Blips: Charged Imagery

Source: Being Black and Nerdy
Author: Sidney Fussell
Site: Medium

There's a lot of denial about the influence of racial politics in popular media, including games. Hopefully at this point we can at least agree that there's no such thing as an apolitical game, and that the pertinent question asks what a game's politics are, not whether it has any. Writer Sidney Fussell has published a very personal account of his relationship with the racial politics of video games, reflecting both on the images depicted in games and those projected by the medium as a whole. Check it out via the "Source" link above, but in summary, it's about growing up black in a racially divided Midwestern city where games are both an escape and a curse of sorts. It's a story about the perceived whiteness of games and how that racial label impacted Fussell's feelings of conflicted inclusivity among members of his own race as well as among his white magnet school classmates. And there's more to it than just that, so please give Fussell's article a look as it's an honest account of the power and influence games wield.

Though it is part of a critic's job to read and interpret media, it's the responsibility of creators of all media to thoroughly consider the politics of their creation before releasing it to the world. Case in point is the header image for this post, an actual promotional screenshot for Ubisoft's upcoming open-world cyber-crime game Watch Dogs. Another white male protagonist of vigilante justice (now also armed with a smartphone!) and another gang of angry black street thugs. Of course Ubisoft has the right to create and publicize these sorts of images (no one stopped them, after all), but it's also entirely within their power to produce imagery that rejects this status quo or at the very least frames their game in a less problematic context. Now, that would have potential to be a refreshing exercise in free speech. Everything in games is a design choice, and as Sidney Fussell's essay details, sometimes those choices have real world consequences.

Blips: Platform Exclusive

Source: If you love games, you should refuse to be called a "gamer"
Author: Simon Parkin
Site: New Statesman

In a new article for the New Statesman, Simon Parkin critically examines the term "gamer" and considers what it means to be a member of the "gaming community." It's a solid piece that gets at my own personal apprehension to using the word "gamer," and helped me better understand why I find the term uncomfortable. I found Parkin's most powerful point to be the way "gaming community" is thrown around, while no analogue exists in other pop culture media. There is no homogenous TV watching community or music listening community, but there are smaller groups that express dedication to specific shows, bands, and genres. "Gaming community" is a misnomer for "people who play games," which is, increasingly, everyone, thus stripping the original term of any significance.

As an insider in the "gaming community," I know that the term is supposed to be taken as a label for people who play certain types of games: "real" games, "hardcore" games, or any other type of game that could not be labelled as "casual" or "social" or played in a web browser. The irony of the image above is that Pac-Man was a kind of casual game in itself, debuting in bars and other social contexts for adults and kids to play alike. Would people who enjoyed playing Pac-Man from time to time be considered "gamers," or does the label imply a more concerned dedication and time investment in the medium? These kinds of elitist barriers exist in other mediums, those that separate the "likers" from the "lovers" (moviegoer v. cinephile), but somehow the general term "gamer" has been turned into a label that leaves no room for those who have not dedicated part of their souls to video games.

To be a "gamer" is to make game playing critical part of your identity on the level of an occupation. Parkin slyly points out that people who read books (another non-homogenous group) don't typically refer to themselves as "readers." and likewise, "gamers" should cast aside the label that makes them sound like a singular group (a less than flattering one, at that). All kinds of people play games, but "gamer" doesn't encompass this idea. There's a reason labels like "girl gamer" and "gaymer" have surfaced in recent years, and it's because members of those groups looked at what makes a "gamer" and they didn't see themselves. I highly suggest checking out Tracey Lien's expose from last week to learn more about how the "gaming community" came to be identified as a boys club, and some of the problems that have stemmed as a result.

It's time "gamer" went to way of the outdated stereotype it represents, or else the term is in serious need of co-opting and repurposing to better serve the actual range of people who enjoy video games.

:image by SplitReason:

Blips: Grunge Games

Source: Grunge, Grrrls and Video Games: Turning the dial for a more meaningful culture
Author: Leigh Alexander
Site: Gamasutra

"Gamer culture" is nothing if not off-putting, and I like video games, so I have to imagine there's not much incentive for those disinterested in the medium to want to join in. In a recent piece by Leigh Alexander, she states that the culture that surrounds video games needs to change if it's going to be a culture worth remembering. The parallel she draws is the grunge music counter-culture of the early 90s which was a reaction to the glam and excess of the 80s and hair bands in particular. Alexander speaks of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Rage Against The Machine, but also of Riot Grrrl bands like Sleater-Kinney and Bikini Kill, and how the spirit of that movement is carried on in the feminist DIY game scene: perhaps the medium's first true counter-culture.

Though grunge music and personal games have their share of differences, not the least of which is the change in environment from mainstream monoculture to the fragmented subsets of specialized niches we have now, there's an "against the grain" tone in both. I firmly agree with Alexander that this counter-culture is the most interesting thing happening in the games space right now, and it's disheartening the degree to which young people would rather in-fight over corporate loyalty than embrace the rebellious element.

In my opinion, this comes down to what's cool, and what's not. Grunge music was cool, but in a way that youth latched onto and adults largely repelled. For a long time, games in of themselves fulfilled the same purpose. Adults didn't understand them, and though they weren't cool in the high school clique sense, they were cool within the circle of people that appreciated them. Now, even though the grunge fad has passed, games haven't changed all that much, except for how they look and a refinement of mechanics. In games, instead of each new generation growing up with their own unique counter-culture like grunge, punk, goth, metal, or dare I say dubstep, they each get their own iteration of Mario Kart. In music, these movements are driven by youth and ambition, which stagnated in games around the time of grunge. There is an alternative scene in games right now though, and it's one worth championing.