I have been tasked with the design and creation of content for the board game. This entails designing the board and creating cards. The cards are humourous and written similarly to the card game “Cards Against Humanities”. It has been planned that the game will be play tested in class in week 10 where bugs and issues with play can be solved.
The dossier will be cleaned up and organised for the due date.
The first big change in development will be the implementation of a new name for the game, one that reflects the digital elements and the role playing assets. One name being considered is “Another Evolution”, which when written together closely can be read as “Revolution”. The main plot point is then hidden in the title. We have found a program to use as a base for a beta level, RPG Maker VX Ace. As a team we will become familiar with the program and learn to create a suitable level to be played on the due date.
The dossier will be cleaned up and organised for the due date.
For what may be the first time Steam has come to know the wrath of an internet scorned. In reply to the joint work of top video game publishing companies Bethesda and Valve in monetizing the already free content of modding the internet was not impressed.
The venture was announced on the 23rd of April, launching with Bethesda’s highly successful RPG ‘Skyrim’ due to the copious amount of community based content already created. The content allowed users to tailor the game to their own preferences, these modifications were intended to be now priced determined by the content creator themselves. The profits were intended to go towards the modders themselves, creating a way for contributors and modders to earn a living doing what they love. Only the modders would only attain 25% of this revenue.
The 75% to 25% split is a clear outcome of hidden media costs. Bethesda planned to profit off of consumer made content for consumers without doing any work.
After four days of harsh criticism from online the two distressed companies pulled the plug on the idea, thankfully refunding all proceeds paid during this time. The main reason behind the backpedal was due to the sheer amount of money lost since the announcement, it is rumored millions of potential sales were lost and their credibility harmed. While that money can be made back in time, the black mark against beloved Valve and Bethesda may not be forgotten so soon.
This instance has shown something we shall not forget soon ; the internet is a powerful voice.
The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth is the newest release from series creator Edmund McMillen who first created the original Binding of Isaac in 2011. Due to the overwhelming success and audience reaction to the first game McMillen has continued adding to the series by creating extra content with large updates and DLC, eventually leading to a complete remaking of the original game into the fantastic game known as The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth.
The game itself is a randomly generated action RPG shooter with a heavy emphasis on Rogue elements and game play, nostalgically similar to the original Zelda game ‘The legend of Zelda’ from Nintendo. The ‘story’ follows the child of a Christian extremest named Isaac who flees his mother’s wrath into the basement where he encounters strange monsters and must overcome both his fears and mother. Along the way Isaac discovers various and bizarre treasures that enable him to fight the hordes of hideous creatures that lay before him.
The game’s title and plot are associated with references to the Biblical story entitled The Binding of Isaac, giving the game its title and creating the dark, adult themes throughout the game. Even without the use of dialogue the game is able to touch on some powerful issues such as; child abuse, neglect, suicide, abortion, gender identify and infanticide. This delightful package is wrapped with the overall message of how religion can negatively affect a child, or how it can cause horrible events in the name of religion. In the gaming industry this game is revolutionary, being the first to really show these horrible truths, doing so in a comical and dark manner when you look past the toilet humor. This has increased the popularity of the game and gain high critique from critics across the board.
The game play is heavily reliant on the RNG, creating the endless replay opportunities as each run into the dark basement are never the same. With over 450 items and counting everybody has a different experience each time. Each item having a delightful effect on Isaac’s physical form ads a hilarious element to game play and encourages players to find the funniest combinations as well as completing every challenge. With over 10 different characters with different play styles and statistics the game creates different scenarios for players to experience. The Binding of Isaac has an enormous amount to give for such a small game, and an even smaller price starting at just $10 on Steam.
With the latest release the game was launched across multiple platforms, including Sony’s Playstation consoles Playstation 4 and Playstation Vita and possibly a future release on Nintendo’s Wii U and 3DS. This was largely due to the overwhelming response to the original game, where an ever increasing community has grown from Wikipedia and the sub reddit /r/binding of Isaac where the creator of the series McMillian has regularly conversed with the community. Currently there is a open forum where fans are encouraged to create ideas for the new DLC to McMillian, gaining feedback from both audience and creator. This is updated weekly and seems to be gaining a fair amount of attention from fans.
Overall I would rank this game 4.5 out of 5 Isaacs’. The .5 loss is due to the intense difficulty of the game itself, which has been known to drive away first time players. The game requires memorizing hundreds of items and has a high difficulty of game play. This game is not for casual games but only those who enjoy a good challenge.
With dark imagery and even darker humor I cannot recommend this game highly enough.
The representation of gender is not a new conversation, everyone in this room has at one point has recognised some form of inadequate gender representation in entertainment media or video games.
Gender representation is a heated argument that is constantly on going through social media and online forums, spawning the twitter movement known as #GamerGate. The hashtag was trending for months, a huge conversation of opinions and ideals being shared. Movements lead by Gamers, who are not just female, are actively petitioning for fairer and more realistic representation of female characters within video games. The main argument on this is centered on the unrealistic representation of females in unflattering and demeaning stereotypes.
In a study by Children Now in 2001 results showed that videogames are an overwhelmingly male-dominated medium. Of 1,716 characters collected for the study;
64% were male
19% were non-human
Leaving only 17% female
IS THIS OK?
Maybe it is. I would look at the ones that exist. The reason being that it is not how many playable female characters there are, but how each one has been represented as a character or even as a human being.
In Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas females are marginalized characters, merely appearing as props, eye candy or prizes to be won by the male protagonists. This is also apparent in visual elements within San Andreas – street signs, graffiti art, cars and buildings – women are presented as accessories and used to enhance the environment, without any interaction to the core elements of the game. This could be explained as ‘character’ due to the Grand Theft Auto series being a satirical representation of America. If this is the case then it falls flat, the satire has given way to creating realism. Whereas in the Saints Row series, created to be an extreme satire of the GTA series, it is obvious to players that many of the visuals are expressing a message about society.
VIDEO
Females have become background images within video games, merely there to be used an abused. NPC (non-playable characters) who have programming or roles specifically to add sex and ‘gritty realism’ becoming more popular as sandbox role playing games demand more of developers creating deeper universes. These universes are expected to now contain some kind of sexual element, be it prostitutes or strippers these characters are sexual objects created for the audience of heterosexual male audiences.
Here are just some examples of video games which have found the need to add brothels or strip clubs as interactable areas;
Max Payne 3, Mafia 2, Silent Hill 2, the Grand Theft Auto series, The Wolf Among Us,
Thief (2014), Duke Nukem Forever, The Darkness 2, the Saints Row series, Red Dead Redemption, the Hitman series, Heavy Rain, Bioshock 2, Dishonored, Retro City Rampage, Metro: Last Light, Deus Ex,, Bioshock Infinite, Yesterday, Binary Domain, The Witcher 2, Fallout: New Vegas, Risen, Fable series, Dragon Age, Mass Effect
In some cases players are encouraged to interact with these characters beyond the core element of the game.
In the newest Grand Theft Auto V players are rewarded for interacting with strippers with a mini game that involves the player groping the stripper without being caught by the bouncer, leading the characters to eventually leave the club and rewarded with sex if the player is successful. The game systematize sexuality in ways that dehumanize women, essentially turning them into vending machines dispensing sex along with other goods and services. Their worth as characters is measured entirely in terms of what they can give to the player.
Since these women are just objects, there is no need or reason for players to have any emotional engagement with them, not that it is even possible to do so due to their strict programming. These characters are made to be used and abused.
Video games are allowing a more participatory form of objectification than any other media, players are able to act out their fantasies with more control than ever.
Interactive media has the potential to be a medium that can genuinely explore sex and sexuality, like in the recent (?) Realistic Kissing Simulator, Coming Out Simulator and Analogue: A Hate Story.
Unfortunately this is not the case. Interactions are being set up in a transactional relationship in which women are reduced to a base sexual function. Publishers are selling this as a fantasy about male power centred on control of women.To some this may seem harmlesss but in reality it really isnt. The negative effect this has on men is alarming. Studies have found, for example, that after having viewed sexually objectified female bodies, men (in particular tend to view women as less intelligent, less competent and most disturbingly have expressed less concern for their well being or safety.
references:
Anna Everett and S. Craig Watkins. “The Power of Play: The Portrayal and Performance of Race in Video Games.” The Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008. 141-64.
Children Now, Fair Play? Violence, Gender and Race in Video Games (Oakland, CA: Children Now, 2001).
Kuchera, B. (2014, February 27). It’s time to leave the brothels and strip clubs behind when real victims fuel your narrative. Retrieved March 28, 2015, from http://www.polygon.com/2014/2/27/5453202/its-time-to-leave-the-brothels-and-strip-clubs-behind-when-real
Dietz, Tracy L. “An examination of violence and gender role portrayals in video games: Implications for gender socialization and aggressive behavior.” Sex roles 38.5-6 (1998): 425-442.
In all honesty I cannot read that title without thinking of Avenue Q….
The internet is made up of content, content created by producers and consumed by consumers/prosumers. This content makes up the Global Nervous System. This information is decentralized, it is freed from physical carriers.
And on that note we reach our weekly topic ; The Internet of Things. The term was first coined in 1999 at the MIT Media Lab, it is refering to the physical objects connecting to the internet or in other words ‘objects becoming tangibly sociable’. Each object is uniquely identifiable due to each having its own network address. The object then gains a sensory capacity, allowing them to dynamically register changes to their environment. Objects are able to store and process information (such as a Cloud), as well as independently initiate action (actuation). Each object can be remotely located within their environment. Objects may have a semantic interface for human interaction, as well as acting accordingly to their design.
The Long Tail is a modern theory devised by the editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine, Chris Anderson. He explains it as “selling less of more” in his New York Time’s Best Seller ‘The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More‘. In this book Anderson presents the new ideals of the long tail and the role it plays in the new attention economy. Selling less of more suggests that as more and more products become cheaper the need for marketing and buying the mainstream fads are decreasing and the more companies invest in long term niche markets. Along with the internet and cost reduction availability items worldwide niches can generate sales numbers better than traditional markets. The most profitable being in online video games.
Steam is an online digital entertainment company (E-store) that offers over 1100 games for purchase, download and play from any computer. Users are able to communicate and interact with other users, which is enhanced by Steam’s free to play multiplayer first person shooters readily available to any user free of charge. Steam’s range is emense, rapidly expanding and caters better to specific interests rather than current trends like physical stores. Steam’s business model is exactly what Anderson referred to when he coined the term ‘leveraging the long tail’ (Anderson, n.d.). Steam is effectively leveraging the long tail.
At one point or another all gamers have played the grand theft auto series. It is a rite of passage to know how hijack a car, speed down the freeway in the wrong lane and then walk away from a fiery explosion unscathed. Unfortunately for steam users one of the series has been taken down due to copyright issues. Yes thats right the scourge of the internet and media industry: Copyright. The overwhelming power that snuffs out creativity has taken ruling down on GTA: Vice City, the most arguable best game within the series none the less. Before copyright the notion of property related only to scarce resources like land. The good old days before a company actually went out and patented ambient nature sounds.
GTA: Vice City has been cut down by Sony Music Entertainment due to a music licensing issue based on just the one song: Michael Jackson’s ‘Wana be startin’ something?” on the in game station of Fever 105. If you’ve already got the game then you can relax and continue playing but the game is no longer for sale on the steam shop. Although those that now have claim to Michael Jackson’s intellectual work can take stand against the use of his songs it seems a bit over the top to cause an entire game to stop due to one song on a radio station no one even listened to.
Fair use should have been implemented in this account. Fair Use applies for limited purposes;
Purpose and character of the use.
The nature of working being used.
the amount of work used.
The song isn’t even influential to the game, it should not suffer due to copyright laws. Unfortunately the world, since the creation of copyright laws, has become about control. Copyright, while originally a good idea, became far too powerful in my opinion.
Why not Zoidblog? 