frog blast the vent core
29.6.07
Valley girls
My current diet of gaming podcasts is sporadic, but I semi-regularly catch the AngryGamer podcast and the GamersHell Podcast (from the "Eat My Bomb" squad). I recommend both, but I'd like to comment specifically on one of GH's recent topics.
(Well, "recent" may be a stretch. The cast dates from mid-March, when I first drafted the outline of this response.)
The episode in question features Ruckus ruminating on his dislike of Oblivion's in-game characters, which turns out to be a good excuse for discussing Masahiro Mori's concept of the Uncanny Valley. It's worth pointing out the controversy over this theory's validity and the general lack of supporting research; it's also worth speculating whether it even applies to videogames, with which our engagement is always metaphorical as well as physical. Never mind such philosophical meanderings, however: I was struck by Ruckus' focus on the possibility that Oblivion characters are unsettling because they're a little too human (versus the stylized characters in, say, Psychonauts or World of Warcraft). He entirely neglected the possibility that they're simply bad.
In Oblivion, Bethesda implemented a disappointingly sparse range of facial expressiveness. This may have been by design; perhaps they decided to code only "iconic" expressions, a small number of highly discrete expressions immediately recognizable by the player. Whether intentional or not, however, the end result is unsettling, as Ruckus notes. Bethesda's characters seem strikingly crude when compared to the high-water mark set by Valve, despite Oblivion post-dating Half-Life 2 by 1.5 years. There are no meaningful transitions between distinct facial states, and the dearth of distinct expressions creates a lack of ambiguity - there's nothing for the player to interpret in Cyrodiil's inhabitants, no hint of deeper meaning or emotional content discoverable beneath the broadly-iconic expressions on their faces. There is, in short, no chance of verisimilitude or credibility, even granting Coleridge's "willing suspension of disbelief". This might seem a remarkably subjective claim to make, but I challenge you to compare an extended conversation in Oblivion with one in Half-Life 2 and then disagree.
Bethesda also chose, bafflingly, to decouple facial expressions from characters' actual in-game attitude - or, more precisely, to track character attitude on two discrete and frequently conflicting axes. First is the character's minute-to-minute disposition, apparently dictated by initial reaction and by your handling of the "Speechcraft" minigame; second is what we might term the character's narrative attitude, the attitude they're compelled to adopt by the game's unfolding story. For example, you can lower the disposition of the Blades' leader so that he'll consistently frown or scowl at you (based on your abuse of Speechcraft), while he simultaneously extends patient guidance and support for your mission to save the world (based on his narrative role). A more ridiculous case, repeatable with any number of characters, can be arranged with the head of the guard in Kvatch: raise his disposition through Speechcraft and then attack him, and he'll defend himself with deadly intent even as he maintains an insipid cheek-to-cheek grin. Such bizarre disjunctures of character affect are not merely laughable; they're alienating.
A third unsettling aspect of Oblivion's characters can be attributed to Bethesda's use of FaceGen technology throughout the game. Because character faces are randomized to some degree, some of the FaceGen-erated faces throughout the game are "uncanny" - literally unheimlich, with subtly unnatural facial geometries. Such faces are the exception in Cyrodiil, but they're uncomfortable to encounter and contribute to the overall failure of character affect in the game.
None of these deficiencies is strictly attributable to the "Uncanny Valley", and it's notable that Half-Life 2 presents far fewer problems despite being more realistic (yet still far from "reality"). Despite controversy about whether Mori's theory is accurate in robotics, however, it may still be relevant to current priorities in game design. The "Uncanny Valley" offers a vocabulary for the phenomenon that, as games approach realism more closely, their flaws also become more glaring and alienating, and the level of polish required for an effective suspension of disbelief (or immersion within a consistent gameworld) is jacked through the ceiling. One of Oblivion's chief faults may be that it simply lacks that polish. ¶ 13:39 0 comments
My current diet of gaming podcasts is sporadic, but I semi-regularly catch the AngryGamer podcast and the GamersHell Podcast (from the "Eat My Bomb" squad). I recommend both, but I'd like to comment specifically on one of GH's recent topics.
(Well, "recent" may be a stretch. The cast dates from mid-March, when I first drafted the outline of this response.)
The episode in question features Ruckus ruminating on his dislike of Oblivion's in-game characters, which turns out to be a good excuse for discussing Masahiro Mori's concept of the Uncanny Valley. It's worth pointing out the controversy over this theory's validity and the general lack of supporting research; it's also worth speculating whether it even applies to videogames, with which our engagement is always metaphorical as well as physical. Never mind such philosophical meanderings, however: I was struck by Ruckus' focus on the possibility that Oblivion characters are unsettling because they're a little too human (versus the stylized characters in, say, Psychonauts or World of Warcraft). He entirely neglected the possibility that they're simply bad.
In Oblivion, Bethesda implemented a disappointingly sparse range of facial expressiveness. This may have been by design; perhaps they decided to code only "iconic" expressions, a small number of highly discrete expressions immediately recognizable by the player. Whether intentional or not, however, the end result is unsettling, as Ruckus notes. Bethesda's characters seem strikingly crude when compared to the high-water mark set by Valve, despite Oblivion post-dating Half-Life 2 by 1.5 years. There are no meaningful transitions between distinct facial states, and the dearth of distinct expressions creates a lack of ambiguity - there's nothing for the player to interpret in Cyrodiil's inhabitants, no hint of deeper meaning or emotional content discoverable beneath the broadly-iconic expressions on their faces. There is, in short, no chance of verisimilitude or credibility, even granting Coleridge's "willing suspension of disbelief". This might seem a remarkably subjective claim to make, but I challenge you to compare an extended conversation in Oblivion with one in Half-Life 2 and then disagree.
Bethesda also chose, bafflingly, to decouple facial expressions from characters' actual in-game attitude - or, more precisely, to track character attitude on two discrete and frequently conflicting axes. First is the character's minute-to-minute disposition, apparently dictated by initial reaction and by your handling of the "Speechcraft" minigame; second is what we might term the character's narrative attitude, the attitude they're compelled to adopt by the game's unfolding story. For example, you can lower the disposition of the Blades' leader so that he'll consistently frown or scowl at you (based on your abuse of Speechcraft), while he simultaneously extends patient guidance and support for your mission to save the world (based on his narrative role). A more ridiculous case, repeatable with any number of characters, can be arranged with the head of the guard in Kvatch: raise his disposition through Speechcraft and then attack him, and he'll defend himself with deadly intent even as he maintains an insipid cheek-to-cheek grin. Such bizarre disjunctures of character affect are not merely laughable; they're alienating.
A third unsettling aspect of Oblivion's characters can be attributed to Bethesda's use of FaceGen technology throughout the game. Because character faces are randomized to some degree, some of the FaceGen-erated faces throughout the game are "uncanny" - literally unheimlich, with subtly unnatural facial geometries. Such faces are the exception in Cyrodiil, but they're uncomfortable to encounter and contribute to the overall failure of character affect in the game.
None of these deficiencies is strictly attributable to the "Uncanny Valley", and it's notable that Half-Life 2 presents far fewer problems despite being more realistic (yet still far from "reality"). Despite controversy about whether Mori's theory is accurate in robotics, however, it may still be relevant to current priorities in game design. The "Uncanny Valley" offers a vocabulary for the phenomenon that, as games approach realism more closely, their flaws also become more glaring and alienating, and the level of polish required for an effective suspension of disbelief (or immersion within a consistent gameworld) is jacked through the ceiling. One of Oblivion's chief faults may be that it simply lacks that polish. ¶ 13:39 0 comments
27.6.07
Converging
In Tuesday's post, I mentioned Henry Jenkins' recent Convergence Culture. For those interested, here's my capsule review on Amazon:
In Tuesday's post, I mentioned Henry Jenkins' recent Convergence Culture. For those interested, here's my capsule review on Amazon:
Henry Jenkins is one of the least dogmatic, most pragmatic voices on contemporary media culture. Unlike many other critics of electronic games and culture, he doesn't slavishly follow any particular school of thought; Jenkins consistently charts his own path, based primarily on research rather than preconceived notions. Like Lawrence Lessig, Henry Jenkins is always worth reading.¶ 10:12 0 comments
That said, this is not a book for specialists. It's most effective as an introduction to "convergence culture"; experienced participants in digital community will find much of the book to be familiar ground. I hoped to see Jenkins extend his arguments, with more detailed exploration of each case and more thorough contextualization of the academic theory he references (e.g. the work of Pierre Levy).
In presenting his perspectives, Jenkins also neglects significant details of some of his supporting examples - e.g. the execrable state of code for Enter the Matrix, or LucasArts' infamously counterproductive community management for Star Wars: Galaxies. Such omissions are particularly surprising because they would deepen his case rather than compromising it. His point, after all, isn't to draw a clear path to the future, but rather to map the multivalent dependencies and challenges which must be negotiated along the way.
Ultimately, Convergence Culture is only an introduction, a brief safari into lands still marked (on mass-cultural maps) as "frontiers undefined". Readers already exploring those frontiers will encounter few surprises. Newcomers to "convergence culture", however, will find no better place to start.
26.6.07
Jane's (and Dick's) addiction
Word on the street is that the American Medical Association is rethinking an internal proposal to recognize "videogame addiction" in the next DSM. The internal report is relatively nuanced, but its controversial recommendation to offer diagnosis criteria in the next DSM has occasioned the most current debate. The AMA's approach is cautious, far from the hysterical treatment we've been conditioned to fear from non-gaming culture, and it's worth a read.
Videogames are undeniably a means through which some people cause serious harm to their lives, regardless of whether "videogame addiction" is recognized as a clinical addiction. This designation would clearly be significant for sufferers, whose treatment would consequently earn at least a modicum of support from insurance providers. I don't have the technical expertise to evaluate claims of genuine "addictiveness", however, and I don't have a horse in this race; the AMA's deliberations and subsequent media coverage merely point up the general crudeness of public discourse on this subject. I'm interested in how videogames are typically addressed in public conversation - as a unitary medium with inescapable dangers and few (if any) benefits, rather than a broadly eclectic field of cultural products and practices.
I just finished Henry Jenkins' most recent book, Convergence Culture, so this is at the forefront of my thinking. There are important questions to be asked about games like World of Warcraft, which (critics have argued) correlate in-game rewards with time played rather than with skill. Indeed, the privileging of (real-life) time played has long been a defining characteristic of game design for grind-based MMORPGs - WoW, Everquest, Lineage, et al. - so it's unsurprising that "addiction" is most frequently associated with such titles. Jenkins, however, focuses much of his book on the other side of the coin, elaborating the considerable benefits of online participation. He demonstrates that active participation in online "knowledge communities" can develop social, leadership, and even writing skills beyond the standards of traditional schooling or job training.
In Convergence Culture, Jenkins focuses primarily on communities such as Survivor and Harry Potter fans, but he could just as easily have written about guild leadership in World of Warcraft. There's a growing body of research documenting significant benefits of gaming, and the MMORPG is the genre most often discussed in terms of social and organizational benefits. The community-based nature of this genre (and others such as competitive multiplayer FPS titles like Counter-Strike and Unreal Tournament) requires team-building, skills training, dispute resolution, and other leadership skills prized by the corporate world - yet these are the same games most often called "addictive" and characterized with (no doubt very real) anecdotes of ruined lives.
Even specific titles like WoW, in other words, present a range of both positive and destructive impacts - a range typically ignored in public discourse on gaming. And this is quite beside the problematic question of genre definitions in rhetoric on gaming, which I'll take up in the near future.
What strikes me in this discussion isn't the medical controversy over whether videogames are addictive, but rather the fact that few people stop to ask what videogames are. Are all videogames alike enough to be considered as one group? Is each potentially addictive? Is there something in the technology itself which leads to addiction, or are we actually discussing only a narrow subset of electronic games? What game mechanisms, specifically, contribute to "addiciton" - and are they accurately associated only with videogames, or can they be discovered in other media or activities as well? Most important: how do we build a culture celebrating the many benefits of electronic gaming, while promoting praxes or behaviors that minimize potential concerns?
The AMA's brief is with medical fact, and its approach to "videogame addiction" appears to be measured and open. One of its greatest contributions, in fact, may be to illuminate how little we still know about the drawbacks (and the benefits) of videogaming. But it's not the AMA's job to engage larger questions of gaming culture and its future - that's up to the rest of us.
Word on the street is that the American Medical Association is rethinking an internal proposal to recognize "videogame addiction" in the next DSM. The internal report is relatively nuanced, but its controversial recommendation to offer diagnosis criteria in the next DSM has occasioned the most current debate. The AMA's approach is cautious, far from the hysterical treatment we've been conditioned to fear from non-gaming culture, and it's worth a read.
Videogames are undeniably a means through which some people cause serious harm to their lives, regardless of whether "videogame addiction" is recognized as a clinical addiction. This designation would clearly be significant for sufferers, whose treatment would consequently earn at least a modicum of support from insurance providers. I don't have the technical expertise to evaluate claims of genuine "addictiveness", however, and I don't have a horse in this race; the AMA's deliberations and subsequent media coverage merely point up the general crudeness of public discourse on this subject. I'm interested in how videogames are typically addressed in public conversation - as a unitary medium with inescapable dangers and few (if any) benefits, rather than a broadly eclectic field of cultural products and practices.
I just finished Henry Jenkins' most recent book, Convergence Culture, so this is at the forefront of my thinking. There are important questions to be asked about games like World of Warcraft, which (critics have argued) correlate in-game rewards with time played rather than with skill. Indeed, the privileging of (real-life) time played has long been a defining characteristic of game design for grind-based MMORPGs - WoW, Everquest, Lineage, et al. - so it's unsurprising that "addiction" is most frequently associated with such titles. Jenkins, however, focuses much of his book on the other side of the coin, elaborating the considerable benefits of online participation. He demonstrates that active participation in online "knowledge communities" can develop social, leadership, and even writing skills beyond the standards of traditional schooling or job training.
In Convergence Culture, Jenkins focuses primarily on communities such as Survivor and Harry Potter fans, but he could just as easily have written about guild leadership in World of Warcraft. There's a growing body of research documenting significant benefits of gaming, and the MMORPG is the genre most often discussed in terms of social and organizational benefits. The community-based nature of this genre (and others such as competitive multiplayer FPS titles like Counter-Strike and Unreal Tournament) requires team-building, skills training, dispute resolution, and other leadership skills prized by the corporate world - yet these are the same games most often called "addictive" and characterized with (no doubt very real) anecdotes of ruined lives.
Even specific titles like WoW, in other words, present a range of both positive and destructive impacts - a range typically ignored in public discourse on gaming. And this is quite beside the problematic question of genre definitions in rhetoric on gaming, which I'll take up in the near future.
What strikes me in this discussion isn't the medical controversy over whether videogames are addictive, but rather the fact that few people stop to ask what videogames are. Are all videogames alike enough to be considered as one group? Is each potentially addictive? Is there something in the technology itself which leads to addiction, or are we actually discussing only a narrow subset of electronic games? What game mechanisms, specifically, contribute to "addiciton" - and are they accurately associated only with videogames, or can they be discovered in other media or activities as well? Most important: how do we build a culture celebrating the many benefits of electronic gaming, while promoting praxes or behaviors that minimize potential concerns?
The AMA's brief is with medical fact, and its approach to "videogame addiction" appears to be measured and open. One of its greatest contributions, in fact, may be to illuminate how little we still know about the drawbacks (and the benefits) of videogaming. But it's not the AMA's job to engage larger questions of gaming culture and its future - that's up to the rest of us.
Labels: culture
¶ 10:39 0 comments
19.6.07
In-world
I've had a mess of ideas percolating on the back-burner (is that technically a mixed metaphor?), but the past two months or so have been chaotic, with little opportunity to write. This too will pass.
In the meantime, swing by the New York Times Magazine for a brief photo essay pairing real-life players with their online avatars. The photos themselves aren't surprising to me; I've used visual or textual avatars for about 20 years, starting with local Bulletin Board Systems in the late '80s, and I recognize the broad range of goals and strategies with which people negotiate avatar space. More striking to me is the essay's normalization of in-world construction of identity. Avatar space is here contextualized as a generic human activity, performed by players from varied nationalities and backgrounds. The essay even takes care to balance hardcore with more casual gamers, those devoting only a few hours each week to their in-world experience.
Avatar space involves a highly specific subset of games, affording a doubling of identity not found in online poker or a frat-house match of Halo 2 (nor, for that matter, in real-world sources like board games). That's not to say the idea is outre, of course: avatar space has been cyberpunk canon for decades, and The Matrix was a smash pop-cultural success. Nintendo's Mii channel and Sony's upcoming Playstation Home even amount to "next-gen" normalization (through mass-commercialization) of avatar space, but as a context for all console gaming rather than a technique of engagement with specific titles. Nevertheless, it's refreshing to see the Times Magazine represent avatar construction and inhabitation as a perfectly normal - and surprisingly diverse - human activity. ¶ 13:16 0 comments
I've had a mess of ideas percolating on the back-burner (is that technically a mixed metaphor?), but the past two months or so have been chaotic, with little opportunity to write. This too will pass.
In the meantime, swing by the New York Times Magazine for a brief photo essay pairing real-life players with their online avatars. The photos themselves aren't surprising to me; I've used visual or textual avatars for about 20 years, starting with local Bulletin Board Systems in the late '80s, and I recognize the broad range of goals and strategies with which people negotiate avatar space. More striking to me is the essay's normalization of in-world construction of identity. Avatar space is here contextualized as a generic human activity, performed by players from varied nationalities and backgrounds. The essay even takes care to balance hardcore with more casual gamers, those devoting only a few hours each week to their in-world experience.
Avatar space involves a highly specific subset of games, affording a doubling of identity not found in online poker or a frat-house match of Halo 2 (nor, for that matter, in real-world sources like board games). That's not to say the idea is outre, of course: avatar space has been cyberpunk canon for decades, and The Matrix was a smash pop-cultural success. Nintendo's Mii channel and Sony's upcoming Playstation Home even amount to "next-gen" normalization (through mass-commercialization) of avatar space, but as a context for all console gaming rather than a technique of engagement with specific titles. Nevertheless, it's refreshing to see the Times Magazine represent avatar construction and inhabitation as a perfectly normal - and surprisingly diverse - human activity. ¶ 13:16 0 comments
