Editorial: Why I Won't Be Buying A Steam Machine

Why I Won't Be Buying A Steam Machine

There are a lot of things I love about games consoles. They're simple to set up, easy to figure out how to use, and often offer a simple gaming experience free of the hassles that PC gaming can sometimes force on its fans.

There are also plenty of things I love about PC gaming. I love the customizable experience, the ability to mod games, and the increased graphical and physics capabilities of the hardware.

Because I love both of these things, you would think that a Steam machine would be a natural fit for me.

Unfortunately, it is anything but.

When Valve first started their Steam machine initiative I had high hopes for it. Sure, there were issues that were visible from space with the concept of using numerous manufacturers and variable hardware, and with the fact that a large number of PC games still don't support Linux, but I felt that Valve had plenty of time to fix these issues or circumvent them, and if any company could do so, it would be the creators of Steam itself, the number one digital distribution platform for games in the world.

Then the prototypes started coming out.

Brands like Alienware. iBuyPower. Phoenix. And they were wanting to sell underpowered hardware at premium rates, or overpowered hardware at even MORE premium rates, all shoved into tiny ITX cases.

Steam machines have a simple goal: to allow gaming PCs to compete with the console market for living room space.

So far, every Steam machine fails miserably at this. The question is: why?

The simple answer is that rather than taking the advantages of each platform -- simplicity and low expense of consoles, adaptability and massive library of PC -- they have opted to take the disadvantages of each platform instead -- the limited adaptability and library restrictions of a console combined with the expense and opaqueness of setup of a PC, creating a perfect storm of bad concept.

The goal of the Steam machine is to compete with the consoles, no matter what anyone else might claim. If the goal was to expand the reach of home theater PC's, then there are cheaper methods; if the goal was to build pure gaming PC's, then there was no need for the Steam machine initiative. As such, Steam machines have to tackle 3 core elements where consoles succeed that gaming PCs are typically seen to fail: simplicity of understanding the platform's capabilities, affordability, and user friendliness.

Let's look at the first of these three areas: simplicity of understanding the platform's capabilities.

Consoles are simple. You plug them in, and you play games. There isn't any need to understand cores this or RAM that; you hook it to your TV and go. Some have different games, some look a bit better, but for the average user the graphics really aren't the most important part; it's the games library that draws you in.

Steam machines have the capability of having a massive library, but that can be both a blessing and a curse. Navigating digital PC releases means scouring through going on three decades worth of software, and not every PC can run every game. Heck, not every Steam machine will be capable of running every game, and not just because of hardware limitations: the Steam OS itself, while commendable (and a worthwhile push for Linux compatibility in games, something more developers need to embrace,) naturally restricts many of the big AAA titles from being playable on the platform. People who are considering a Steam machine versus a console will in many cases be swayed by the simplest of arguments, and the fact that your console can play the next Arkham game and your three times more expensive Steam machine can't is a worthy one to consider.

Steam machines as a platform are opaque in terms of what you can do with that whirring box you spent all your money on.

Which brings us to issue two: affordability.

Consoles are cheap. There are many reasons for this, of course. Consoles typically have custom OSes that allow them to do more with their limited hardware than a more complicated computer could, and are built to such strict standards that they can push what they have more easily and consistently, giving the end user a very good cost to performance ratio.

PC's, on the other hand....

A gaming PC doesn't have to be expensive. For less than 600 USD a savvy shopper can build a gaming PC that trounces even the most powerful console hardware peripherals and all. On top of that the system will also let them do their taxes, edit home movies, and just about anything else they want to do on it. So, if a PC can be built like that so cheaply, why are so many of the Steam boxes pushing well north of the 1k mark in price?

The problem comes when you consider the difference between competitive hardware and POWERFUL hardware. In the PC gaming world, there's always something better around the corner, and hardware manufacturers are naturally going to want to go for the part that gives them an edge over the competition. Combine that with the need to fit it all into a small form factor, console-style, and you're looking at the price for Steam machines increasing terribly. On top of THAT is Steam OS's continued preference for Intel and nVidia hardware, which are typically more expensive than AMD alternatives, further inflating costs. Even FURTHER hurting the cost is the fact that the variable hardware means parts typically can't just be bulk ordered: if a part can be changed, it can't be standardized, hurting the systems when they try to balance capability versus compact design and end up losing out in overall price.

Steam machines are simply too expensive for their own good, and so long as they try to dictate their specifications for a PC gamer market rather than orienting toward an entry-level or console enthusiast market, they'll remain too expensive. Even then, they'll never have the same value/performance ratio of consoles due to manufacturers not being able to rely on software sales and mass produced units to subsidize costs.

Finally, the last issue: user friendliness.

Consoles have a controller. This controller may or may not have doodads that are unique to it, but every controller can be expected to have certain features, namely a smattering of face buttons, one or more methods to move your avatar or icon in games around, and that's basically it. Controllers haven't changed much, if at all, since the PlayStation DualShock came out, with the 4 face buttons, two function buttons, four shoulder buttons, and even clicking control sticks being the standard that every console gamer expects and can adapt to from one platform to the next.

The Steam machines have that. They also have Valve's very cool but somewhat strange controller. And keyboards. And mice. And bluetooth sync for a whole variety of other things, and unique peripherals that have appeared over the last 20 years that users still have lying around, and new types coming out.

Consoles have set hardware, with little in the way of visual customization, and games say clearly if they are for that system or not.

Steam machines have a marketplace where MOST of the games will work, but not all of them. Tweaks, edits, and more will have to be made. Nothing will work ideally right out of the box (or off the page, as it were,) and your performance will vary depending on which machine you have. Plus, unlike consoles, those peripherals you have might not always work for every last game, either.

These elements combine to make Steam machines less user-friendly than consoles too. Heck, in a lot of ways less user-friendly than the average laptop or desktop PC, because the implications of the Steam machine are that it SHOULD be simple and user-friendly to use.

Add all of this together, and you have a product that is going to be slaughtered in the marketplace due to a lack of standardization or even unification of concept.

I love consoles.

I love PCs.

I don't care at all for what the Steam machine, their love child, is shaping up to be.

And that saddens me greatly.

The Movie Tie-in Game Done Right

Screenshot courtesy Brandon Smith (Mordie the Felifox)

In the world of video games, there are few products more universally maligned than the movie tie-in title. Games tied to Hollywood blockbusters are typified as being shallow and rushed, with little value as stand-alone products. Sadly, in many cases this hate is well warranted: often movie tie-ins, or games designed as product placement in general, are build on slimmer budgets and much more stringent guidelines than standalone releases face. Games of these types are not typically seen as art or entertainment with their own merit, but rather as advertisement platforms for the product they are tied to, and therefore are often deemed expendable.

Keep that word expendable in mind: it will be important later on.

There are exceptions, of course. Goldeneye, the legendary FPS for the N64, is often cited as the best example available for a movie tie-in handled well. Unfortunately, Goldeneye is successful specifically because it fails to follow the typical movie tie-in path; being released several years after the eponymous movie meant the game had plenty of development time for concept, presentation, and gameplay. On top of that, the game's lack of drive as a marketing tool opened the developers up to being able to incorporate elements of the James Bond universe as they saw fit rather than being constrained by the film itself, allowing them much more freedom to express what they wanted in the game rather than what any marketing department wished for. Likewise, many of the other games that are usually used as examples of positive movie tie-ins -- Alien Versus Predator, many of the Lego games, or even titles like Telltale's Back to the Future adventure games -- serve more as the exceptions that prove the rule than as truly great tie-ins: they are developed outside the typical effective marketing times for their respective franchises, and with much more developer freedom than the typical tie-in receives because of that.

With so much going against them, can a movie tie-in really be done right?

Yes, yes it can, and for proof of that fact you need look no further than The Expendabros on Steam.

At first glance The Expendabros looks as though it has very little going for it. For one thing, the game is completely free: that's right, free. For another, rather than being a scene for scene retelling of the movie, The Expendabros, which is intended as an advertisement for The Expendables 3, chooses to embrace its game nature and do its own thing, referencing characters and concepts from the film rather than trying to represent the movie's contents in a more dedicated manner. Lastly, the game is done quite clearly on the cheap: rather than being a brand-new game The Expendabros is instead presented as more of a modified version of Free Lives and Devolver Digital's creative shooter Broforce, with a handful of sprites and cutscenes being the only things that distinguish the product as its own thing.

All of these elements sound like negatives at first, but in truth, it is in these elements that the game finds its greatest strengths as a marketing tool, and as a game.

Let's start by discussing the price tag. Perhaps one of the greatest atrocities many licensed games commit is not their rushed production times or general lack of creativity in design, but rather in how much they expect players to pay. If a product is, in essence, intended for promotion of another product the company expects to make the real money off of, then it stands to reason to offer the promotional product at a discounted rate. Despite this, licensed games are often on an even keel price-wise with AAA console releases, making the flaws they often exhibit -- which many would overlook more easily in a more modestly-priced product -- that much more of an issue.

This pricing issue is not a problem for Expendabros. By being free, the game offers even the most lackadaisical viewer a hard to ignore opportunity to experience a small part of the Expendables franchise. This makes it an ideal marketing tool for the movies, and even for Free Lives' game Broforce, which Expendabros is based on. By offering the tie-in for free, players have little reason to be disappointed or turned off by the product's content based on financial input, and are therefore more likely to view its fun elements in a positive way, reflecting on the franchise as a whole.

Now we'll move on to the game's deviation from the movie's core. Often times licensed games rely on following a movie's storyline as closely as possible in order to appeal to the movie's target audience as much as they can. This is meant to serve to reinforce both the impetus to watch the movie if you've played the game and the drive to convince moviegoers to delve into the game if they like the movie, since they are typically two different ways to experience the same overall story.

Unfortunately, doing this doesn't really work for games, primarily due to the difference in narrative devices needed to properly carry a game story as opposed to a film. Games based on film or TV franchises too often stick players on a set path with little room to deviate from it; rather than embracing the idea that the story is being told as a game, instead it wants you to watch a CGI rendered version of the movie with occasional inputs into actions that have little impact on the actual events at play.

Expendabros manages to avoid these pitfalls by placing its emphasis less on trying to duplicate the film and more on trying to emulate the attitudes of the source material. By emphasizing the idea of being a game about the Expendables rather than a direct tie-in to the movie, the game frees itself to have fun with its contents in a way most licensed games don't or aren't allowed to.

Part of the reason this works is due to the game's existence as more of a mod or total conversion than a fully original title on its own.

I know, I know; I hear people complaining now that if the game doesn't do its own thing then it lacks artistic merit and value. Here is where the core concepts behind a licensed game will differ from the goals of the typical game, however, and that is that the goal with a licensed game is not for the game to stand out on its own at all, but to serve as effective promotional material for the franchise it is based on. What this means is that, when it comes to licensed games, by focusing on using an appropriate system that is already in place, developers can more effectively advertise the product they are supporting.

Notice I said appropriate system.

What makes Expendabros stand out from many other licensed titles is that the genre the game embraces fits its license perfectly. The Expendables franchise is intended to be the distillation of every cheesy action movie ever, so by choosing Broforce's explosion-filled bullet-hell gameplay to represent its game-world presence Lion's Gate chose amazingly well. By choosing a genre that represents the game equivalent of what The Expendables represent in film, the game has a much higher chance of not only appealing to gamers on a purely game-based level, but also targeting the portion of the gaming market that is most likely to be interested in the movie itself. This is a key element many licensed games miss, and why we have a tendency to see generic adventure and platform titles released for most franchises: these are often the simplest concepts to work into the narrative of the film's story, but will often times not truly fit with the type of game the target audience for the film would enjoy.

So, in The Expendabros we have a game that A) is marketed at a price point that will appeal to gamers and non-gamers without setting any kind of expectations regarding content or quality, making it an effective marketing tool for the film franchise, B) lets itself deviate from the film's core story, allowing both the game and the film to operate as separate entities with their own elements while still sharing many elements, and C) embraces a genre that works to represent the same core ideals and philosophies as the film does, helping the game to appeal to the same market as the film targets.

All together, these elements combine to make The Expendabros an ideal example of a movie tie-in game done right, even before we get to the single most important element of all: the game is FUN. The game finds merit even without its film tie-in elements through simply being a blast to play and offering players a good amount of options to build on their experience when doing so, and through this further improves its ability to advertise the film franchise it is based on. A good game, no matter how little connection it might actually have with its franchsie source material, will always serve as a better draw for audiences than a game that stays true to its material but fails to be an enjoyable experience. Look at products like the Lego games for a great example of this: often, the Lego games will deviate wildly on story elements form their source material, and the worlds are always far different from those represented in film, yet the games still serve to draw players due to their accessibility and enjoyability. In turn, players then associate that enjoyable experience with the franchise as a whole.

In the long run, isn't that what any promotional material aims to do, is emphasize the enjoyment one can draw from the product being advertised?

What movie tie-in games have you played in the past? What have you thought they did right, or wrong, and do you think they served their purpose as promotional materials for the franchise they were tied to? Let us know.

Editorial: The Games That Define You

Welcome, yet again, to a long-delayed yet much needed addition to our content here at Game Academy HRO.

If you're reading this, then congratulations! You are, most likely, a gamer of some kind. I've ranted on "hardcore" versus "casual" on here already, so we'll avoid that again. Instead, today we're going to talk about a whole different aspect of games, and those who play them, and that is what games we enjoy, and why.

Games are more than children's toys. Sure, to many of us this seems like a given: after all, who would ever mistake the contents of a game like God of War or Europa Universalis as the playthings of youth? And yet, this is a misconception that many people have. This misconception is not limited to the video game industry, mind you: board games and, to a lesser extent, card games (of both the trading and non-trading varieties) face the same stigma. Even role playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons or the World of Darkness titles see feedback from groups claiming that they are aiming to corrupt youth when the target audiences of many of these products are individuals in their twenties and over.

Luckily, this is a stigma that is gradually wearing thinner in our culture as those who have grown up with a wide variety of games as an integral part of their life become our cultural leaders. Film stars, musicians, even politicians are known to play games nowadays, and much like the animated film medium has managed to (mostly) overcome its image as a childhood pastime to be avoided by those of more "mature" sensibilities, gaming, in all its various forms, is reaching that same point.

One thing that gaming does lack in comparison to many other artistic or expressive mediums, however, is individual legitimacy, by which I mean, people's acknowledgement of what games, or even a specific game, have meant to them during their life, and how that game has changed them.

There are stories of this out there. Only a few months back a well-known gaming site (who will remain nameless) released an article from one of their writers about how the Tomb Raider series helped to inspire her to be a strong, action-oriented woman. Likewise, within the industry itself there are plenty of people willing to express how one game or another influenced their decision to jump into the industry themselves. Outside of those who are already considered "gamers" by definition, though, and are already a part of the community as it were, gaming has yet to find a true voice among the populace.

Ask any film star or politician and they can tell you their favorite film, favorite song, and favorite book. More than that, they can tell you why those properties are their favorites, whether it comes down to emotional content, aesthetics, or simply quality of construction and storytelling. Many of those same stars and businessmen/politicians would simply glare at you or shake their heads, though, if asked about a favorite board or video game, and this needs to change.

As I stated at the beginning of this article, if you are here, and you are reading this, then you are in all likelihood already branded a "gamer" of some type. Those of us already in the community can attest to the fact that games can and do have a profound influence on those who play them.

So, why don't we admit to this influence in our day to day lives more?

Imagine it is the 1930's, and you are talking to a friend about artistic merit. You mention Mary Shelley, she mentions Lovecraft, and you summarily chew her out for choosing such trash and trying to call it art. This is our situation now, and though time will, one day, give our medium the love and respect it deserves, for the moment we are pop, we are pulp, and we are laid low by the lack of respect we receive from other sources.

How can we change this?

Simply through expressing our love for our medium, and letting others know that games, just like any other form of entertainment or art, can influence you, and help you to define who you are.

There are dozens upon dozens of games that I have loved during my life, but like with books, movies, or songs, there are only a happy hearty few that I would say have helped to define who I am. Dungeons and Dragons sits right there at the top of that list; I was a latecomer to the series, twelve when I first picked up a used Dungeons and Dragons second edition starter set at a yard sale and already well versed in video and board games, yet the impact of that box set on my development was profound. From that box of pamphlets and crude pictures, and the books I have read since, I have learned more about storytelling, world building, and character construction than I ever picked up from a class in school. By reading about and playing Dungeons and Dragons I learned to apply more than pure imagination to what I wrote and built: I learned about logic, and balance, and action-driven narrative, and many other elements that apply not only to my artistic interests but also to my interactions with other people, albeit in a more cerebral and sardonic way.

With video games, my biggest influence has likely been Doom. As part of the first generation to really grow up with 3D games as a major part of their youth, Doom helped to define for me what tech was capable of, and as I grew older and learned more of the history behind ID and the game' development, it helped to show me what a small, dedicated team of enthusiastic individuals could accomplish with a little perseverance. It was something so much more than an engine or a new graphical aesthetic: Doom was, in many ways, the dawning of a new era in games, for better or worse, and is to this day one of the games I find myself most often delving back into to experience again. The impact Doom had on me as a child was profound, but the influence it has continued to hold over me as I have grown older has been no less important.

These are only two of the many, many games that have helped not only to entertain me, but to teach me, and to help me grow as a person. As much as books, or art, or movies or music or anything else, games have helped to give me artistic direction, strength, and determination in life.

What more can you look for in a work of art, than to influence, in some small way, how you define yourself, either in relation to yourself or to others?

PC Review: Defender's Quest: Valley of the Forgotten

Over the last five years indie games have gained a steady and impressive following among both PC and console gamers, giving rise to a rebirth of many classic game types and the birth of many creative new game styles as well. One of the game types that has benefitted the most from the rise the indie market is the Tower Defense genre, and there are few games that exemplify the quality an indie title can reach like Defender's Quest: Valley of the Forgotten.

At first glance Defender's Quest does little to inspire confidence in the overall product. With a rudimentary title screen and an almost complete lack of graphics options the game will seem lean on content to start with. Even the cinematics in the game are somewhat jarring and a let down, consisting of still images that, in all honesty, would feel more at home in a flash game than a title developed for sale.

Delving deeper into the game, however, will quickly show you the quality that lies beneath this initially lackluster veneer. The in-game graphics are a wonderful modern take on the 16-bit era, colorful and with enough animation to keep battles fairly lively and interesting. While the graphics options are sparse at best, the game wows with how much customization it allows in its gameplay experience, allowing players the option to tune experience gains, character downtime penalties, and even monetary gains to suit most players from the most hard-core strategy gamers to those who are looking for a more relaxed experience. Despite the less than stellar presentation for cutscenes the characters themselves are all colorful and fun, and the art design itself only fails due to a lack of consistency between cinematics and gameplay. Characters offer a rudimentary RPG-style skill and level up tree, and combining that with the ability to level up characters mid-level to gain access to more advanced combat techniques gives the entire game a great deal of depth. The equipment system is underwhelming, with new swords and armor offering nothing in terms of rewards beyond an incremental stat boost, but the entire design shows a great deal of promise, if not polish.

Gameplay is often quick, but can be paused to allow the player time to consider strategy as often as one needs to. Overall the difficulty curve on the game is well managed: with rewards turned up the game is a relaxing affair that still manages to hold your attention, while turning them down increases the difficulty and need for strategy without ever becoming unfair. Controls with either the keyboard or mouse are generally responsive and convenient, and there is next to nothing in the experience that will frustrate most players unduly. Level design is well handled as well, with the levels scaling nicely to present new placement and enemy challenges as the player progresses through the game.

With an intriguing storyline, good characters, and incredibly scalable gameplay that allows it to appeal to audiences of varied skill or dedication, Defender's Quest succeeds in presenting its players with a high-quality product worth investing your time in. While visual presentation suffers due to a mish-mash of different styles, it is only a minor flaw in the face of an otherwise well-made and solid game.

Final Rating: 8 out of 10.

Despite its visual shortcomings many game designers could learn a thing or two from Level Up Labs about accessible gameplay. By appealing to users seeking a hardcore strategy experience as well as those looking for a more casual game the creators have come up with a stand-out strategy title for both markets.

Post Types On Game Academy

In the future posts on Game Academy HRO will be loosely divided into categories, defined by not only the labels used for the posts but also by the titles themselves. Currently the intended post types are as follows:

Gaming lessons

No, these are not going to be pretentious "this is what it means to be a gamer" posts or how-to-plays or guides on how to think. Gaming lessons are going to be site content engineered toward understanding and appreciating the history and significance of gaming in its myriad forms. These lessons will follow a class-styled naming convention, consisting of the lesson value (Gaming 101, Gaming 302, etc,) followed by the subject matter of that lesson. Start looking forward to "Gaming 101: What Is A Game?" some time in the near future.

Tabletop Concepts

Tabletop Concepts are going to be articles and even opinion pieces focusing on tabletop strategy and role playing games. In these the site will focus on discussions about game mechanics, systems, and the roles tabletop gaming has played in culture from a less historically-oriented perspective.

Reviews

While the long-term plan is to have reviews play as small a role in the site's content as possible given their abundance from other sources, reviews will nevertheless appear on occasion. Reviews will always be the opinion of the writer and not of the site as a whole, and will be labeled by the system the review is for, such as in the case of our Arkham Origins review.

Opinion Pieces

Opinion pieces and editorials, at this time, will not have any special naming conventions applied, so if an article or piece appears that does not have a colon in the name, it's automatically an opinion piece. While the long term plan is to phase these into only sporadic content, much like the reviews, the short-term is likely to see many of these pieces to help build content strength for the site.

More content types will possibly be added to our repertoire in the future, but for now, these are the types of content you should expect to start seeing in the near future.

Can A Game About Crime Be A Lesson In Gender Ethics?

I am a huge fan of the Saints Row series.

When I discovered this it came as a huge surprise. I can't stand the Grand Theft Auto series, or most any other game that sends you into a city with the intent being to wreak havoc and generally menace the civilian population all while murdering cops and committing felonies, yet I find myself oddly in awe of the Saints Row games.

There are a few reasons I feel more positive about them than others, but most all of those reasons can be summed up in two broader ones: firstly, that the games aren't afraid to embrace the fact that they're games, and second, the almost unerringly even hand with which the game treats equality of gender.

How can a game where you rescue hookers from boats and watch women parade around town in lingerie show gender equality? It's very simple: it treats men and women almost universally equal. Sure, the women in lingerie are more common, but a close look will also reveal plenty of men walking around in speedos and gimp masks, and of the major characters among both the villains and the antiheroes the women make up some of the strongest in terms of personality and impact. Like most women in video games they have their over-sexualized elements, but in a game where you spend a rather lengthy mission running around with a nude giant and another with one of your major male allies in pony gear pulling a cart, women in tight turtlenecks or who are blatant about their sexuality are almost tame in comparison. They are business owners, or public figures of power, or even staunch allies in combat, but one thing they most certainly never are is weak.

What's just as impressive as this treatment with the non-player characters is the game's treatment of your avatar. The game takes an AFGNCAAP approach to NPC dialogue throughout, with multiple voice tracks for male, female, and even zombie characters all changing subtleties of the dialogue and blending wonderfully with every other spoken line in the game. Your character can be as fat, thin, ugly, pretty, or even well endowed (male OR female) as you care to make them, and regardless of your choices your character's grand-scheme sexuality and personality are kept ambiguous enough to fit with any style of role-play a player could want within the restrictions of a game about criminal fantasy. The game actually rewards you for changing your character's sex in-game and devoting play time to both sexes throughout your in-game career.

Most of all, permeating every fiber of every element of this, the game has a sense of humor about what it does. When it's being sexist -- in either direction -- the game is not afraid to fully embrace that and play its sexism for all it's worth, the same as it does for casual violence, crime, and even the world itself, a setting where mass murder and misdemeanors are marketing ploys and publicity stunts. It's a game that WANTS you to see how over the top everything it does is, and in that way it negates the very problems it seems to promote.

It's satire in its purest form, and is one of the best treatments of gender as a whole I can remember experiencing in any game ever.

The issues concerning the representation of women in games has long been an issue within the industry. Many are the arguments one will hear either justifying it or condemning it, and there are well-reasoned arguments on both sides of the divide. Because of this, I am resolutely not going to get into the greater issues concerning whether games are targeted toward men or women as a whole. Instead, what I am going to touch on is a smaller and in my personal opinion more important issue entirely and that is the ethics of the treatment of gender in games on an individual level.

I should probably start with defining what I mean by "the ethics of the treatment of gender," or to shorten it let's just call it "gender ethics" from here on out. What I mean by this is how a game handles gender regardless of any perceived target audience by treating players, whether they are perceived to be men or women, boys or girls, with an equal amount of respect concerning mental capacity, gameplay skill, or even tastes in content.

Using this as our guide for what "gender ethics" means, it is easy to see how many games fail to take this into account to any great degree, worst of all games that are supposedly targeted toward improving equality in the gaming market.

The Rules of Gender Ethics

Rule 1: Gameplay Content Does Not Dictate Player Gender

This is one of my first, and most major, peeves with gender ethics in games, and that is the mistaken notion that the way a game is intended to be played or the way the content in it is presented somehow makes certain games more, shall we say, gender-savvy than others. Many are the times I've seen arguments promoting games like The Sims, or Peggle, or even the Imagine series on DS as examples of female-oriented games, and to me this is a terrible tact to take. By insisting that certain games are more appropriate or better exemplify the types of content most often sought by one gender or the other people on both sides of the gender equality arguments are missing the mark.

Is it a fact that male and female brains function differently in some ways? Yes; but that is no justification for applying some false gender emphasis on what the content or gameplay style of a game should be.

Ironically enough I consider games that are supposedly oriented toward girls or female players to often be the worst offenders in this way. I used the Imagine series as an example above for good reason: they are intriguing ideas for games that lose a lot of their value through misguided gender emphasis in their marketing and design. By emphasizing their target activities as exclusively feminine -- subjects such as fashion design, veterinary work and even teaching being in the series' repertoire -- they are dealing a double whammy to gender equality in games. Not only does their insistence on the femininity of these activities actively discourage male gamers interested in the subject matter (and, let's face it, given the popularity of clothing mods in PC games there are more than a few male gamers who would have a blast with a fashion game,) but it also works as a subliminal hint to girls that these are the kinds of games they should look at instead of the next shooter or the next adventure game. Their very pride in the supposed gender they appeal to is their biggest problem.

The games that most often exemplify the most positive gender ethics more often fall into the adventure, puzzle, or simulator genres, because in many of these games gender serves primarily as an aesthetic choice and only in a secondary or even tertiary capacity to influence story or interaction options. Games like The Elder Scrolls series or Bioware's epic RPGs where a character's personality and, often, love interests, can be steered in any of a variety of ways without making what they are more important than who they are. Meanwhile many puzzle games benefit from the concept of removing gender as a factor entirely. While Peggle and other Popcap or "casual" games often appear on the lists advocates use to provide proof of female gamers, their greatest achievement is from removing gender from the gameplay equation at all.

The key here is that equating a game's genre or goal with the gender most appropriate for it is detrimental to the industry as a whole. Girls play shooters, guys play The Sims, and I know plenty of young men who would enjoy games about training horses or managing a small business oriented toward personal hygiene if the covers weren't saturated in pink and sparkles in a mistaken goal to target girls. Why gender concepts and content that don't need it?

Rule 2: Men And Women Are Not Two Extremes

I absolutely adore character creation in games. I love having the flexibility to choose how I appear in the game world and to see what options the game gives me to customize my avatar to fit who I want them to be. And yet, I often find myself underwhelmed or even annoyed by the options presented to me in games because of their reliance on definitive sex templates to define who a character is. If you build a woman she is going to be curvy and feminine: if you build a man he is going to be broad and strong. You have some flexibility within this, and more and more games are allowing the option to alter sexual attributes within certain limitations, but those limitations are often set on the outsides of biological norms, and are far from all-inclusive.

By creating a hard separation between men and women in the way characters are designed, games do little to promote an open understanding of sex, sexuality, and gender within their game worlds. Often times this will even extend to garments and objects one finds within a game. Many have been the times I've picked up a pair of pants in Oblivion only to be dismayed to find them transform into a skirt on my character because I had chosen to tick the F rather than the M during character creation. Likewise when playing Fable I've found outfits or even hair styles I would want to use for my character only to be faced with the problem of earning points in a "crossdressing" score that would often negatively impact my character's interactions with others. By applying these gender stereotypes games fail to embrace inclusive ideals and instead perpetuate needless double standards in regards to both males and females.

Once, just once, I would like to see a game where I can create a flat-chested thick-waisted female avatar, or a pretty male avatar with slight curves, just to be able to experiment with the variety that truly exists in nature concerning gender and presentation. The same goes toward personality traits as well. Let the player create a male character who is soft-spoken or gentle without tying aspects of abnormality or strangeness into their person, or let them create a broody, dark and terrible female figure who nobody would every accuse of using her sexuality to get her way. Not only does embracing such variance vastly increase the options available for characters in games both for the players and developers, but it makes the world feel more real than spending every day among the supposed ideals of society, and therefore more inclusive.

Rule 3: Your Main Character Does Not Define Your Audience

While character customization has become much more common in games than in the past, especially in regards to one's sex, many games still rely on a predefined and definitive character or characters for gameplay.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this. Games, like movies or books, are often a storytelling medium to at least some capacity, and as such will often necessitate a specific character archetype to carry the events of the story toward the predefined conclusion. Where this falls down is in the way that many game developers will use their main character to define a target audience for their game.

The examples of this kind of targeting are numerous, as are the examples that subvert the trend. Many early games especially manage to avoid this issue by presenting their characters in such a way that the character itself is less important than the actions they perform. With modern games, though. . . .

As a youth I always enjoyed first person shooters. I grew up playing games like Doom and Dark Forces on my grandmother's computer before later graduating to Half Life, Quake 3, and even a little Halo. More recently, however, I have found these games harder and harder to get into or appreciate because of the portrayals of not only the main characters, but the reactions of the NPCs around them. Many third person games have this same problem, and it's an issue we as an industry inherit from the film industry: the main character is treated AS the audience, with little regard for differing opinions or feelings. The issue arises due to the difference in mediums. While a movie is a predefined series of events from an outside perspective, games are most often treated as an active continuity, with the player intended to either empathize with or at the very least maintain interest in the welfare and actions of main character.

Put more simply, it is easier to watch a movie with a character you don't identify with than it is to play a game with the same issue.

Unlike the other "rules" -- and I use that term lightly -- this one falls into much more of a gray area, partially because it extends to more than gender and sexuality: it covers a character's entire attitude. As such, there are plenty of cases where a character's attitudes defining the game's target audience make perfect sense!

Yes, that's right, there are times -- many of them -- when this rule can be ignored. If so, why bring it up?

Because there are also times -- again, many of them -- when ignoring this rule is detrimental to a game, and these situations almost always involve blatant sexism in the attitudes of either the game's characters, or the developers.

I mentioned at the very beginning of this article that I can't stand the Grand Theft Auto games, and this rule here is one of the major reasons why. Beyond being a criminal, the character you are expected to play in these games always seem to embody the worst elements of masculine attitudes. Several of the characters in the series are womanizers, and worse than that their interactions with women are almost always in a manner that objectifies them or sexualizes them far more than is needed for the narrative to be effective.

The GTA games are incredibly popular, but most girl gamers I know who like the series are hesitant to admit it, in no small part because of the sexism shown throughout the games.

Even games with female protagonists are far from immune from this attitude, though often times they take on the visage of femme fatales who use their sexuality to overcome obstacles in a way that is neither empowering nor positive for female gamers, ending up as nothing more than sexual fantasies for the male audiences they're targeted at.

Again, games like these will always exist so long as games exist as entertainment, but developers could very much benefit from taking into account whether targeting the audiences who seek this type of thing is of benefit to their game, and if not, should seek ways to correct it.

Tomb Raider is a great example of a series that has reinvented itself at least twice in this regard. While early games placed a great deal of emphasis on Laura Croft's sexuality, many of the newer titles have moved away from this toward a character-driven focus. While overall the games have always served as some of the more female-positive games around, these changes over the years to refine the main character's image have helped to prove just how much the company cares about its protagonist and the impact she has on those who play her games. As such, Laura Croft has more than managed to remain relevant: she has managed to excel as an example of what gender-positive marketing can do for a series. It still has its problems, but as the company devotes time to correcting those they improve the series greatly.

Games that target a mutually gender-positive or sex-positive outlook will almost universally have greater appeal than those that choose to express more limited, negative viewpoints.

So What Did Saints Row Get Right?

Saints Row serves as a unique example of positive gender ethics by insulting and satirizing both sides of the gender divide equally. By taking the same approach to sex and gender that it takes to violence, crime, and everything else, the game manages to rise on a pile of be-thonged prostitutes and male sex slaves to take its place near the top of my personal list of impressively gender-positive games. By providing a strong cast of characters of different genders, nationalities, and attitudes the game comes out ahead of many much more consciously inclusive games in terms of open mindedness, embracing subcultures in a way most games can only dream of.

It's a pity more games don't live up to that dream.

PC Review -- Batman: Arkham Origins

While overall not a BAD game, Arkham Origins fails to live up to a lot of its pedigree.

I've been anxious to get a chance to play this game since it came out, and a recent sale finally allowed me the opportunity to delve into the world of Gotham once again as everyone's favorite caped detective. Sure, I'd read many of the reviews proclaiming the game "good, but not up to snuff" in comparison to the other games, but I was willing to give it a shot nevertheless on the basis that even a half-decent Arkham game was likely to outweigh the quality of most of what is put out nowadays.

I was quickly surprised by many small signs of quality immediately apparent in the product. The graphics for the game are quite nice in general, with well-detailed and varied enemy models and a solid design for the Dark Knight himself. Controls are exactly what you'd expect from an Arkham game at this point, which is to say a controller is highly recommended, with combat just as fun as it is in prior games in the series if somewhat more stilted due to the ability unlock system, but more on that later. Likewise, sound design is solid as well, with the voice actors chosen doing admirable jobs. Overall the aesthetics of the game are spot-on, balancing appeal with performance and doing it all while pulling solid framerates on my fairly mediocre specs even when maxxed out.

Where the quality starts to fall down is in the gameplay itself. Gadget unlocking is not the steady stream you have grown used to from the older games in the series, and uses are not always clearly laid out. In fact, several of the gadgets fail to serve any purpose in the game whatsoever other than padding out your inventory. The game world itself is large, but even more sparcely populated than Arkham City, and far less visually dynamic, lending many of the locations you visit a very "been there, done that" feel to events. Even the puzzling from the older entries is largely absent, with even the most complicated of applications involving little more than the systematic application of one to two inventory items, and only about six items in total are ever used for the puzzles period.

To give the game credit the story itself is fun and, so far, quite professional in its application. You run into the expected rogue's gallery of villains, and the game does well in playing off of the difference in strength between the various foes you encounter, even allowing for the occasional bit of humor in their handling. On the other hand, there is next to no sense of urgency about events in the game's core story, with the only goals that convey any feeling of anxiety to complete being side quests that are completely optional. Don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing for the existence of a time limit on the overall game, but some sense of a need to hurry and tackle the story would have been nice, and would help to add a sense of purpose to the overall world. Even the goals themselves boil down to nothing more than "open door, punch enemies, repeat," with the puzzles or exploration to accomplish a goal being below the standards set by the previous two games. I understand that the game was made by a different developer, which requires some allowances, but more essential puzzles would have greatly enhanced the game as a whole.

Overall, the game has been good. BUT.

Yes, but.

There are two parts of the game that I have to admit to having serious issues with.

The first issue I'll bring up is one that is not necessarily the game's fault, and that is my problems with stability. I say not "necessarily" the game's fault because, in PC gaming, certain allowances always must be made for different hardware and setting within said hardware. Despite those allowances, though, the glitches I've encountered in the game have all been quite frustrating and not fun. I've encountered multiple instances of interrogation subjects glitching into architecture and refusing to allow me to interrogate them, with one fight in particular requiring me to re-start the encounter four times because the enemy glitched the same way the first three times I tried it. In addition to that, I've encountered issues where controls will simply stop working. The game is simpler than the older games, to be sure, but losing one's ability to use gadgets still renders the game unplayable. This is an issue with the game and not my controller because a quick jump to the title screen and back to my most recent saves fixes it, but this shouldn't be necessary. In addition to all of this, there have been several times the game has slowed to an absolute crawl or even froze up, causing me frustration and even nearly crashing my entire computer. My system's no behemoth: AMD A8-3850 quad-core 2.9 GHz, 8 Gb DDR3 1600, AMD HD 6870 1 Gb GDDR5 -- but it averages 80 FPS in the game at 768p, so these slowdowns are very problematic and disturbing.

More than any of these issues, though, my biggest complaint about the game is the ability unlock system.

The regular ability trees are fine if not exactly ideal, and at the point I'm at I'm facing the frustrating issue of leveling faster than I'm unlocking abilities to apply my ability points to. What's more annoying is the abilities tied to accomplishing goals within the game. The system in general is one I appreciate and even commend, but the linearity of it is a ♥♥♥♥-poor way to handle a system of unlocks that is obviously intended to reward exploration and experimentation.

You have three notable sections of mini-goals for the game that allow you to unlock some of your abilities: abilities that can be unlocked no other way. These mini-goal tiers are each associated with a particular element of Batman, and the abilities and goals that are tied together are well considered. BUT. The goals can only be completed in order. What this means is that you cannot get credit for completing goals in a tree -- no matter how many times you do the action that should do it -- unless you've completed all lower goals. This might not sound flawed at first, but in practice it becomes an exercise in frustration.

As an example, I am stuck in one of the trees on a goal to complete a predator encounter without being seen. This is a VERY EARLY goal in the tree, but one that I have progressed in the story to the point of rendering it next to impossible, partially due to lack of abilities unlocked by moving up in the tree. Why didn't I complete this already? Because my combat style did not automatically lend itself to one of the lower goals, which took longer than it should have for me to accomplish. I managed no less than 3 predator encounters completely invisible prior to completing that one lower goal, but none of them count, oh no, because the system is built so linear. The older games liked to have goals you could accomplish that stacked toward certain bonuses, but were much more freeform in how they handled these, and as a result much more fun and, dare I say it, more user-friendly. By hard locking the order these goals must be accomplished in the developers have turned a system that could have rewarded creativity and experimentation into one that instead punishes the player for not doing things in the precise order the devs wanted, which is a terrible, terrible thing.

Is the game on the whole fun? Yes, it is, as is evidenced by my hours already in it. I've yet to complete the main story, but despite all my issues with the game the overall experience is good enough that I DO intend to. Frustrations with poor design choices aside the game is a good addition to the Arkham universe, albeit one I would recommend playing before the older games, not only due to its prequel status but also to minimize frustration over the game's inferior state. Combat is in most cases just as satisfying as in the previous entries, if a touch slower than Arkham City, but the puzzles themselves are far less interesting and the world feels, for lack of a better word, flat in comparison to the other games.

Final Rating: 6 out of 10

While not a bad game, Arkham Origins fails to build upon, or in many ways live up to, the older entries in the series. Some good visual production values fail to pull what is otherwise an empty and sometimes glitchy experience up to a higher level of quality.

Why Hardcore?

 I like games.

No, wait. I take that back. I LOVE games. Card games, board games, video games, I absolutely adore them all. I've played games nearly every day of my life, and they have helped to shape the person I am today. I've owned a massive game collection spanning more than thirty-five years of titles, and I've kept an ear to the tracks following any and all news I could about the industry for as long as I've had access to the internet.

Am I a hardcore gamer?

I don't think so.

Is that important?

Not in the slightest.

While the phenomenon is certainly nothing new, the classification of gamers into groups based on perceived merit of their tastes or dedication has taken a massive turn for the worst over the last ten to fifteen years. With the rise of social media integration in consoles the face of gaming has moved away from the shared experiences of the past and more toward the very choice of what games you play, and how you play them, being a game in and of itself, and a highly competitive one at that. With many players basing one's value as a "gamer" on such things as Xbox gamer scores or PlayStation trophies, it is my opinion that gaming has lost a large part of what always made the older consoles so fun: cooperative community.

True, competition has always been a key part of the electronic gaming scene. With the old arcade games the only real goal of playing was to achieve the highest score possible with the aim of proving your superiority versus other players on the same cabinet. As gaming advanced, though, these elements steadily lost their place as the focal point of games, usurped by the likes of story, progression, and experience-oriented goals and rewards more akin to tabletop games than the original arcade experiences. Home consoles brought on the competition between competing hardware or franchises as well, leading to some incredibly memorable experiences for those who grew up during the heyday of the Sega/Nintendo debates or, more recently, the Microsoft/Sony competitions, but with the increase in availability of cross-platform releases gaming's competitive focus has seen a shift away from single-games and more toward a focus on the entertainment medium as a whole.

Of course, with that shift in focus many players have developed far more strict ideas of what defines a "gamer." Gone are the days when anyone who played consoles or PC games -- or anyone who could so much as name a game, even -- could be considered a gamer. Now you can be hardcore, or competitive, or casual, or any number of other labels that have creeped into the lexicon over the last couple of decades to define and separate our numbers into smaller bite-sized chunks, each with animosity toward the others in some way shape or form.

Me?

I'm a Gamer, full stop. To me it doesn't matter if a player is a fan of one game or many, Sony, Nintendo, or (grudgingly for the newest generation) Microsoft. What is important is our shared experience with our entertainment medium of choice. As a player I couldn't care less what my friends' kill/death ratios in Call of Duty are, nor do I care about how high their gamerscore is or how many games they've beat. No, what I do care about is the experiences they've had, both good and bad, and the stories they can tell about their adventures.

Games, like film or literature or music, are not something that exists for the sake of defining someone as better or worse than another. They are there to enrich the lives of those who delve to understand and experience them. The high-score competitions of the old days were never about defining winners and losers: it was about challenging yourself to do your best. In the mid- to late 90's, and moving forward into the 00's, gaming almost completely abandoned the likes of scoreboards in favor of cooperative and goal-based gameplay that was intended to inspire users to enjoy the experience, not master it. With the rise of social media and the mass return of scoreboards and a competitive focus to just about everything, many gamers have lost a lot of what gaming has grown into.

It's not about being more hardcore or skilled than other players. It's not about how many hours you've dropped into matches or where you are on the leaderboards or even how many people are on your social media friends lists.

It's about the games.

And if it's about the games, then shouldn't enjoying them, in whatever capacity, be enough?

An Introduction to Game Academy

Hello people, and welcome to what, with luck, will be the first of many entries into my new blog about gaming: Game Academy.

Let's get the obvious part out of the way first: the name. Yes, I have no doubt it will come across as rather pretentious given that I am an amateur video game aficionado, and given that I couldn't take "Game Academy" as my URL I'm assuming someone else has and may just take umbrage to my desire to use it. BUT, there is a method to my madness. The name is chosen to imply exactly what I want to convey in this blog: not just opinions and reviews, but articles over the history of gaming as a whole. There will likely be a heavy emphasis on video games, at least in the early life of the blog, but the goal is to eventually start providing readers with information and lesson plans focusing on the development and cultural significance of games as a whole, from card games to pinball, all the way to the modern home console markets. As such, Game Academy is a very apt name for what I intend to supply my readers.

Now that that's said and done, on to the fun stuff. Content will start out being posted as I write it, with no set plan or order. Once I've achieved a certain amount of content it will become my goal to schedule posts to the blog based on subject matter. In the long term the goal is to focus on purely informational posts rather than opinion pieces, but at first things will likely consist of mostly reviews, opinion articles, and the like. These will continue to be a part of the blog's content, but will move from being major content to weekend or special event content as more informational and lesson plan material is worked up.

Reviews will be posted for games and hardware, and will cover both old and new releases as they are reviewed. Everything will be reviewed on a ten-point scale structured as follows:

-1- Lowest of the low. No redeeming qualities. Avoid at all costs.

-2- Trash. Perhaps a good idea or concept, but awful execution.

-3- Amateur. Glitchy or broken, but with strong concepts that make it worth consideration.

-4- Below average. Problems mar an acceptable experience, but the product fails to stand out.

-5- Low average. Nothing exceptionally bad or good, kind of a meh game.

-6- High average. Entertaining, but flawed, or exceedingly well executed but fails to enthuse.

-7- Above average. The product as a whole is strong and has merit beyond simple entertainment.

-8- Good. A cut above, exemplifying good construction in story, gameplay, or both.

-9- Great. Stylistically or technically impressive. What every game should strive to obtain.

-10- Ideal. Nigh impossible level of perfection in technical, gameplay, or story detail. A game for the ages.

The scale above lists standards based on games, but the same general level of consideration will be applied to hardware as it gets reviewed. Note that mid-level scores are average, not low. This means that just because a product fails to obtain a superior score -- and few will -- does not mean it is a poor product overall.

The last thing I want to cover in this introductory post is writers. For the moment I am the only writer, though it is my intention to recruit others to the cause as well. A more typical "getting to know you" article from me will appear in the future, and as new writers are added and contribute material such articles will appear to cover them as well.

With all of that said and done, welcome to Game Academy! I hope we can all have a great time and learn a lot of great things!