltsames Spiel: Am besten zu viert in geselliger Runde zu spielen, erinnert es mit seinen Figuren und dem statischen Spielfeld an ein Brettspiel. Sechs Mal darf jeder Spieler (oder eben auch ein einzelner Spieler, der zwei bis vier der Rollen übernimmt) abwechselnd auf einem Feld der Stadt etwas unternehmen. Im Wald - holzfällen oder jagen; in den Slums - stehlen oder Verbrecher jagen; in der Arena - kämpfen oder wetten etc. Hierbei kommt es zu zufälligen Ereignissen, die wir meistern können oder auch nicht und die sich positiv oder negativ auf die Charakterwerte auswirken. Nach sechs Runden erscheint der “Yawhg”, ein niemals näher beschriebenes Monstrum, und legt die Stadt in Schutt und Asche, und jeder unserer Charaktere kann sich seinen Fähigkeiten gemäß am Wiederaufbau beteiligen. Am Ende wird die Lebensgeschichte unseres Helden fertig erzählt.

The Yawhg errichtet ein beeindruckend dichtes erzählerisches Labyrinth aus Entweder-Oder-Fragen und  spinnt daraus seine Geschichte weiter. Wer in den Slums von der Vampirlady gebissen wird, entwickelt sich, wenn er denn in der Zeit nach dem Yawhg zum Anführer aufsteigt, zum charismatischen Blutsaugerkönig; wer zu Beginn des Spiels Blutegel freilässt, findet sie in der gesamten Spielzeit in der Stadt wieder; wer einer Waldnymphe aus Ungeschicklichkeit beim Tanzen auf die Zehen steigt, treibt die Frustrierte in die Stadt und somit einem wütenden Mob in die Arme. Die wenigen Beispiele - und es gibt wirklich, wirklich viele solcher kleinen Ereignisse - zeigen schon, wie einfach spannendes Erzählen sein könnte, wenn man es mit einem aus dem Rollenspiel bekannten Charaktereigenschaftssystem verbindet, das zusätzlich Einfluss nimmt: Aus wenigen Einzelentscheidungen entstehen so gemeinsam mit unseren Eigenschaften für jeden Spieler eigene Lebensgeschichten, die wir am Ende als geglückt oder vertan einordnen. The Yawhg ist vielleicht das seltsamste Spiel in diesem seltsamen Trio: Multiple Choice als zugespitztes Curriculum vitae - fast wie in Alter Ego.
II.
Save the Date treibt die Multiple-Choice-Auswahl als Spielelement in Bereiche vor, die man schon respektvoll als Metakommentare aufs Gaming selbst bezeichnen müsste. Ohne zu spoilern, eine kurze Beschreibung: Wir wollen auf ein Date gehen, und vom ersten Läuten des Handys müssen wir uns entscheiden: Zum Thai oder auf einen Burger? Setzen wir uns auf den Balkon oder ins Innere? Fragen wir unser Date nach ihrem Vater oder nicht? Zur Rettung unseres Dates braucht es allerdings mehr als nur die richtige Entscheidung. Ich rate wirklich jedem, dem Freewarespiel eine Chance zu geben: So intelligent wurde man selten unterhalten.

Wie in The Yawhg ergeben sich hier viele Pfade, die sich durch wiederholtes Spielen - Spoilerchen - und Versagen erweitern, bis wir in einem Spiegellabyrinth stehen, in dem wir unseren eigenen Fußspuren folgen. Die clevere Selbstreflexion des Spiels, der Spielfiguren und unserer Rolle als Spieler selbst reicht tatsächlich über die dürre Multiple-Choice-Mechanik hinaus - mehr soll hier nun allerdings wirklich nicht verraten werden. Wer im Labyrinth der Entscheidungen von The Stanley Parable vom Selbstbewusstsein des Spiels begeistert war, wird mit Save The Date seine helle Freude haben - und kann hier tatsächlich einer Erzählung dabei zusehen, wie sie sich in allen Möglichkeitsformen und Entscheidungsmöglichkeiten windet.

III.

Ein klassisches Adventure bietet streng genommen kaum Möglichkeiten zur Entscheidung - Rätsel lassen sich auf eine einzige Art lösen, alles andere sind Sackgassen. Kentucky Route Zero, dessen zweite Episode gerade erschienen ist, tut aber ohnedies nur so, als wäre es ein Adventure - in Wirklichkeit ist das atmosphärisch faszinierende Stück interaktive Fiktion ein Spiel mit der Erwartungshaltung des Spielers, das nonchalant Perspektiven wechselt und seine an den magischen Realismus erinnernde Unwirklichkeit aus der ungenierten, aber unerhörten Freiheit bezieht, den Spieler in Multiple-Choice-Entscheidungen gleich die Geschichte selbst erzählen zu lassem, statt sie auf einem einzigen Pfad voranzutreiben.

In Teil 1 konnte man sich in den trügerisch bekannten Multiple-Choice-Dialogen unter anderem clever mit sich selbst unterhalten - sowohl die Fragen Conways als auch die Antworten Shannons durfte der Spieler wie ein Theaterregisseur selbst auswählen -, in Episode zwei folgen noch mehr dieser eigentümlichen Strategien. Statt selbst zu entscheiden, wählen wir aus, was Zeugen unseres auf dem Bildschirm sichtbaren Treibens später zu Protokoll geben; im Wald verschwimmen nicht nur Raum und Zeit, sondern auch das Schicksal des kleinen Ezra wird im Monolog mit dem Hund wahlweise zur belanglosen Kindheitserinnerung oder zum düsteren Trauma.

Nicht KRZ erzählt hier, sondern wir selber entscheiden über unsere Figur - ob Conways Bruder pensioniert oder ein Banker ist, entscheiden wir durch eine Dialogwahl. Diese Unbestimmtheit ergibt gemeinsam mit der mystischen Americana-Atmosphäre à la David Lynch eine Erzählung, die förmlich zwischen den möglichen Varianten vibriert - ein Wiederspielen ist also allein aus purer Neugier, was man durch seine Entscheidung versäumt hat, angesagt. “Entscheidung ist ein Massenmord an Möglichkeiten”, wie Rainald Grebe kalauert - in KRZ sind sie der Grund für die traumhaft- schwebende Unbestimmtheit, die den Reiz des Spiels ausmacht.

Dreimal Erzählen durch Entscheidungen also, und dreimal cleveres Unterlaufen der Traditionen - es sind gerade spannende Zeiten für Freunde der Narration im Spiel. Aber mal ehrlich: In Wirklichkeit wollen wir doch sowieso beides, Erzählen und Erleben, Narration und Gameplay. Und für Kreuzungsvarianten jedes Mischverhältnisses ist möglicherweise in strengen akademischen Revierfehden zu wenig, in den Games selbst aber garantiert genug Platz.

Verfasst von Rainer Sigl am 6. Juni 2013 - 21:56

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Mechanics And The Message In Kentucky Route Zero « PIXELS OR DEATH PIXELS OR DEATH

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Mechanics And The Message In Kentucky Route Zero

Jason Rice | Tuesday, June 4, 2013

You walk really god damn slow in Kentucky Route Zero. Conway, as close to a protagonist as you can get in that game, suffers a traumatic injury to his leg in the first act, reducing him to a limping mess. For the entire second act you find yourself shuffling around, resigned to slowly chasing the cursor.

In any other game, it would be infuriating. Adventure games are regularly panned for their glacial pace. and characters who take ten minutes to navigate a single screen only to find out they need to walk all the way back again. Here though, I don’t seem to mind it as much. It almost feels like a subtle message from the developer. Luxuriate in all of this, Conway’s heavy, plodding steps seem to say, let the setting and the characters and all the wonderful things we’ve crafted sink in before rushing off to the next thing. It’s part of the game; a way for it to communicate with me.

This is not the kind of feature that sells games. You wouldn’t see a bullet list on the non-existent cover of the game that lists “Intense limping action! Realistic hallucinatory exploration! Dog in a hat!” In an era where videogames are precisely crafted to sell, sell, sell based on a laundry list of necessary features, it’s refreshing to see a game whose mechanics exists in service of the story, rather than the other way around.

It’s the reason why the “indie scene” is so exciting. Freed from the shackles of sales figures and publisher demands, auteurship is given the freedom to bloom.

Take the way the story of Kentucky Route Zero unfolds. I don’t think it matters who you side with in the game, Conway’s shuffling interest in the stories behind the stories or his companion Shannon’s cold pragmatism; the game still constantly provides you with both options. There are no points or pop-ups, and no The Walking Dead-esque wrap-up at the end of each Act that plots each choice on a graph. Right now it isn’t even clear if they have any bearing on the spinning compass guiding the story.

But that’s the beauty of being Kentucky Route Zero. It doesn’t need to.

It’s the videogame equivalent of one of Steinbeck’s interchapters, or King’s sprawling descriptions of seemingly simple settings. It’s the chapter in Salem’s Lot that’s just about the town quietly resting. It’s beautiful and indulgent and what makes Kentucky Route Zero feel more like a novel with moving parts than a videogame with a good story.

Who cares if the system in place is dirty and underdeveloped? Its job isn’t to be gripping or exciting. Its job is to tell you a story. You wouldn’t put down Old Man and the Sea because Hemingway’s simplistic prose doesn’t have an efficient cadence, or reject Ulysses because the background knowledge required to understand it is unreasonable for a casual reader. Each element is part of a whole, something conveyed both through the message and the medium.

Papo & Yo feels much the same way to me, a game whose mechanical simplicity exists in service of the story rather than in opposition to it. The platforming-lite and simplistic puzzles weren’t Minority flexing their design muscles, but instead a way of capturing the blissful wonder of its child protagonist, the dreams of flying and building that underpin the fantasies of the powerless. Sure, it’s easy. That’s the point.

It’s the kind of indulgence you’d only be able to see in a game that isn’t made to sell copies or entrap players with elaborate advancement systems and increasingly tantalizing carrots. It’s the beautiful gem at the core of so-called “indies”; a willingness to sign on for whatever craziness the developer has in store for us, no matter the cost, and a trust in the players to support even the most bizarre forms of artistic expression, because god dammit art is great!

If there’s anything to be learned from the shaky controls and plodding pacing of games like Kentucky Route Zero and Papo & Yo, it’s that it’s impossible to separate the medium from the message, especially in videogames. If we want videogames to become more than Mario, we need to stop judging them based on antiquated standards like replayability and the fluidity of their control schemes but instead on how the various pieces come together and form a cohesive whole.

Shit, did I just agree with Jonathan Blow?

Tags: Kentucky Route Zero

Posted in The Short

About the Author

Jason Rice Fighting the good fight as a public educator, Jason Rice spends his days perpetually shocked at how good his teenage students are at whatever Call of Duty game is popular at the time. When he’s not making them read depressing books about genocides, he’s desperately trying to clear his ever expanding backlog of video games. Jason hails from the wonderfully temperate state of California and can be found online @JasonRRice.

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Love and darkness: A series of letters on relationship games

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Love and darkness: A series of letters on relationship games

By Leigh Alexander on June 04, 2013 at 12:00p

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Leigh and Quinns talk about love … and fur.
Leigh Alexander, satellite freelance games critic and industry journalist by way of New York, and U.K.-based Quintin Smith, a longtime games writer with a concentration on board games, strike up a correspondence on games and their culture. Their regular letters here at Polygon are founded in the idea that games mean quite a great deal in the context of real-world relationships and the interactions among people, and that conversation and personal experience have a lot to teach us about how and why we play.

This time, they talk love — and games about sex, relationships and intimacy. Will games ever tackle these themes well, or is the natural whim of love anathema to the language of systems? Memories, hentai and Furcadia (?!) ahead!

Let’s play a love game

To: Quintin Smith
From: Leigh Alexander
Subject: Love Games

Dear Quinns,

I’ve really been enjoying writing these letters with you, although this isn’t actually the first time you and I have appeared at the same venue. I guess that’s sort of a coy notation, for the benefit of our readers, about how I’ve known you for some six years now.

Early in my career, around the time we first became aware of one another’s work, I was writing a lot about what I saw as “odd psychology” in video games, primarily focused on sex stuff. Remember? The games I’d begun to gravitate toward at that time in my life seemed to me distinctly in need of translation — opaque Japanese visual novels about sexual aggression as melodrama.

It’s not that I found them arousing, necessarily, just interesting. They were about appetites and fantasies it’s not socially acceptable to express. There was one game where you could have sex with a mermaid that lived in the bottom of a well.

I wanted to find ways to talk about dating sims, with all their uneasy tropes and sterile conventions. In the game with the mermaid, Nocturnal Illusions — through and through a sex game — how the story progression stalls if there is a single dresser in the massive haunted mansion that you have not elected to “Look At.” About how their being “game-like” often renders sexuality uncomfortable and surreal, even apart from the cultural chasm these Japanese sex games illuminated.

In Princess Maker 2, you have to raise an adopted daughter, put her to work and ensure she marries well. Except you can put her to work in a brothel, or modify her bust size, or have her marry you, her father, if you play really well. It was definitely a sexualized raising sim, one I thought at the time was more like a sex game than not.

In the comments on that article, Kieron Gillen, the famous veteran games journalist, disagreed. It was the first time he’d ever commented on anything I wrote, and I practically died, I was such a fan of his. I’ve told you this story, I know. Ultimately it was Kieron who introduced you and me back then, via some email where he said he thought we’d “do wonderful things together.”

Princess Maker 2

And here we are, me with my spotty roots in problematic hentai games, and you with your history of putting gross metaphors about your genitalia in everything. OK, OK, not everything. I’m giving you a hard time. Ugh. Wait.

Um. Anyway, I didn’t write you just to reminisce. I wanted to talk about relationship games. When we hung out in London late last year we got to talking about Catherine, the only relatively major console game I’m aware of to’ve attempted to capture the intrigue of love relationships between men and women (we also bickered some about the love triangle in Cowboy Bebop, though I think I’d had a bit to drink by then and I don’t remember it so well).

More recently, I’ve been really excited about how people are using Twine games and dating sims these days to communicate about their personal experiences and their sexuality. I’ve always wanted to believe that it was possible for games to communicate something about sexuality, or romance, or relationships in general. I still do, I guess.

We do these letters together because we’re interested in the context of how people play — games are never isolated, objective experiences, but things that happen to people, between and among people. Memorable experiences are about the when, why and who with; not the how many maps, not the controls.

I’ll be in London soon. I am holding you to your promise to pick me up at the airport, but between now and then, what’s your take on games’ relationship to love and sex?

X,

– Leigh

Enslaved Catherine

To: Leigh Alexander
From: Quintin Smith
Subject: Re: Loves Games

Dear Leigh,

You’d better take that bit about maps back. Most of my teenage years were spent happily behind locked doors, engaging in quality materials JUST LIKE Morrowind and the accompanying paper map.

Gamers still have dalliances with solitary experiences, but all the games that seem important right now are the ones that let us play together. The Journeys, the Minecrafts, the Dark Souls and DOTAs. But now that we’re mining this rich seam of togetherness, why the continued disinterest in sex and love? The evidence is that we all want to connect with one another. The reality is inexplicably prudish. We’ll stand back to back and kill until our arms can hardly lift the guns, but two years ago I was left speechless when a character in Ninja Theory’s Enslaved used the word “penis.” I’d never heard it before in a game. I still haven’t, since then.

Here’s my theory, which navigates the nauseatingly bleak response that it’s because games are a male-dominated field. I think games have a disinterest in relationships because they have their foundation in play, and play is, in the first place, a non-literal means of humans fostering relationships.

I’m playing a lot of Monster Hunter right now, which isn’t a euphemism for going clubbing with Brendan. It’s a game where up to four players can work together to defeat some vast creature across fights that last for an hour, at which point you make jackets and pants out of the fuckers. When that monster collapses there’s a heartbeat where you stare disbelievingly, and then you all scream. This is where you’ll find relationships in games, is my point, and it’s more tangible than any movie. For the rest of our lives, me and Keza McDonald, my hunting partner, will remember our time spent together. Isn’t that even better?

Yeah, I remember talking about Catherine with you in some doomsday pub or another. But for weeks when you were in London, the most enjoyable conversation we had about a game concerned fruit machines in U.K. pubs. You were awed by this horrible, flashing obelisk in the corner. I’m telling you, every U.K. gamer grows up learning to treat those things like mimics in fantasy games. Don’t go near it! You’ll have a shit time! “But I want to!” No, Leigh! No!

It wasn’t that way with Catherine. We took that game apart. We discussed the text-message mechanic, the morality test, it featuring pregnancy and fear of commitment. On some level, yeah, it felt like a sweat-slick artifact from a future where games reach further than the nearest goblin hutch for their inspiration. But you’ve got to agree with me that the presentation of the pivotal relationship in it, with the nerve-spangled Vincent and his bumfuzzled love triangle, was also the worst thing about it. The game’s so bizarre that you think it HAS to be going somewhere clever, when in reality the ponderous,bowling ball of a narrative spends the entire game in the gutter, and simply vanishes from sight at the end.

Maybe games don’t need to worry about simulating relationships, is what I’m saying. They improve real-life ones on a daily basis, don’t they?

– Quinns

Red Light Center, built from the Utherverse 3D virtual world.

Chasing Pixels

To: Quintin Smith
From: Leigh Alexander
Subject: Re: Re: Loves Games

Hi Quinns,

I used to head up my employer’s subsite on virtual worlds back when “avatar-based social interaction” outside of a necessarily game-like context was all the rage. People believed in this vision of a virtual web, whereby now that the capital-I internet had reached critical mass, we were all going to have second selves in the digital realm, develop second lives in online spaces that were fully literal.

I even I thought at the time it was an idea that was more attractive as a science fiction concept, versus something that could lock neatly into our “always-on” lives (rather than log into some virtual space, customize your avatar, walk it to a virtual store, et cetera, none of which is as efficient as a one-click Amazon purchase). Still, it was attractive, and once the MMO boom began, I really longed to live in online games, to “be” my character engaged in all kinds of ways in other characters.

In the 1990s, I role-played on AOL through text. Bunch of teens during the internet boom, making up characters or portraying fandoms, discovering their identities through chat rooms and IM windows. I don’t think I can overstate the way online interaction with strangers typing out their ideal selves was instrumental in an entire generation discovering its identity and its sexuality. There was a secret world of self-invention and intimacy taking place in those days.

So when we finally got real, 3D virtual spaces, imagine my disappointment when MMOs turned out to be these lonesome experiences about jogging efficiently across endless cartoon landscapes to the next quest, conversation restricted to talk of trades and grinds. I even, a lifetime ago, tried out a WoW roleplaying server and was disillusioned to find out that this elaborate interface was really just a chat room where people talked the daily ins and outs of their personal lives.

It was the least sexy stuff ever, chatting about your internet connection problems in between gossip about horse armor. I even tried out a “sex-themed” MMO once called Red Light Center, and I’ve seen GIF porn that was hotter than those numb dolls reciting “erotic” animations to each other alongside seamy club techno.

Yet we know people who’ve met and fallen in love over video games. We’ve seen tons of pictures online about “gamer weddings” (eugh). Of course the act of bonding takes place over play. But the games themselves struggle with being about bonding.

The Sims 2
Monster Hunter

I loved Catherine when I played it, but it was the kind of game whose flaws quietly encroached on me in the reflective months that followed. I remember it best, now, for its audience-polling about fidelity and morals, rigidity versus chaos when it comes to love. I still admire it for trying.

Are you saying that you teaching me to use a fruit machine would be “sexier” than any single-player video game can be? I’m not convinced, but I’ll give you the opportunity to convince me. I mean, Keza is your Monster Hunter buddy, but that’s not a romantic relationship, so you don’t quite complete the circuit of your argument, here. Also, you mention “male dominated,” but you haven’t finished articulating how that affects games’ ability to deal with love and sex.

More, please,

– Leigh

PS: Re “Maps” — didn’t a certain dear friend of ours get married to that song? “They don’t love you like I love you,” and all?

Dragon Age: Origins
Tease

To: Leigh Alexander
From: Quintin Smith
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Love Games

Leigh,

You’re really going to make me express why the male domination of video games would slow their development of romantic literacy. I can practically see your grin as you hand me the unicycle and point the way to the minefield.

OK.

When I worked at Rock, Paper, Shotgun, we had a half-joke, half-idea (that we never did) of telling our readers it was “Men With Guns Week.” Every news post and review would have a reminder that this week we’d be taking a closer look at the dramatic world of Men With Guns, the joke being that we wouldn’t do anything else differently. In video games, “Men With Guns Week” would be indistinguishable from any other week.

Now, 99 percent of movies have a romantic plot or subplot, because romance and sex have universal appeal and movies are trying to reach the largest demographic possible. Even the movies that could be video games! Die Hard is about a man trying to save his wife. Lethal Weapon has a heartbreaking scene where Mel Gibson breaks down in tears over a photograph of his wife. Every Star Wars movie is bloated with romance, but almost all of the 97 Star Wars games (a number that doesn’t include mobile phone and flash games) don’t mention love at all, taking place in a strange layer of the universe where men are expected to just fiddle with their lightsabers.

You know that media which actually targets women is uniquely dedicated to exploring romance and relationships, same as media which targets men is uniquely dedicated to finding out what the insides of a bad guy’s chest cavity looks like.

Games have gotten pretty good servicing men with this lowest-common-denominator stuff. It now feels pretty fucking great to club an alien over the head in Halo! Perhaps if single-player games had been aggressively pursuing women for the same amount of time, they might have reached romantic and sexual pinnacles beyond the foursome in Dragon Age: Origins.

But let’s get back to multiplayer. One of my first ever pieces of games writing (now lost) documented my travels in Furcadia, a virtual retreat for Furries that, I see now, is still going. Huh. Just last December it raised $155,000 on Kickstarter for an expansion called The Second Dreaming.

Back then, Furcadia had six or so “worlds” you could explore. My friends and I wandered through comparatively empty forests and dingly dells, finding nothing but the exact barren landscapes you describe. Finally, we tried the very last server, an adults-only realm called the Exotic East, or something. What we found took our breath away.

We spawned shoulder to shoulder in a desert world packed with players. From here, you could enter a hundred different portals to strip clubs and luxurious brothels. The first one we tried required a small download. When we entered, we found all of our fox and horse avatars had been given immense, forearm-sized erections.

Evidently, the desire for sex in games is alive and well, is my point.

You know what? So far, you’ve been doing all the questioning, like some e-dominatrix, watching me squirm from across the Atlantic ocean. Sneaky! Let me fix that.

When you and I looked at Tease, The Liberating Game for Couples and Adults over on my board game site we discussed what an accessible, sexy game might look like, and YOU wondered aloud if sex is at all compatible with systems. Let me just quote you, here: “Sexuality is hot precisely because of the unspoken rules, the sort of primal way we navigate flirtation.”

You’re welcome to pick on me and my Monster Hunting. I can take it. Not least because out of the two of us, you’re the one with a bona fide crush on The Boss from Metal Gear Solid 3.

But I’m not convinced you think multiplayer can be sexy, either. And yet you’re the one who wanted to do a letter series about sex in games. What aren’t you telling me?

Let me know. In the meantime, I’ll prepare for your sexy fruit machine tutorial. I ever tell you I own a pair of leather trousers?

— Quinns

Braid, Passage, Façade, The Marriage
— all sophisticated games about relationships made by men.

Tender Loving Care

To: Quintin Smith
From: Leigh Alexander
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Love Games

Hi Quinns,

OK, got it: “Men like guns, women like feelings, Quinns likes furries.” You heard it here first, readers. (That, I believe, was the sound of you hitting a mine. I’m sorry.)

More seriously, though. Part of why I’m so hot for increased diversity in the people who make games — not just more women, just more people from outside the standard white-nerd-dude experience — is because I think it’d lead to a broader range of experiences expressed through games, and that includes a better lens on intimacy.

Here, I’ll take a trip to the minefield with you: Games, by and large, are founded in a culture of social awkwardness and fear of intimacy. Games used to be only for nerds, and nerd culture isn’t exactly famous for its social success. People always ask me why I don’t like multiplayer games, and my answer is always the same: “I play games to get away from other people.” That’s partially a gibe, but it’s also partially true.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how one of the most attractive things about games of all kinds is they give us a world where we can control variables, where we’re rewarded for controlling variables. If we fail, we get a do-over. If we wreck something irrevocably, we can load a prior save. That’s attractive, I think, for a culture whose lingering commonality is the fact we feel a lack of power over real-life interactions.

But just so we don’t trap ourselves into a “nerds can’t do feelings” subtext, or, god forbid, a “men can’t do feelings” subtext: One of the very earliest games I ever played was about hunting for sex. I played the original Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards at what must have been seven or eight years of age, and I learned the word “prophylactic” from that game.

There was a lot of “adult” subtext in the nerdy computer games of that age. I think about how some of the early Sierra-era game-makers collaborated on The Softporn Adventure, featuring a picture of them in a hot tub that made me feel squicky as a child. And you know every adventure game from the ’80s had some affordance, often a scolding, for if you wrote the F-word — like even back then game designers knew what we wanted to say and do.

Silent Hill 2

And there were the live-action games of the ’90s, like the Phantasmagoria games or Tender Loving Care (my friend Rob got me drunk and convinced me to spend $10 on the recent iPhone adaptation of the latter odd relic) that tried awkwardly to deal with the dark underbelly of the human sex drive. Even in a nerdy, male-dominated historical game industry, the urge was there. It’s been there.

Braid, Passage, Façade, The Marriage — all sophisticated games about relationships made by men. One of my favorite relationship games is Silent Hill 2, a man wrestling with the memory of his wife’s entropy, his self-loathing for how he failed to negotiate his own appetites in the face of her illness and came to resent her. That’s pretty deep stuff. Yet Silent Hill 2 is characterized by that loathing, disgust and self-punishment. It’s sexual in its undertones, but isn’t sexy at all.

Maybe my earlier hunch during our Tease discussion, that systems are unsexy, is right on. None of these myriad sex games we’ve discussed are “sexy,” I think in part because we naturally want a certain voyeuristic distance from game characters (think of the objectification of Lara Croft).

If I’ve been turned on by a game it’s been in spite of the game, not because of it. How about you?

I’m getting on a plane to your side of the pond in about half an hour as I write this. I’m looking forward to seeing you.

— Leigh

PS: Oh hell yes, I have a crush on the Boss. Boy, is MGS3 ever a game about love — complicated love.

Fallout

To: Leigh Alexander
From: Quintin Smith
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Love Games

Dear Leigh,

A memory pops into my head of an editor of mine describing World of Warcraft as gaming’s cathedral, which works on a sexual level, too. A certain god-fearing cleanliness, with, perhaps, some of the more permanent residents getting up to no good behind closed doors.

As I write this, you’re asleep on my couch. Gonna try and get away with a confession before you wake up.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve been turned on by games.

Role-playing in an online chatroom might have been my first sexual experience. As a kid, I couldn’t believe I could hook up with Aerie from Baldur’s Gate 2. I could build a sex ziggurat from the innumerable 2D and 3D models that have caused twinges in the reptilian part of my brain, with Fran from Final Fantasy XII at the top. What I remember most, though, is Fallout 2. Here’s a thing. You mention games’ appeal in that you can do-over key decisions. Sex is the only area where I’ve never been able to go back and change what’s happened. I think this ties in with what you were saying earlier, about how systems and romance can’t co-exist.

So. Fallout 2. I was 12 when I played it, playing a female character, and she’d just made her way to the first town in the game. I found some gang members and, in the tradition of RPGs the world over, proceeded to try and be as nice to them as possible. One of them asked if I’d like to retire to his horrible burned-out car. I said yes. The screen faded to black, and opened on him, having used me, telling me to fuck off.

At 12 years old, I didn’t have the capacity to deal with what had happened to me, or her. I scrubbed the saves from my hard drive and started the entire game again.

Surely us questioning whether systems are compatible with sex is the wrong question. Isn’t this stuff too intrinsic to human nature for games to dream about avoiding it?

Gonna send this email before my Englishness gets the better of me.

Sincerely,

— Quinns (from upstairs)

On a date with Catherine

From Your Bedroom

To: Quintin Smith
From: Leigh Alexander
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Far Cry 3

Good morning, Quinns,

So last night when we went out I finally played a fruit machine, that weird towering column of mad blinking lights and inscrutable inputs. Our Brendan was showing me how, though he only vaguely understood it himself, and I lost £2 as we tried, mostly by trial and error, to negotiate big shiny buttons labeled “HOLD” and “NUDGE.” You wandered up eventually, disappointed we’d decided to try to learn the fruit machine without you.

It’s a game that makes no sense. You’re not sure when to touch it or why, what constitutes “success” or what will happen next. It’s the antithesis of the sort of clear system of rules games seem to favor, and I wonder if a relationship game could feel like that — opaque, impossible.

But yeah. Maybe games can’t systematize relationships, although you’re right on that we’ll never give up on trying to do them well within such an expressive, interactive medium. And “well” can mean guttingly, ambivalently, sexily, romantically, troublingly. Any number of things, I imagine, so long as they’re about the delicate things that happen among hearts and bodies. Games could definitely use more of the delicate things.

If I were to tell you what turned me on in games, I certainly wouldn’t do it in such a public forum. (Nocturnal Illusions mermaid?!? Come on, I’m totally not into that, I swear.) But I will share with you a recent relationship game I thought was really brilliant — Anna Anthropy’s Survival, a gift for someone she’s dating. It’s about a domme and her babe in a captivating post-apocalyptic world, and how they help one another get by.

It’s short, but I think it’s some of Anna’s best writing, and it’s touching, sexy and haunting simultaneously. I especially like it because it challenges the assumption that sex and violence are somehow mutually exclusive — the implication we’ve strayed toward, even here, being that if we are going to make Love Games, they cannot have Weapons in them.

I like people making games as gifts for one another. Probably personal games, made by individuals as acts of self-expression and communication, are going to be the ones that convey intimacy best. I may or may not have made a few of those, but I don’t want to share them here.

I’ll show you later. Box wine from Sainsbury’s?

– Leigh (from your bedroom)

Editing: Charlie Hall, Russ Pitts, Matt Leone
Design / Layout: Matthew Sullivan, Warren Schultheis
Images: Atlus, Gainax, Namco Bandai, Utherverse, Electronic Arts, Capcom, Tease Products Ltd., Jason Rohrer, Konami, Bethesda

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Investigation: A Video Game Studio From Hell

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Dstrike0083

The Kinect is watching me
Friday 12:27pm

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bullshooter4040

mm… underaged girl robots…

SRSLY WAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK?
Friday 12:53pm

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mr.black

Oh my god the annotation is poking me in the eye! IN THE EYE!!
Friday 3:59pm

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L00fah

Poor abandoned, lazy left eye. I got you, though. Don’t worry. :(
Yesterday 3:38pm

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Seven-day work weeks. Sexist decisions. An office environment so toxic, employees are terrified to speak up for fear of losing their jobs.

That’s the atmosphere at the Florida-based game development studio Trendy Entertainment, according to current and former employees. Trendy is responsible for a popular tower defense game called Dungeon Defenders and is currently working on the sequel. Over the past few weeks, I’ve talked to nine different people with connections to Trendy, and obtained a number of e-mails and Skype logs that show a studio filled with fear and dysfunction.

Current and former employees describe the company as dismal and unpleasant, painting a picture of Trendy president Jeremy Stieglitz as a dictatorial manager who publicly berates his staff and, according to four of the people I spoke with, allegedly makes salary decisions based on gender.

UPDATE: As a result of this investigation, Stieglitz is no longer managing the team on Dungeon Defenders II. Original article follows:

I first heard about the many problems at Trendy from one whistleblower. That source quickly became two, three, and more. Employees were frustrated. They were tired of a miserable status quo at Trendy and wanted to speak out. Soon they were sending along e-mails and chat logs, conversations between each other commiserating about working at the company, snippets of communications with management. Altogether, over the last week, the picture of this studio that came into focus was ugly.

Many staff at Trendy don’t plan on putting up with the situation much longer: about a half-dozen developers have already left over the past two months, and according to the people I spoke with, an estimated 5-10 more junior and senior Trendy employees plan to leave once the first part of Dungeon Defenders II goes live in July. The company’s higher-ups are aware of this—and Trendy has had a few meetings over the past couple of weeks in order to talk about morale—but some are unconvinced that anything will change for the staff, who currently number around 45.

Long hours and tough management are not unusual in the video game industry; it’s common for development studios to subject their employees to periods of “crunch,” during the last few weeks of a game’s production, when staff will stay late and work weekends until that game is finished. But at Trendy, according to people who work and have worked there, crunch lasts all year round. Staff describe an atmosphere where everyone must work 10 to 12 hours a day for six or seven days a week, and some people fear losing their jobs if they question this arrangement.

Trendy president Stieglitz declined to address any of the specific allegations in this story, but the company sent over the following statement:

Trendy is a fairly young indie videogame developer experiencing some of the unfortunate issues associated with new companies finding their footing: long hours, quick growth, and on-going challenges stemming from working in a highly creative environment. Our management is focused on continuing to grow and develop a positive workplace despite these challenges. We are excited for our upcoming release of Dungeon Defenders 2 and hope that consumers appreciate the results of our efforts.

Based on what I’ve seen and heard over the course of reporting this story, “unfortunate issues” is one hell of an understatement.

Men Vs. Women

Last year, according to multiple people I spoke with, a man applied for a certain position at Trendy. After some back-and-forth, Trendy offered him the gig at a starting salary of $3,850 a month, but he turned it down.

Not long afterwards, according to the people I spoke with, a woman applied for the same position. Trendy offered her $3,000 a month—non-negotiable.

That’s a difference of close to $10,000 a year. I’ve seen the e-mails detailing both job offers, and while it’s possible that gender wasn’t the only factor here, one person close to the situation told me that both candidates had the same amount of experience. Others have said it’s a trend.

“Artists have been hired (and very quickly left the studio) on the motto of, ‘Hire a woman—we can pay women less than we can men,’” one person connected to Trendy told me.

Last week, a departing Trendy employee sent a letter to staff at the company, which I received from two different people. Although the writer declined comment—and asked us not to print what he had written—the note corroborates what others in the company have told me. One section, for example, says that upper management at Trendy pays women less than men. Another section of the letter accuses Trendy of publicly belittling employees and forcing them to work unsustainable hours.

Two different people told me that Trendy president Jeremy Stieglitz treats female employees differently than males. “He won’t even look at women,” one person said. “He would go [to] the room one was in and stand to the side and yell into the room… without ever going in.”

This uncomfortable behavior toward females doesn’t seem to be limited to the workplace: A Skype log obtained by Kotaku shows Stieglitz talking about one of the female characters in Dungeon Defenders II in terms that made at least a few employees uncomfortable. “Needs to be more like [a] Brazilian beach super model if you know what I mean,” he writes. “”It’d also be nice if the ass was attractive.”

Another person connected to Trendy told me that the team once created a seductive image of one of the characters that was meant to be an internal joke, but when Stieglitz saw it, he released it to the public.

SExpand

‘Flying By The Seat Of Their Pants’

Employees describe Trendy as a company brimming with issues—one person started off a phone conversation with “I’m sure everything you’ve heard is true”—and many of those issues trace back to Stieglitz. All nine people who talked to me shared similar stories: Stieglitz, they say, is fond of threatening and screaming at employees, often in front of other people in the office. Two people told me they were afraid to request vacation or ask for weekends off, worried that Stieglitz would fire or threaten to replace them.

One employee tells the story of a cousin who passed away. The employee was too terrified to ask for time off. “I was so afraid of losing my job that I didn’t go to his funeral,” the employee told me. “It was probably one of my lowest points.”

Before 2012, according to two people, the studio had some serious financial difficulties. Staff would go unpaid for long periods of time, and many worked 80-hour weeks because they felt they had no choice. Last summer, when Trendy received an $18.2 million investment from a firm in New York City, some at the company thought conditions would get better. They didn’t. Today, employees say the hours are just as excruciating. Worse, people connected to Trendy say, progress on the game is constantly interrupted by Stieglitz’s interference.

Late last year, according to four different people, Stieglitz fired the lead designer on Dungeon Defenders II and shifted direction on the game, telling the development team to start taking ideas from the popular arena battle game League of Legends. The motto floating around the company, employees told me, is “if League does it, we do it.”

“He threw out design work to copy League of Legends,” said one person.

“Interesting, creative ideas [were] thrown by the wayside because ‘we don’t have time,’ or ‘Does League do it? No? Then it’s a waste of time, we need to do what League does,’ said another person.

On top of that, people say the studio has been plagued with disorganization and dysfunction: work is often scrapped or drastically changed due to Stieglitz’s whims, employees told me.

“There’s no pipeline,” said one person. “Everyone’s flying by the seat of their pants all the time.”

“Jeremy does not believe in pre-production,” said another. “Choices are to be made on the fly, without any input from designers.”

Anonymous employee reviews on GlassDoor echo everything I’ve heard. “There are many very innovative individuals working for this company who suffer daily under poor working conditions, arbitrary deadlines and slimy management,” one reviewer writes. “I do not understand how the artist teams deal with the uninformed decisions made by upper management. It’s bad enough in our room and yet, I know they have it even worse off than we do. I have never worked for someone who is so afraid of his own employees before that he treats them like bad kids and while I may not be one of the vocal ones in the office I am secretly ashamed of working for this company by the way it treats the people it employs.”

Some at Trendy hope that by publicizing the company’s conditions, they can help inspire some change. If things don’t get better within the next few months, and people do continue to flee this studio, it sounds like there will be change either way.

UPDATE: After the publication of this story, we received a statement from the International Game Developers Association, a non-profit for game developers. Although the IGDA did not say they would take any action against Trendy Entertainment, the group condemned the practices described in this article: “Studios engaging in excessive overtime injure the reputation of the entire game industry, preventing top talent from entering and remaining in game development, and harming the goodwill of other studios that work rigorously to ensure quality of life for their developers… Further we believe that gender discrimination of any type has no place in the workplace and is completely unacceptable.”

To contact the author of this post, write to jason@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @jasonschreier.

LDiscuss

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152 additional replies awaiting review.

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157 participants@X

PixelRobUJason Schreier

“Staff describe an atmosphere where everyone must work 10 to 12 hours a day for six or seven days a week”

Sounds like the life of a teacher. Friday 12:21pm

Guybrush-20X6UPixelRob

How so? Don’t you only have to deal with the kids from Mon-Fri? Friday 12:31pm

WashburnBetrayalUGuybrush-20X6

The kids, yes.

Their work, *your* work, in-services, training conferences, grading, lesson plans and classroom decor are almost entirely taken care of on what could charitably be called, “your time.” That “time off” in the summer months is devoted largely to professional development that may or may not have a point, depending on the administrator who handles it. The myth of “the easy life of a teacher” is just that— a myth.

Disclosure: I am not a teacher, but have four close relatives and several other friends who are. They do not complain, but earn my respect nonetheless. Friday 12:35pm

V3R1TAS and 153 others…

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61 participants@X

DemosthenesUJason Schreier

Before you cry sexism (in regards to the man vs. women paragraph), maybe the woman that applied after the man was less competent? I know I’ve been given a position that paid more than my male counterparts because I actually had more viable skill sets and my pay had nothing to do with my sex. Friday 1:50pm

functiontypeUDemosthenes

I know a couple women who work there. They’re much more than competent. Even compared to their male co-workers. Friday 1:58pm

dragonflietUDemosthenes

If it were a single isolated incident, in which no one else knew anything about, sure, that’s a fair flag. But the article cites other sources saying how comparable the two were in experience/skills, as well as the prevalent comments being made about hiring women because they pay them less. Friday 3:43pm

Demosthenes and 57 others…

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1Author is participating@X

themux26UJason Schreier

Even better if the robots are aged under 18 robot years

Wait…what? Friday 12:41pm

Jason SchreierUthemux26

Right? Holy crap. Friday 12:47pm

bullshooter4040Uthemux26

Friday 12:50pm

theimmortalmoo and 31 others…

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1Author is participating@X

heyo1597853UJason Schreier

Former employee - totally true article. The worst part about it is, the staff is all great. Everyone would love their jobs if it wasn’t for THIS guy. Get rid of him, you’ll see a huge turnaround. Friday 12:44pm

Jason SchreierUheyo1597853

Thanks for posting. Would you like to share more about your experiences there? Friday 12:46pm

GraceIsUnfairUJason Schreier

Former ALMOST employee, I have to say this article is accurate as well. If it hadn’t been for the better offer I’d received (at my current studio), I would have ended up there. It’s a shame the fine worker I recommended was paid less due to her sex.

Even the interview was very strange. Unfortunately I had been unemployed so long (38 Studios victim) that I was ready to take any offer that would come my way.

Thankfully my current employer is fantastic, and my friend who left Trendy now works here as well. Happy ending for both of us. Friday 1:31pm

jewifiowehifh and 25 others…

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31 participants@X

trigedgeUJason Schreier

If it’s that blatant of a case of gender discrimination why doesn’t someone file a charge with the EEOC?

Friday 12:28pm

SlinkerUtrigedge

It’s not only that. Read the whole article. And even if it was, very few people go that as far as to charge their work for discrimination. Because it’s a long process with big a chance that it wont lead anywhere, except getting them fired. Friday 12:35pm

theimmortalmooUSlinker

My fiance Reported her manager to the DM about him stealing from the company and she got laid off. Friday 12:54pm

functiontype and 27 others…

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27 participants@X

Rich8606UJason Schreier

All this whistleblowing on your cruel employer trend started with these guys’ companies. Friday 12:38pm

My_Wet_RoosterURich8606

Randy Pitchford? What did he do? Friday 12:52pm

OneCrazyRussianUMy_Wet_Rooster

He did Aliens:CM Friday 1:01pm

BisonHero and 23 others…

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25 participants@X

gerrycomoUJason Schreier

Don’t employees sign a contract that keep them from dissing their job and/or boss? Friday 12:45pm

HeartBurnKidUgerrycomo

That’s why these are anonymous. Friday 1:09pm

GrymnirUgerrycomo

Aren’t there laws in place that prevent the type of shit that they’re complaining about? I wonder which is more important and more likely to hold in a courthouse? Friday 1:14pm

waltfeld and 21 others…

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ShinyUJason Schreier

Worked at a place where all the management staff when I got there were old white guys. Company was bought out, new CEO was some youngish dude who fancied himself progressive. Fired all those people because the management team wasn’t diverse enough. Backfilled by promoting internally.

Result

Intern at helpdesk = Director of Operations

55 year old data entry clerk = Vice President of Operations

Call center worker = Director of Human Resources

15year SoX consultant = CFO

Conn artist = Vice President of Information technology

Conn artist = Director of Strategic Business Planning (both of these people were caught falsifying their resumes by other employees, who took the information to the parent company—it was blatantly obvious they were not experienced in these roles)

And there were 3 VPs of sales, instead of 1

All of these decisions were made with an eye toward diversity, rather than qualifications of skill. Needless to say, this company went from running a $4 million operating profit to outright collapse in 12 months.

Any decisions that factor in gender or race, in any way, instead of skill or qualifications, are a recipe for disaster. The door, however, does swing both ways. Friday 1:18pm

Completely TerrifiedUShiny

Except here, it’s put forward that women of equal skill and experience are being paid less. So how does what you’re saying have any bearing on that? Friday 1:37pm

ShinyUCompletely Terrified

You’ve got a guy making decisions on something other than merit. Same/same Friday 1:39pm

Completely Terrified and 8 others…

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20 participants@X

DalekCaanUJason Schreier

Why not punch the motherfucker in the face?

Lose your job, but send a message.

Assholes like him deserve to be EXTERMINATED! Friday 12:44pm

idDobieUDalekCaan

Then get sued for all the money you have left for assault and be penniless and jobless.

Message well received. Friday 12:59pm

DalekCaanUidDobie

Doesn’t matter, had punch. Friday 1:04pm

idDobie and 16 others…

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17 participants@X

ceptriUJason Schreier

I am in complete shock that this game took 45 people to make. I could seriously pick 12 people that I’ve worked with over the years and we could have easily made that game working 40 hours a week in 12 months. This must be one of the most incompetent teams of people I’ve ever heard of. Friday 1:53pm

functiontypeUceptri

it’s the producers, definitely not the workers. Friday 1:59pm

ceptriUfunctiontype

The whole fact that “producer” is plural for a game this size, tells you everything you need to know. Friday 2:08pm

NotASlave and 13 others…

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10 Jahre Second Life

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Erstellt am: 7. 6. 2013 - 14:00 Uhr

Im Juni 2003 eröffnete das kalifornische Entwicklerstudio Linden Lab seine virtuelle Welt. Sie ist somit älter als Youtube oder Facebook. 2013 wird sie von ihren Usern vor allem für kollaborative Medienkunst-Projekte aller Art genutzt.

Wer sich beim Lesen der Überschrift “das gibt es noch?“ dachte, ist wahrscheinlich nicht allein. In Jackie Fenns Modell des Hype Cycle of Emerging Technologies befinden sich virtuelle Welten derzeit noch im “Trough of Disillusionment”. Prognose bis zum “Plateau of Productivity”: fünf bis zehn Jahre.

Rund um das Jahr 2006 waren virtuelle Welten in dieser Grafik auf dem “Peak of Inflated Expectations” – während dieser Zeit attestierten oder unterstellten Wirtschaftsmagazine und Lifestyle-Gazetten Second Life alle möglichen Anwendungsszenarien: E-Commerce, 3D-Internet, Business-Conferencing, Spielcasino oder Cybersex-Plattform. Nur von den wenigsten Beobachtern wurde Second Life als Medienkunst-Plattform verstanden; als Werkzeug für gemeinsames kreatives Schaffen.

Die monochrom gehaltene Landschafts-Installation “Rust” in Second Life.

Etwa eine Million User nutzt Second Life jeden Monat, insgesamt 34 Millionen sind registriert. Im Vergleich mit Facebook oder Twitter erscheint die Zahl gering - doch jene Menschen, die in Second Life aktiv sind, sprechen von einer weit größeren Intensität des Erlebens. Auch meiner Erfahrung entspricht das.

Die synchrone Interaktion auf mehreren Kanälen (Stimme, Chat, Avatar) im virtuellen Raum löst tiefere Emotionen aus als das Posten auf einer Pinnwand. Deshalb fördern virtuelle Welten wie kaum eine andere Internet-Technologie Kreativität, Ideen und Visionen. Auch wenn es seltsam klingen mag: Die Umarmung eines befreundeten Second-Life-Avatars ist mir lieber als ein Anstupser auf Facebook.

Eine von vielen dystopischen Städtelandschaften in Second Life: Dead End.

Kein Spiel

Die Betreiber der meisten Online-Videospiele können von einer stabilen Million User nach einem Jahrzehnt nur träumen. Doch Second Life ist eben kein Spiel. Es ist eine Sandkiste, eine dreidimensionale Leinwand. Die Treue der User erklärt sich im Fall von Second Life auch aus der konsequenten Weiterentwicklung seiner Technologie: So entspricht das oft gehörte Vorurteil, Linden Labs virtuelle Welt sei im Vergleich mit diversen Videospielen hässlich, kaum der Realität. Grafik- und Physikengine wurden über die Jahre ständig optimiert. Die oft beanstandeten, einsamen Pixelwüsten gibt es zwar – denn fast alles, was man in Second Life sieht, wurde und wird von den Usern selbst kreiert. Wie entdeckt man die interessantesten Projekte? Anstatt planlos irgendwohin zu “teleportieren” (das Pendant zum “Surfen” im Web) empfiehlt es sich, Suchmaschine und Destination Guide zu nutzen.

Auf der Suche nach Regionen chinesischer Herkunft entdeckte ich vor kurzem eine Landschaft im Stil der Shui-Mo-Malerei. Ein halbes Dutzend Avatare begrüßte mich im Textchat auf Mandarin. Zum Glück gibt es in Second Life auch Übersetzungsmaschinen. Einige davon wurden ebenfalls von Usern selbst programmiert.

Chinesische Shui-Mo-Malerei als begehbarer SL-Build.

Das Konzept des “begehbaren Bildes” ist mir auf meinen Ausflügen in der virtuellen Welt schon öfter begegnet. So erinnere ich mich an eine niederländische Austellung über Vincent Van Gogh, in der die Bilder des Malers als 3D-Installationen interpretiert wurden.

Begehbare Van-Gogh-Installation in Second Life.

Viele Kunstinstallationen sind so angelegt, dass sie erfahren, nicht bloß betrachtet werden wollen. Die japanische Künstlerin Mikati Slade etwa bevorzugt es seit ihrem Studium der Bildhauerei, riesige Second-Life-Installationen im Stil japanischer 8-Bit-Videogames zu erstellen. In einem Zeitraum von etwa einer halben Stunde spaziert man durch abstrakte Sphären, Plätze und Tunnels, die unser Verstehen von Raum herausfordern. Dazu ertönen seltsame, doch liebevoll gemachte Chiptune-Klänge. Installationen wie diese sind, wie Second Life selbst, keine Videospiele, denn sie kommen ohne ein starres Regelwerk, ohne Missionen und ohne Geschichte aus. Sie erfüllen keinen vordergründigen Zweck außer ihrer Existenz. Sie laden ein, über den Sinn der Kunst zu philosophieren. Gerade deshalb empfinde ich Second Life und seine tausenden Kunstwerke als schön, als befreiend, vor allem aber stets als überraschend. Man weiß nie, was einen an der nächsten Ecke erwartet.

Decorama, eine Installation mit 8-Bit-Ästhetik der japanischen Künstlerin Mikati Slade

Social Networking

Immer wieder höre ich, wie sich Social-Media-Experten den Kopf zerbrechen über 3D-Tools in sozialen Netzwerken, über synchrones Arbeiten “in der Cloud” – und ich muss lächeln. In Second Life geschieht es seit 2003. Seine User konstruieren, komponieren, chatten, sprechen über SL-Voice (das nebenbei gesagt besser klingt als Skype), sie organsieren sich in Gruppen und sie nutzen innerhalb der 3D-Umgebung gemeinsam Webbrowser, Youtube-Videos oder Flash-Animationen. Nur das Hype-Wort “Cloud” gebraucht dort keiner.

Die FM4-Website mit Youtube-Video auf einem Objekt in Second Life.

Wenn Second Life im Diskurs über soziale Netzwerke größtenteils ausgeklammert wird, dann wird dabei auch vergessen, wie enorm sich die Virtual-World-Technologie auch unter Mithilfe ihrer User seit 2003 weiterentwickelt hat. Die weitgehende Kooperation Linden Labs mit der Open-Source-Community führte dazu, dass es Dutzende von Usern gestaltete “Viewer” (die Software, mit der man Second Life betritt) gibt. Und mit dem Open Simulator existieren zahlreiche Open-Source-Derivate des Second-Life-Servers. Linden Lab hat das nicht nur zugelassen, sondern auch unterstützt. Es hat sich als weise Entscheidung erwiesen: Der Wettbewerb zwischen dem Second-Life-Erfinder und der Open-Simulator-Community beschleunigt die technische Innovation seit einigen Jahren immer mehr. Das zeigt sich derzeit etwa an der von vielen herbeigesehnten Unterstützung des stereoskopischen Virtual-Reality-Headsets Oculus Rift: Sowohl Linden Lab, als auch die Open-Source-Community arbeiten an entsprechenden Treibern für Second Life bzw. Open Simulator.

Unter der Oberfläche

Die Schönheit und Faszination von Second Life erschließt sich der Userin und dem User nicht sofort und alles andere als einfach. Selbst wer sich die Mühe macht, die Software und die Navigation in der virtuellen Welt zu erlernen, muss sich darauf gefasst machen, dass das Entdecken komplexer 3D-Installationen mehr Zeit in Anspruch nimmt als das Besuchen einer Website. Auch die Erwartung, dass an jeder Ecke fröhliche, hilfsbereite Avatare stehen, erfüllt sich oft nicht: Man muss die Menschen und Communities in Second Life gezielt suchen. Wer unter der Oberfläche kratzt, wird die Vision, die Philip Rosedale beim Lesen von Neal Stephensons Roman Snowcrash hatte, im Second Life des Jahres 2013 klarer erkennen können als vor zehn Jahren.

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Systemizing the Supernatural: Why Are Fantasy Games So Stagnant?

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You, the brave adventurer, walk carefully through the thick woods, with your 12 points in the “Awareness” Skill keeping you alert to any possible danger. Your Worn +3 Axe is slung across your back. Your hands work calmly at notching an Arrow of Lightning Bolt to your +1 Bow of Poison. Your Boots of Striding both hasten your pace and silence your footsteps; the only monsters who can detect your presence are above level 15, and they are not known to gather here.

The old miller sent you off vaguely in this direction. You’re not exactly sure what the trouble is as you ran off while he was talking to you. Ah well. Just kill whatever it is that lives (or unlives) here.

Can you feel the magic yet? How about the wonder?! The mystery?!! The dreamlike experience of the fantastic?!!! (Picture lightning shooting from my eyes to emphasize my point, if you please.)

“But what’s the first thing you think of when you think of magic in video games?”

Magic is, by definition, supernatural. It cannot be understood scientifically, or at all, except perhaps by people who are magical. Seven years of school in England cannot teach you magic. When magic can be taught, learned, and repeated, it becomes science. But in video games, magic is indistinguishable from other forms of combat (and it is always used for combat). Also, it’s limited by blue drink (consult your game’s user interface and look next to the red drink, it should be nearby).
In any case, thanks to a few extremely successful, more adult fantasy stories (Game of Thrones is a standout), fantasy has recently been rehabilitated in the public eye. No longer should you feel all that embarrassed when reading a fantasy novel on the bus or train. But what about fantasy video games? What is even remotely interesting or different about them? What justifies them as non-schlock?

Nothing. Seriously, nothing. Nearly every fantasy video game, and especially those that claim fantasyhood on the box, is a chaos of off-brand Tolkienisms wrapped in numbers and loot and DPS. Even supposedly more adult games like Dragon Age and The Witcher are still adolescent power fantasies of violence and loot, for the most part. Video game fantasy worlds aren’t aping the austere Tolkien so much as the hacky tabletop RPG tie-in novels which line the shelves in every book store. Tolkien told a story about two fat members of the bourgeoisie accomplishing the impossible through their surprising courage and guile. And they didn’t receive as much help as you’d assume from Gandalf spamming his 3D6 Lightning Bolt spell. Actually, magic is quite beyond their comprehension.

The Magic Numbers

Fantasy games, bastard children of Tolkien, Conan and a boxy graphing calculator, are essentially about increasing your important numbers while being careful not to run out of your red goop or blue goop. More than Tolkien, Dungeons and Dragons is to blame for making fantasy games the domain of uninterrupted violence, numbers, special effects, inventory management, and utterly repetitive lack of imagination.

What is the first thing you think of when you think of magic? Is it a rabbit being pulled from a top hat, or perhaps a unicorn or a fairy? All of those are pretty magical. But what’s the first thing you think of when you think of magic in video games? The answer is, more than likely, systems. You think of all the RPGs you’ve played, and how easy or difficult or overpowered their magic systems are. You think of crowd control, DPS, and status effects. In video games, fantasy cannot be understood without knowing the technical jargon of RPGs first. There is a reason why unit abilities in Starcraft, a science fiction RTS, are referred to as “spells” by the players. There is no difference, functionally, between a Starcraft spell and a spell in any fantasy game. Spells are DPS, crowd control, buffs, debuffs, and status effects. Spells have a game meaning that is separate from their original meaning.

This is a problem. At least, if you consider yourself a fan of fantasy. If you’ve read a bit of Neil Gaiman, China Mieville, Susannah Clarke, or any of the other acclaimed fantasy authors of the past decade, then you know that fantasy has long since moved on from Tolkien and his rather inferior clones. Fantasy aims to achieve a mental effect in the reader. It’s something close to horror, a bit Lovecraftian, but not so much bleak as it is surreal. The fantastic is the strange, weird, and inexplicable presented coherently, but not necessarily clearly. It may have a type of dream logic. Whether we experience wonder or horror while we are presented with the fantastic is pretty much up to the author. Written fantasy has, to a large extent, escaped men killing skeletons with their legendary swords, and replaced it with content like the infamous scene from Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, in which a goddess swallows a man whole into her vagina. Or take the gruesome birth of a shadow-assassin-baby from that one episode of Game of Thrones. I apologize if my examples are weirdly focused on the female anatomy, although perhaps it’s a good thing because hacky genre fantasy is noted for its lack of genuinely useful information on this topic (believe me, I’ve looked).

“Roguelikes are games that I feel do fantasy both very badly and very well. They’re totally guilty of systemizing almost everything magical, but somehow the unpredictability and difficulty of most roguelikes makes up for it.”

I don’t want to sound pretentious, so I won’t say that the aesthetic of the fantastic proper is superior to whatever it is that most fantasy games aim for. I love a good dungeon crawl. But there is a void in game development where more strangeness can be brought in, and where mechanics aren’t immediately clear. There’s room in fantasy for eroticism, darkness, and the totally fucked up. There’s room for games that aren’t so damn game-y.
No, really! It’s all right. After all, it’s been done before. The Binding of Isaac did it. I’m not sure that a single reviewer mentioned that Isaac is a fantasy game. But Edmund McMillen’s cellar full of flesh, flies, and feces plays like a dark-as-congealed-blood fairy tale. What happens when you accept a gift from the goat-headed Satan fellow? What’s this mysterious room with only a spike trap? How do I get this weird thing to cooperate with me? What the fuck do these tarot cards even do?

None of these elements of Isaac immediately explain themselves, but I just sort of understood what I had to do. Isaac’s universe does have a logic to it. I’ve reached the final stage of the game without fully understanding any of my items, power-ups, etc., and more importantly, without even thinking of them as items or power-ups. Isaac obscures its systems without them feeling obscure. They’re just effects of the world of Isaac. Sometimes the unexplained isn’t annoying to the gamer, but fascinating.

I can anticipate someone arguing that “non-generic fantasy games will never sell.” Even if incompatibility with AAA capitalism is a legitimate argument against making interesting fantasy games, it’s a wrong one. Isaac, Planescape Torment, and Arcanum are huge counter-examples. Very recently, Don’t Starve presented its take on the sandbox survival genre with a great big dollop of the gothic plopped on top. It’s faring rather well on Steam.

But I want to single out Isaac because some say it’s a roguelike (or a roguelikelike, if you must nitpick). Roguelikes are games that I feel do fantasy both very badly and very well. They’re totally guilty of systemizing almost everything magical, but somehow the unpredictability and difficulty of most roguelikes makes up for it. ADOM’s “corruption” hunger clock, with effects such as growing thorns, sprouting 12 eyes, poison-dripping hands, and lungs which exhale sulphur, is sort of a perfect synthesis of uncomfortable weirdness with numerical systemization. Or take my last really good run in Brogue: I was treading through shallow water with my trusty ogre and goblin mystic companions, when suddenly a kraken wrapped me up in its tentacles. If I hadn’t had a Staff of Blink I would have been a goner. There was no way to kill the monster and take its loot, I just had to deal with it. So if you prefer, the whole house of fantasy games does not have to be burned to the ground. It just needs extensive remodeling.

Weird And Wonderful

Indies have the potential to be more imaginative than AAA fantasy games; this must be tied to what Porpentine and Merritt Kopas talk about in this amazing Super Sexagon article. Personal games, Twine games, whatever-the-fuck you want to call them, are incredibly liberating, free from AAA demands that everything fit neatly into genre check-lists that reinforce traditions of play that have existed for 20 years, in many cases. I’ve heard the argument that Twine is useful because a non-programmer can come home from work and quickly make a game about how they feel that day.

That’s vital. But just as vital is the creation of more explicitly imaginative stuff. Wanting games to be more personal does not necessarily mean you want games to be more slice-of-life. We know more about Tolkien from Middle Earth than we ever could from reading his letters, I think. He was obsessed with languages above all, an intensely moral, Christian man, and a lover of song and poetry. All of this is true, and it’s just as clear from The Lord of the Rings as it is from the biographical details of his life.

“Make the games that only you can make.”

Not to say that Twine doesn’t have imaginative games. My girlfriend and I had a blast playing Until Our Alien Hearts Beat As One, Porpentine’s two-player Twine dating sim, trying to reach out to each other with our hairy tentacles and spider legs. That game is essentially an amazing metaphor, and says something meaningful about actual dating by making it really, really strange (as if it were any stranger than real dating). If we’re to use the “Games about the developer’s day” example again, which may be an overemphasized rhetorical tool in the discourse about Twine, then we should also acknowledge that a person’s secondary world can reveal just as much about them as their struggles elsewhere in life. Beyond Twine, the games of thecatamites and John Clowder (both of whom have used RPGMaker) are fantasies that often poke fun at the ancient tropes of fantasy RPGs, while innovating the genre with totally-out-there games like Goblet Grotto and Middens. Like Isaac, which could have only been made by Edmund McMillen, these games are unique to their authors in a way that AAA games are incapable of being.
AAA fantasy is an endlessly iterative wasteland of the same clichés. Here’s a particularly egregious example: Oblivion, Divinity II, and Two Worlds II came out at roughly the same time. They are all open-world fantasy sequels involving inventory management (yay!), not-too-bad combat (woo!), loot (fun!), and questing (engaging!). They are absolutely the same game, although I’ll give Divinity credit for its relatively decent writing and voice acting. Each of these fantasy epics is chock full of content that is largely interchangeable with that of the other games. There’s so much generic fluff in nearly every fantasy RPG. And in the end, what did these games have that Morrowind did not? They’re technically refined versions of the exact same game (it probably all goes back to Ultima, or something), and the only distinguishing features are things like, “Well the quests aren’t so generic in Divinity II” and “there’s a weird conversation mini-game in Oblivion.” And also the graphics are better, obviously. So that’s good.

Well, that’s AAA for you. But where is the indie scene in all this? As far as fantasy goes, we’ve basically got roguelikes and Jeff Vogel (both great things to have). There is so much room to make good fantasy games. Games about the universes that only exist in our minds, if you’ll forgive my over-the-top language, are just as important as the smaller, more personal fantasies. Whether your internal world involves middle class people talking in sitting rooms, as in Austen, or much weirder stuff, as in, say Hope Mirrlees, the goal is the same. Make the games that only you can make. Magic doesn’t come from a bottle of blue energy drink. As corny as it sounds, it comes from you.

Indies have the potential to rescue fantasy games from irrelevance.

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against saving, against aspiration

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This year, I’ve been a little touchier about games than in the past. I’m tired of violence in games: yes, it’s a classic theme, rich in narrative possibilities; yes, it lends itself to a myriad of success/failure conditions that are rich in gameplay possibilities; but even so, does it have to be quite so dominant? (And generally so unreflectively dominant, to make matters worse.) And I’m tired of adolescent games: sure, the transition from childhood to adolescence is a great theme, but it gets old, and it especially gets old when that transition doesn’t lead to a struggle with the question of what it means to be grown up, but rather leads to becoming an all-powerful manchild who saves the world from an evil daddy figure while dominating it himself. (These two, of course, frequently unite: saving the world involves leaving an endless stream of corpses behind you, as it turns out.)

I seem to be particularly interested in unpacking that latter problem, as I realized when I found myself defending Catherine fairly vigorously in a VGHVI symposium a couple of months ago. Because yeah, there’s a lot to complain about in Catherine. Vincent is nobody’s idea of a role model: he may not be an all-powerful manchild (aside from one of the endings which is at least entertainingly self-aware in its presentation of the situation), but he is a hapless loser manchild, somebody whom I probably wouldn’t enjoy spending time with in real life, whom I probably wouldn’t enjoy reading about or watching a movie about. So this is not a character or a game that I would normally think of myself as defending. (At least on a thematic/narrative level; the block pushing puzzle aspect of it is a different matter.)

But I nonetheless was: it turns out that, right now, I’m surprisingly grateful, embarrassingly grateful even to games that present me with a narrative that doesn’t end up with me becoming all-powerful and saving the world. I mean, yes, Dragon Age II is a legitimately wonderful game, but should I be quite so grateful for the fact that you only save a city from a crazed demon lord instead of saving the entire freaking world from a crazed demon lord?

So it would seem that I need some space from current conventions. Which makes me wonder: what if we try to further stretch the distance from conventions? Saving the world is clearly overblown, but maybe my problem is as much with the “saving” part of that statement as with “the world”. Maybe games have a savior complex; maybe I have a savior complex and I’m uncomfortable with that aspect of myself. Maybe what I want right now are games that present a world around you and people around you that are interesting in their own right, that are worthy of respect in their own right, and that don’t need you to validate them, let alone save them?

Now, I realize that games traditionally have externally prescribed goals, and that one way to combine external goals with a single-player context (and one that includes a narrative framework) is to present you as trying to win over some parts of that external context for the benefit of both yourself and other parts of that external context. If we step too far away from that, we have, what, Proteus? Well, as it turns out, Proteus is a great game, and I’m much happier having spent time playing it than yet another save-the-world fantasy.

There are other ways to frame those externally prescribed goals, though; one of my favorites is that games are about systems understanding, and the goals are vehicles for the rules that give structure to the games’ systems. If you focus on the systems, though, goals are merely one way to approach those systems, and the systems themselves can present a world, a work that is worthy of approach and appreciation on its own terms, with no need for external validation.

That systems understanding approach itself can, of course, be problematic; but it can also be beautiful. And beautiful in ways that aren’t threatened by goals and show how goals can be presented in ways that have nothing to do with a savior complex: go is an example here.

So: I’d like games that are less about saving the world, aspiring to become all-powerful; in fact, I’m curious about games that step away from aspiration completely. Having said that, that’s just me right now, not a general statement about what other people should be interested in or even what past or future me should be interested in.

One of the reasons for this is the social context of how aspiration is frequently presented in games. The games I’m thinking of aren’t just adolescent fantasy: they’re a particular kind of adolescent fantasy, one that generally harmonizes well with boys who grow up in a world that, at least in part, tells them that they are special, that they can go on to do great things, where that latter is identified in part with dominating and showing their superiority to others.

Which, in its own way, was a big part of my adolescence: sure, I was a geeky kid, but I was in an environment that was rather supportive of that geekiness, and if we’re talking about dominance, I did extremely well at math contests. That latter skill led to a fair amount of other rewards; I’m certainly far from dominating the world, but my career has put me in a quite comfortable place.

And following narratives that reinforce certain aspects of that, or for that matter that tell me that I’m still a failure because I didn’t dominate the world, gets kind of tired after a while: I’d like to learn from something different. And, worse, these aspirational savior narratives seem to resonate with some aspects of a culture around games (and around internet technology enthusiasm in general) that can be pretty horrible at times: an ideological fervor to demonstrate that you are Right, that those who have come to a different conclusion from you are Wrong and must be crushed under the weight of your righteousness.

If I’d had different aspirations growing up, or less support for my aspirations, though, my response to aspirational games might will be different. In that case, a game that spoke to my aspirations could turn into a beacon of hope; certainly there seem like a lot of games out there these days that have the potential to be that.

I dunno. I guess, having written this, I’m really not against aspiration in games. I am still against being a savior in games, at least to the extent that that others whom you are saving.

More than either of those, though, I’m actively for games that quietly observe the world around you. Games that don’t focus on the world as a vehicle for your actions on it: games that focus on the world as something in its own right, games that focus on multi-way relationships involving you and others, even games that focus on understanding yourself without a builtin assumption that that understanding naturally leads to adulation. Or games that set aside the world, removing that external narrative largely or entirely to instead carve narrative out of interactions within the mechanics of the game.

Fortunately, there are a lot of games out there that present a world that welcomes observation, now that I’m calming down enough to notice them.

Post Revisions:

This post has not been revised since publication.

Published 6/5/2013 & Filed in Games

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The Arbitrary or Authored Loss of Control against Perfect & Natural Avatars

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The Arbitrary or Authored Loss of Control against Perfect & Natural Avatars

Posted on 130603 by droqen

When you play a game, who are you?

Are you your character’s mind controlling his every move or just a strange choice-making entity? He is ‘your’ character only when the creator gives up her power over him — over you. Are you in control?

Don’t fool yourself, player.

For a moment, let’s consider the old style of graphical adventure game (one example pictured to the right) in which you have a very clearly presented set of verbs (plus some extra ones, not pictured: ‘Use X item from inventory’) to be applied to the world. You do not have perfect control. If you attempt to ‘Talk to’ anything, you are not choosing what is said: only giving your character no, your character’s creator the green light to go ahead and play the ‘Character Talks to Thing’ scenario.

OPEN DOOR: You didn’t want to kick the door down violently (and you certainly didn’t expect that). You wanted to open it quietly.
TALK TO RIVAL: You wanted to talk to your rival in a peaceful way, but your character (too prideful) insulted her instead.
USE KNIFE ON FRUIT: You wanted to cut the orange in half with your knife, not peel it!

Any sort of arbitrary choice that your character makes for you detracts from your sense of self in a game world. Please keep in mind that this is not always a bad thing. For every action a character takes on her own, she defines herself (or if you want to think about it too hard, her creator defines her). This is sometimes what you want — especially if it’s important that a player take a certain role in a certain story.

However, if an entity acts only when and how you choose…
That entity becomes your avatar, through whom you experience the world.

I think you’ll agree: we are both human beings. You and I have almost certainly grown up inhabiting our bodies and we have grown used to being able to exercise a certain amount of physical control over our environment through our bodies. In Real Life, there are a finite number of physical actions you are capable of and which you can perform at any time (and when you can’t, it’s often strange, even disturbing). It’s only natural that when you want to do something, your avatar (whatever form it takes) responds without its own thought. This, of course, means that you will never have perfect and natural control over such vague commands as ‘Talk to’ or ‘Use’.

Consider two games in both of which you take control of a person named Alex. In both games the arrow keys move you and you have one action button, but in the first game your action button is an RPG standard Interact With The Thing In Front Of Me button, while in the second game your action button is a kick button. Each game has Alex, a door, and a floor-mounted lever which unlocks it.

When you play a game, who are you?

GAME 1

You interact with the door, and Alex interprets that as ‘open door’. It is locked. You interact with the lever, and Alex interprets that as ‘pull lever’. Alex pulls the lever.
You interact with the door, and Alex interprets that as ‘open door’. It opens, and Alex passes through.
(Alex must have actually been interpreting it as ‘open door & traverse doorway if possible’. Close enough.)

GAME 2

You kick the door, which rattles but does not open. It is locked. You kick the lever from the correct side. It toggles.
You kick the door, which flies open.
You step through the now-open threshold.

Okay, so we might start to disagree here but let’s start with the easy part. In GAME 2, you are Alex and Alex is you. Alex is your avatar, your body. The lever and the door ‘chose’ how to react to your actions, but they are not part of Alex and cannot dilute his or her avatar-ness. They are external.

In GAME 1, Alex is not a perfect fit — and is not your avatar. Before the lever and door react to your actions, your character reacts to your actions. Alex cannot be your avatar because he or she makes decisions (fairly major ones when you think about it — Alex could have knocked on the door, or tried to bash it in or pick the lock, or done any number of things almost all of which would not have been quite what you intended) in response to your decisions. This brings us back to the burning question:

When you play a game, who are you?

I’m not saying that it’s always wrong to author some or even most of a player’s character’s actions (but I have a little bias as made quite obvious by the naming of this post) — and I’m certainly not saying that granting a player perfect control over a character is always the right decision. It is, however, the natural state: if you make a very simple demo of a character who can walk around, maybe jump, you are providing a ‘perfect & natural avatar’. On the other hand, directly involving the player in dialogue is pretty much impossible if you cling to this ideal, and so is telling a singular story.

I don’t think I have anything else to say. Comments are open below!

[EDIT] Oh, wait! Here are some pretty random examples of neat actions that adhere to ‘perfect & natural’ control: * Movement and jumping in almost every game * Shooting a gun in most games where you shoot guns * The kick button in Radiata Stories
* Journey (flying, singing)
* and this feeling is why I like playing games where you’re controlling an individual rather than a collective. I like to think most people find something viscerally satisfying about having a perfect & natural avatar, a perfect extension of one’s intent, in a game.

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