Blips: Connected Worlds

Source: The Last Survivors of Meridian 59
Author: Simon Parkin
Site: The New Yorker

I can't claim to have much experience with MMOs, but I am consistently fascinated by the stories told by players of happenings within virtual worlds. For his latest New Yorker piece, Simon Parkin checks in with Meridian 59, a game considered to be the first ever MMO, and talks to some players who have been active in the game for 15 years. As usual with these types of communal environments, it's the people moreso than the battle systems or loot that keeps players coming back, but what I was most intrigued by in Parkin's report was that the style of gameplay in Meridian 59 is given significant credit for maintaining interest in the game.

Particularly, the brutal nature of Meridian 59's world where death means that you can have items taken from you, instead of just a semi-inconvenient respawn point. Attacks can happen anywhere, not just in specifically sanctioned battle arenas or modes. As a result, survival depends on players banding together and looking out for one another. If anything, this sounds quite a bit like recent Early Access sensations DayZ and Rust, where you're dropped into a lawless open world and your survival is contingent on the trustworthiness of the friends you make. It's easy to look back at a game like Meridian 59 and balk at the way traditional MMOs have gone post-WoW, but new games like Rust and DayZ are actually taking some of those old MMO ideas in interesting new directions. Plus, there's an attempt right now to bring Meridian 59 to Steam in the near future, so maybe a triumphant resurgence is in order.

Blips: Time To Pay

Source: Gaming;s Long Con
Author: Simon Parkin
Site: The New Yorker

In a new column for The New Yorker, Simon Parkin wonders whether we put too much stock into the length of games as a gauge of quality. For the most part, I'm in agreement with Parkin here; there remains an expectation that games should be a certain length, and disappointment when they don't extend to such a point. This instinct is outdated since the length of a game has little bearing on the quality of that experience. Now, I think the chances are greater that a game will stick with me if it goes on for at least an hour or so, but that's not necessarily the case and becomes a fuzzy distinction when considering games with short, repeatable loops of gameplay like Tetris. And Parkin is also correct that the time-as-value mentality made more sense when games were exclusively targeted at younger age groups who have infinitely more free time, who hope single games will sustain them for months. One of my favorite resources when selecting a new game to play is How Long To Beat, which let's me know on average how long a game takes to complete, not so I can pre-judge its value, but so I can predict how playing it will fit into my schedule.

What Parkin mentions only briefly is how monetary value plays into this, which I think completes the circle of logic here. Just as the amount of time someone can dedicate to playing games varies from person to person, so is the dispensability of $60. It's not worth getting upset about MGS Ground Zeroes being just a couple hours long, but if that experience is not conducive to replayability and costs $40, it begins to sound like a questionable value. There are fully-fledged, amazing games like Journey and Proteus that take fewer than 2 hours to complete, but they usually only cost $15 to $20. And it's a tough call to make because Ground Zeroes may very well feel like it's worth $40 after playing it, but it's pricing model flies in the face of expectations, asking players for a heightened amount of trust going in. So, as much as I'd like to dismiss the value of game length entirely, I still care about game duration in terms of entry fee. This judgement is made in conjunction with many others, but it still holds some degree of merit, and can be especially helpful when considering the worth free-to-play transactions. They say "time is money," and while I'd argue that there's more to it than that, the phrase isn't without at least a modicum of truth.

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: Wargames

Source: The Video Game Invasion of Iraq
Author: Simon Parkin
Site: The New Yorker

Simon Parkin's latest article for The New Yorker is a real eye-opener: an account of one Iraqi boy who's a top tier Battlefield player. It's the sort of story that seems like it would be at odds with itself, but perhaps speaks to how little I actually know about life in Iraq. As one would expect, there's not much of a gaming scene in Iraq; there aren't many places to acquire games, much less buy them legally. It sounds like more parents are warming up to games though because it keeps their kids indoors where it's safer. Yousif Mohammed, the teen from the article, speaks of how a game like Battlefield, which has settings in Iraq, is actually more popular because of it.

I'd have assumed Iraqis would despise the American jingoistic fantasies of Battlefield and Call of Duty, but it's interesting to see how someone like Yousif approaches the game: mostly as a well-made mechanical system, but also as a cathartic opportunity to kill virtual terrorists. After all, the point of focusing on Yousif is not that he's an Iraqi who plays video games, it's that he's an Iraqi who's in the top 2% of Battlefield players, and his story is shows great resilience amongst incredible darkness.

On a side note, why is it that every game-focused article Parkin writes for The New Yorker is met with suspicious or indignant comments about the very notion of writing about games? Someone on this post actually accuses Parkin of publishing near the PS4's launch as a promotional stunt, as if Sony was paying him for an article that never even uses the word "Playstation." I mean, at least it's a different kind of trolling than we're used to with games, but it's ridiculous all the same, and disappointing considering it's The New Yorker and what one assumes is an educated and open-minded readership.

Blips: Portal Don't Need No Stinkin' Bullets

Source: Games of the Generation: Portal
Author: Simon Parkin
Site: Eurogamer

Portal is the only Valve game franchise that I care about, and in a new feature for Eurogamer, Simon Parkin explains why that might be the case. Portal shook up the first person shooter genre by making your gun a puzzle-solving navigation tool instead of a killing machine. It's a mechanically subversive game in light of the commercial dominance of shooters, but it also executes on an ambitious narrative that brings those mechanics, it's aesthetics, and its characters full-circle. As Parkin notes in his conclusion, it even resists then normal sequel structure for games where the second pass is usually better than the first. Not to put down Portal 2 (a fine game), but Portal did not need a sequel; its story is a parable, not an epic.

Parkin's remark about Portal's non-existent influence on the video game industry is questionable though, but I will buy it in a very specific context. In my opinion, Portal was most influential for it's use of physics and puzzle boxes. There have even been a few games that take Portal's puzzle-solving structure and apply different mechanics, like Magrunner, Q.U.B.E., and Quantum Conundrum, not to mention more distant cousins like Antichamber, but even in games where this isn't the core conceit, the influence of Portal can be felt. Now, perhaps Parkin is referring to the mainstream, in which case the bullet-gun shooters still reign supreme and have all but ignored the larger lessons or Portal when looking at the industry's broad strokes, but I'd argue that the influence is still quite pervasive in those games; it's visibility is just a bit more subtle.

Blips: Neverending Finality

Source: Dispatches from A Realm Reborn
Author: Simon Parkin
Site: Eurogamer

Video games have been known to possess addictive qualities, and I like to think I've been able to show more restraint from falling into unhealthy gaming patterns as I've gotten older. MMOs always seemed to be the black tar heroin of addictive video games, and as such, I've steered clear of them, scared off by tales of lost time and disintegrating real world sociability. I've never wanted to subject myself to that sort of atmosphere. Whenever I hear MMO players discuss their experiences within these virtual worlds, they often seem intriguing, if not amazing, in concept, but I have trouble seeing past the grind of the actual moment-to-moment activities and the stunning time commitment.

Simon Parkin breaks down his mostly positive experience with Square-Enix's MMO reboot Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn in a recent piece for Eurogamer. The game does seem to have it's appeal, and the story behind it's development is incredible, and a bit heartbreaking. If ever I was to be swung over to the dark side and pick up an MMO, something with the Final Fantasy name attached to it might be the reason. Final Fantasy XII and Xenoblade Chronicles showed me that I actually enjoyed combat stylized with MMO trappings, but both of those games also have preconceived narratives with definitive endings, and, much to their credit, rarely pushed me to grind. Seeing series callbacks in FFXIV just makes me want to go back and play the older games in the series, not invest in a new title that also requires a monthly fee.

I want to like MMOs. The raids, the guilds, and the performative elements are all quite intriguing, but I've resolved to wait on the massively multiplayer structure until it breaks out of the World of Warcraft mold where it currently finds itself. If MMOs were for me, FFXIV might very well be my game, but since they're not, I'll continue to observe and appreciate from a safe distance.

Blips: Mark Cerny Madness

Source: Mark Cerny: The Man Who Drew Up Sony's Next Game Plan
Author: Simon Parkin
Site: MIT Technology Review

Unless something dramatic happens between now and the end of the year, I won't be getting a an Xbox One of Playstation 4 at launch. That said, I look forward to owning a PS4 at some point down the road, likely when it becomes a little cheaper and has a library of interesting games readily available. Why I'm interested in PS4 over the new Xbox has a lot to do with the man who designed Sony's next console, Mark Cerny. Not only does Cerny have a 30+ year career in the industry, he also made one of my all-time favorite games, Marble Madness. Now, the PS4 doesn't come with a trackball (though I mainly played MM on the NES anyway), but it is being presented by a man who knows what he's talking about and has demonstrated a passion and vision for what he wants his console to do.

Simon Parkin recently wrote a nice profile on Cerny for the MIT Technology Review, wherein he talks about Cerny's teenage career and the differences between working for Atari in the mid-80s and Sega Japan in the late 80s and early 90s. Mark Cerny was also a driving force behind Crash Bandicoot the original Playstation icon, and Parkin notes certain stylistic similarities between that game and Cerny's PS4 title Knack. Cerny has a fascinating child prodigy career arc that has sustained him in the industry for decades. It's that kind of staying power that inspires confidence, and it's the playfulness and innovation in a game like Marble Madness that shows Cerny as a creative force. I don't know how the next console war is going to shake out, and in many ways I don't care all that much, but Mark Cerny's involvement with the PS4 assures that there's a beating heart in there somewhere.

Blips: On 'n On

Source: Don't Stop: The Game that Conquered Smartphones
Author: Simon Parkin
Site: The New Yorker

If you play games on a smartphone, odds are overwhelmingly in favor of you having played an "endless runner." Endless runners are one of the most successful genre's of games to hit iOS and Android devices, in part because of their simple control schemes that seem perfectly suited for touchscreen devices. Though endless runners existed before smartphones, they have experienced a resurgent rebirth thanks to the new platforms.

Simon Parkin's features for The New Yorker looks at Canabalt, the poster child for touchscreen-controlled endless runners. The game was the result of a time-constrained game jam competition, which pushes minimalist visual design in favor of achieving games that actually function proficiently. Canabalt's monochrome aesthetic was striking though, and the original game jam design more-or-less made the cut in the final version. In the game you tap the screen to make an always-running character jump from rooftop to rooftop with increasing speed and decreasing margins for error.

Where will the endless runner go from here? It's tough to say but, as Parkin points out, games like Bit.Trip Runner, Temple Run, and Jetpack Joyride have all iterated on the basic concept in unique and interesting ways. Hopefully the positive design trend will continue.