The Gaming Industry And You

I’m not sure when and where I was first introduced to the concept of being a tool.  It is a very pervasive insult.  “Oh, that guy looks like such a tool.”  I’m sure that most people reading this blog have heard some variant of that phrase in their lifetimes, but the term itself rarely gets a rigorous definition from its users.

What is a tool, in the traditional sense?  A tool is an object that is to be used to achieve the user’s ends – a hammer, a fork, and so on.  Most objects can be defined as tools since they exist to facilitate the needs and desires of the people that use them, be it to get something productive done or to more easily relax oneself.   It’s kind of an overly utilitarian way to look at things, but it certainly isn’t invalid.

The insult that comes from calling someone a tool is the insinuation that the person is useable.  Most people like to adopt a certain sense of free will, and we are generally uncomfortable with the idea of being manipulated for someone else’s ends (particularly in American culture).  The merits of this standpoint aren’t what I’m here to argue; let’s just take it as a general explanation for why people consider it a bad thing to be a tool.  The kinds of people that we call tools are the sorts who are easily influenced by peer pressure to do things that aren’t necessarily in their own best interests.  If they are easy to influence for someone else’s own ends, then they’re a tool.

 Still not sure which I find funnier: The picture or the fact that the image-maker sucks at censoring things.

In any industry, it’s in a company or organization’s interests to entice people into buying or endorsing their product.  This is perfectly acceptable, provided that the organization does not do anything to suggest that their customers are somehow being fooled or otherwise manipulated into buying an inferior – or even harmful – product.  People don’t like feeling screwed over, and people certainly don’t like thinking that they’re getting systematically screwed over.  Getting taken advantage of in this way and being upset about it is, in some sense, an expression of self-awareness of how toolish you were at the moment of transaction.  It is a feeling of outrage, as though you were violated.  It also carries a slight amount of shame with it as well.

Within the gaming community, there tends to be a lot of fanciful discussion about the merits of games.  Some people really want to prop up video games as a new and exciting outlet for artistic expression.  Some people get very excited for certain new games to come out, almost reflexively, on the basis that the game is likely to be just as fun as an earlier, similar game (see: Any Zelda game ever).  Some people see great promise in gaming from the perspective of e-sports, and will be adamant in promoting the dynamic and engaging nature of their game of choice.

At the end of the day, though, every game that we like and play was made and produced by a company with their own agenda and their own reasons for making the game the way that they did.  It can be taken for granted that their agenda as a company and our agenda as gamers do not necessarily have to align with each other.  Sometimes this can be observed to an extreme, and some gamers inadvertently conduct themselves in a way where they end up looking a whole lot like tools.

The introspective question to ask, as gamers, is this: How toolish can we be?

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Let’s get an uncontroversial argument out of the way first.  Some gamers will look at the question posed above and probably have an idea as to where I'm going with this.  What kind of tool gamer could I possibly be talking about?  We can probably paint a quick and dirty image of the kind of person that we're most assuredly going to touch on by uttering a simple word: fanboy.

Pictured: The thing that you read when you want to feel bad about the gamer community.

Let's talk about console fanboys first.  Back in the day, kids would argue about who was the better mascot: Mario or Sonic.  This mascot mischief scratches the surface of the ‘console wars’ between Nintendo and Sega back in the day.  

The term itself - console war - depicts a funny concept.  It paints this image of brutal attrition between two gaming platforms.  In reality, it wasn't like we couldn’t just own both consoles.  The situation tended to be that your parents were only willing to spend money on one console or the other, so you’d decide which console was better by which one you happened to own.  Couple that with each console’s flagship mascot, and you’ve got kids arguing over which imaginary friend would win in a fight.

We talk about those console wars now as though it were cute.  We were kids back then, and a lot of us got into those console wars.  We were young, and we were dumb.  We can see through the gimmicks in marketing because, in hindsight, all of that stuff catered to our self-centered younger selves.  We wanted to make sure that we had the better thing, and the companies were more than willing to shove advertising down our impressionable, soft, supple throats.  Then we grew up and realized that none of it was real.  Most of us have moved on.

Except for blast processing.  That was just too real to handle.

But, bizarrely, even as we grew older, this idea of a console war didn’t completely go away.

Here’s a site from back in 2007, when the next-gen video game consoles were getting released.  You were to vote for which console was going to ‘win’, and then you would get to monitor estimates of console sales to see if your console of choice would win.

It seems that the old concept from the advertisements have become a colloquial term among gamers to refer to market competition among next-gen consoles.  This is certainly a more grown-up version of bickering over which console’s mascot was cooler.  But, is it grown-up in the right way?  It still entertains the idea of competition between platforms, but now the argument concerns itself with business figures and units sold.  At some point in time, our idea of ‘console war’ became an exercise in market projections.

It doesn’t stop there with the examples.  Some google searching will get you lots of stuff from 2006 and 2007, when Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony were just beginning to release their currently supported consoles.

http://theconsolewars.blogspot.com/

http://www.technobuffalo.com/gaming/console-wars-round-12-the-finale/

http://kotaku.com/console-wars/

Notice that that last link isn’t an article published in 2007 or anything; it was published several months ago, anticipating the next console war.  As in, this nonsense is likely to happen again.  It is likely that people will facilitate this kind of discussion all over again.

It makes sense for people in the industry to care about this sort of talk.  This information is useful and legitimate…if you’re someone who actually has to worry about profiting in the industry.  What place does this have as a serious argument between gamers?  What does it accomplish?  If one of the goals of gaming is to have fun, then why are people arguing about which console is better when they could just be playing games?

What's worse is that there's less reason for consoles to be seen as competitors than ever before.  Back in the '90s, there was lots of exclusivity in games.  Sonic could only be found on the Genesis, and Mario could only be found on the NES/SNES. Sega had lots of sports games, while Nintendo had lots of RPGs.  Nintendo had Zelda.  Sega had Phantasy Star.  Now?  With the prevalence of third party support, most XBox 360 games typically have a port on the Playstation 3.  Even their online arcade systems overlap in game library.  Current consoles may still be somewhat differentiated in library, but genre specialization is nowhere near on the level that it used to be.

Wait, did I say prevalence of third party support?

The thing that made this tolerable among kids was the imaginative nature of the argument.  Even if the argument didn’t matter, it was okay; kids tend to get wrapped up in silly things and use their imagination to bridge any gaps between triviality and novelty.  When two older gamers are arguing about which is the superior console by citing hardware specs and sales projections, then a bit of the magic gets lost.  

It’s almost as though the arguers have become billboards for their respective console’s business.  It’s almost as though they’re going out of their way to help the business despite not receiving any real reward of their own.  It’s almost as though…they’re giant tools.

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Console fanboys are the tip of the iceberg.  How many times have you heard of people wanting to buy a new Final Fantasy game just because it’s a Final Fantasy game?  What about for Zelda?  Or for Sonic?

This is a thing that people do.

Check out this video from 2004.  This is footage from E3, a gaming conference that is only open to the press.  This audience is watching the first public reveal of Zelda: Twilight Princess.  The crowd’s reaction is energetic, praising the return of their beloved hero in a new, more realistic, more exciting setting.

At some point between the random audience member’s cries of “Oh my god! Oh my god!” and Shigeru Miyamoto walking out on stage with hylian shield and master sword, I began to wonder, “How did this rile up the crowd so much?”

The people in the crowd probably liked Zelda games, and they like the idea of another Zelda game coming out because it’s relevant to their interests.  And, hey, I like Zelda games too.  I was pretty happy about hearing the announcement of a new Zelda game.  When I heard about Skyward Sword for the first time, I smiled and sent the news over to a few choice friends.  There isn’t anything wrong with deriving joy from learning that there’s going to be more of something that you like.

However, there's something a little weird about the scene in the video.  These people are old enough to have jobs in media, and this overt reaction still comes out of them.  Not to rag on them for being excitable, but aren't these guys supposed to be higher up on the industry food chain than regular gamers?  They're the people that bring this news back to the broader consumer base, which demands a certain extent of responsibility.

Yet, they'll still absolutely lose their minds over a Zelda game trailer.  A game that they know nothing about, other than that it is a Zelda game.  Is this endearing, or a little off-putting?

Let's extend this phenomena further.  These people probably have an idea for what Zelda games are, so they got excited at the prospect of a new Zelda game.  Presume, for a moment, that these people don't even agree on what a Zelda game should be.  Their idea of a Zelda game is formed from their individual experiences as a kid playing Zelda games.  The result is an absolutely schizophrenic fanbase that is not unique to any one game franchise.

Yes, this is also a thing that people do. 

These fanbases operate under some strange self-consistent logic that doesn't actually accomplish anything for them.  It does, however, fuel the franchise of their choice, whether they like it or not.  Ultimately these people are easy to be used, and fall under the same sort of toolish behavior as a console fanboy would.

The concept of fanboyism is not foreign to most gamers’ minds, or even the minds of people outside of the hobby.  In fact, someone else already wrote an article about the concept, and I’m not going to pretend that I could do better. Check it out if you’re interested in a more holistic examination of fanboyism.

I think I’ve beaten the example of the toolish fanboy gamer to the ground enough.  Most people are probably reading and saying, “Why, yes!  This very minor but outspoken subsection of the gaming population IS obnoxious!”  I don’t like it when too many people agree with me.  Let’s move on.

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If you decided not to read that fanboyism article, I’m about to point out some things that were touched on in the article, regarding the business end of the fanboy spectrum.  No, literally.  Like, the end where business gets conducted.
 
Fostering the level of brand loyalty that I've described earlier is somewhat uncommon, but it exists with most gamers to some extent.  Regardless of the extent that it exists, and regardless of how good or bad it is for gamers on its own merits, it is pretty assuredly good for business in the game industry.  If you're a business, this kind of brand loyalty ensures that your product is going to get bought by people.  That means that you, as a business, have incentive to develop brand loyalty and then take advantage of it.

So, say you have a brand that's got a decently established consumer base.  What do you do, if you're looking to make sure that ends continue to meet for your organization?  You give your consumers more of what they want.  Why?  Because you know that it'll be easy to turn a profit out of it.  This is, simultaneously, one of the most reviled but most useful methods of product-making in the gaming industry.

Ever hear anyone say that companies like EA or Activision are “evil” or “killing the industry”?  This accusation comes from gamers seeing EA’s constant rehashing of sports games or Activision’s rehashing of rhythm games and Call of Duty games to the point where the differences between games become questionable.  Once gamers notice this, they make an outcry against these companies’ greed.  How dare they exploit such franchises for monetary gain?

A young and starry-eyed starlet, doomed to fellate Activision's collective phallus until choking to death.

The response that nobody likes to hear: what obligation do these companies have outside of marketing these franchises so that they are profitable?  Were these franchises ever really for something other than monetary gain?

We'd like to believe, as gamers, that our beloved franchises were developed for their merits in aesthetics and in providing fun to an eager player.  Though this may be true to some extent, there is always the factor of money in the background.  Games need to sell.  Games are, largely, developed by large companies who employ large numbers of people to make games so that large amounts of money can go to the company and back to the employees.  Largely speaking, of course.

Grand Theft Auto IV sits as one of the most expensive gaming budgets ever, and cost about 100 million dollars to develop from beginning to end.  It's not like that budgets in the millions of dollars is an anomaly anymore, either.  Franchises like these are machines that need money to make money.  With the way that most games go in terms of processing demands, you’ll rarely find games that were made on the cheap anymore.

Now, of course, companies want to please the customer.  Otherwise, they wouldn’t get any money from the customer.  Sometimes the customer is very easy to please.  Sometimes the customer is so easy to please that companies can take advantage of it by spending less effort on developing novel games and more effort in selling games that will near-assuredly sell well.  This extends past the Call of Duties and Maddens, but also the Final Fantasies, the Mega Mans, and many other genres that might sit a little closer to gamers’ heartstrings. 

Speaking of those last two franchises, isn’t it funny that Square-Enix and Capcom have lately been gathering the same criticisms as EA and Activision have been getting for years?  It makes it funnier that these companies were, once upon a time, loved and heralded for their innovation and breadth of games.  Capcom’s quick re-releases of new versions of Street Fighter IV and Marvel vs Capcom 3 isn’t all that different from the string of Street Fighter II updates during the SNES days, and when you consider that the first Final Fantasy game was a last-ditch effort on Square’s part to keep financially afloat, it’s not that strange to think that they’d use their money-making game franchise to make more money.

Ever hear people complain that companies don't care about making good games anymore?  From the eyes of game publishers, that was never the number one concern to begin with.  Yes, having a quality product helps with their number one concern, but it is not the end-all.

But wait, there's icing on the cake.  Remember those fanboys that we were talking about?  You know, the kind of guy that'll buy the new Final Fantasy game because "it's Final Fantasy"?  The kind of people who paradoxically both love and hate their franchise of choice?  The kind of people that can't decide if they want more of the same or something new?  They're also the kind of people who will complain about the companies and accuse them of losing their touch.  

But, despite that, they'll buy the games anyway. Somehow they tow a magical line where they’re tools in the sense that we’ve defined it, but are self-aware to some extent.  They have that slight feeling of shame and outrage that comes with being aware of their toolishness, but proceed to keep being a tool anyway.

Because disposable income is meant to be disposed.

Maybe some of you feel like I’m skirting some points.  Arguing against the bad behavior of some gamers says nothing about games themselves, and arguing about the motivations of larger corporate entities totally ignores the realm of indie games or the game development process in general.  No worries; I saved the deepest cut for last.

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Avid gamers will probably have heard of Sid Meier.

For the unaware, Sid Meier is the guy behind the Civilization games.  Civilization is one of the most popular strategy games of all time.  It’s likely that you’ve heard of the game series even if you didn’t know who Sid Meier is.  He is well-respected for the work that he’s done in the gaming industry, and as far as games go, Civilization is one of the more popular games out there.

During the Game Developer’s conference in 2010, Sid Meier gave the keynote address about game design.  During this talk, Meier gives a very interesting take on game design, particularly by talking about the psychology of gamers.  Turns out, it’s quite a factor.  The video is linked below, feel free to watch it.

Among his points, Meier talks about the idea of an 'agreement' between developer and player.  The developer must keep in mind what keeps a player playing their game.  Meier describes techniques of ‘planting the seed’ of replayability by carefully designing rewards and setbacks within a game, deliberately making the player feel above average. He talks about fine-tuning the odds in combat calculations in order to help the player suspend his disbelief, even when the player might have a ridiculous interpretation of what constitutes fairness in a game.

These are all good and valid points for game design, and it isn’t difficult to see why Sid Meier is successful at his trade.  His stories and points reveal a side of game development that is more concerned about catering to the player.  Sometimes, it’s not about making a fair game, or a clever game.  It’s about manipulating the player into getting immersed in the game.

Yes, manipulating.

That last statement may or may not strike you as unsettling.  It would depend on how much merit you’d like to see in games as a medium.  If gaming were purely an artistic medium, then you’d expect that game developers would design certain things for their own aesthetic sake.  If gaming were purely a competitive, sportive medium, then you would expect that game developers would deliberately keep the game fair in the truest sense, so that there is no unnatural advantage.  Yet, we don’t wholly see any of these things, and we are forced to acknowledge another aspect of the game design process: Games can be designed just to make the player feel a certain way, so that they keep playing the game.

Maybe with Civilization, this is less of a big deal.  In his talk, Sid Meier mainly discusses dynamics in the single player campaign and dealing with game AI.  Bear in mind, however, that this is a window in only one game developer’s mind, and a successful one at that.  This implies that there’s incentive for other people to emulate his ideas.  Who’s to say that other developers disagree with Meier’s tactics in game design?  Who’s to say that this sort of thinking didn’t go into a game with a monthly fee?  Who’s to say that the game that you’d consider your ‘favorite’ game wasn’t deliberately designed to make you feel a certain way?

Well, a way that isn't complete, complete disappointment.

These questions may be speculative, but they aren’t things that you can dismiss so easily.  It reveals a concern even more fundamental than an immature demographic of gamers or a corporate interest to make games sell.  Game developers themselves must consider how to use the player in making their game successful.  Game developers can have an interest in using you just as businesses can have an interest in using you.  Gamers are a diverse bunch of people, and some gamers are more prone to letting themselves be manipulated than others, but this kind of manipulation has the capacity of making tools out of all gamers.

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I hope something crucial hasn't sat well with you through this whole article.  Does it not strike you as odd that I could sit here talking about toolishness in gaming while I cite videos and articles that border on the niche side of things, if not the totally obscure side of things?  What's that say about me?

Because, seriously guys, I'm totally a tool.  For goodness' sake, I have a backlog of games that I'll probably never get around to playing, but I bought anyway because I want to hang on to the lofty idea that I still have time to play them.  Why do I do that?  Is the feeling of holding a bought game in my hands still so conditioned in me from my childhood that I feel it even now?

 

Even though I don't really partake in such spending habits anymore, it still holds true that I keep up with this stuff.  How bizarre is that?  I'm no paragon of human productivity.  The pitfalls that I've described aren't just pitfalls that I've seen others fall in; I've fallen in them too.  Since I don't play as much as I used to, I certainly fall in them far less often, but I'm not immune.

 

I think I answered the prime question.  With the way the gaming scene works, gamers are subject to being tools to many degrees of extent.  This all begs the question: Is it so bad to be a tool?

 I dunno bro, seems like a pretty sweet life to me.

The means may be sketchy, but in the end, most gamers just want to have fun with their games.  The games get played and the player gets stimulated.  At the core of the issue, this is all that the player asks for.  The player does get what he or she wants in the end, so why does it matter?

It really depends on how you view gaming, and how you want it to be viewed.  If you think that gaming deserves more respect than it is currently given, then this is some serious food for thought.  We, as gamers, are necessarily bound to cater to the whims of the people who provide the games.  Since making games costs money, the whims of game-providers will be shaped around making more money so that they can make more games.  Thus begins the vicious cycle.  Thus begins the cheapening of the quality of the medium.

However, if you’re more concerned about your personal enjoyment of a game, then you’re in luck.  Chances are you are one of a larger demographic that shares your interests in a particular gaming experience, and chances are that there is a company out there willing to develop games to suit your general interests for the exchange of a little capital.  They win, and you win.  The only people who don’t win are the people who think that games should explore its potential as art, as a sport, or as anything other than a business venture.  Which is…a decent number of people.

This isn’t exactly a call to action, nor is it meant to be a put-down to anyone who likes games more than I do.  It’s more to invoke some introspection (which was what my last blog post was supposed to do, too).  The next time you hear about a new game coming out soon and get incredibly excited about it, do a quick self-check as to why it’s making you so happy.  The next time you see a game that interests you and you’re about to buy it, ask yourself what you’re spending the money on.  If you come up with an answer that doesn’t leave you totally satisfied with yourself, then maybe you should give yourself some pause. 
  
But, if you’re okay with whatever answer you come up with, then more power to you.