Love at First Throne?

While scrolling through my Facebook timeline, I stumbled across a buzzfeed.com page with "Game of Thrones" Valentines (I apologize for some of the inappropriate ones).  When I saw this, I immediately thought about this class and all we have talked about thus far.  For those of you that do not know, "Game of Thrones" is a decently new television series about medieval noble families that fight for the control of a mythical land.  While I have never seen an episode of this show, my brother watches it on a regular basis, and he has told me quite a bit about its storyline.  Here is a preview of the show for those more interested in its plot:

Anyways, back to the Valentines.  There were a few that definitely took my attention.  For example, the one about loving honor and duty truly stands out.  While this Valentine is mocking the television show, it is interesting to me because it puts a strong emphasis on the importance of fighting and retaining a sense of "honor".

During this show, people are playing a lifelong game to survive and conquer the land they want to control.  Therefore, in a way, this Valentine is mocking the idea that to a player in this "game", there is nothing more important that winning and in doing so, preserving the honor of one's family. This truly made me think about the idea of gaming and how we have defined gaming in our class.

During the first lecture, we defined games as having six characteristics: (1) they are free, (2) they contain spatial removal,  (3) the outcomes are uncertain,  (4) they are unproductive, (5) they are governed by rules, and (6) they are make-believe.  To a player in the "Game of Thrones", most of these characteristics hold true.  For example, they are not paying to enter these games (at least not with money), they do not know what will happen, and there are some sort of societal rules that govern what happens.  However, I would not say, that to the players (who are really members of this society) are playing something that is make-believe.  And, they are definitely not competing in something that is unproductive.  Rather, they are fighting for thier life, and their liberty to own the land that they believe they deserve.

To me, this bring up an interesting topic.  Just because this "game" doesn't meet the characteristics we discussed in class, does that mean its not really a "game"?  From what the Valentine suggests, the players take it pretty seriously.  I think overall it is up to the player to decide.  In general,  I thought this was a very interesting website that I stumbled across as it definitely relates to what we have talked about in this class thus far.

Bitter Rivalry at its Finest

Michigan State basketball, trailing by one, timeout Michigan.  With 15 seconds left in the game, this one play will determine the fate between these two in-state, bitter rivals.  With a Michigan State bucket, the Spartans complete an amazing comeback win in a very hostile Crisler Arena.  The Wolverines need one stop to secure a well-deserved victory against a top-ten ranked opponent. Being in the stands was purely an emotional rollercoaster.

Throughout the entire game, the crowd’s volume could not have been more impactful. With every powerful dunk and smooth long-range jumper, the student section, completely covered head to toe in maize and blue, erupted. We taunted and distracted the Spartan players in any way possible to try and give the Wolverines as much of a home court advantage as we could, because to everyone inside the arena, this was much more than a game.

           

For the past two years, the both of us have attended a majority of Michigan home basketball games, and while we have witnessed some amazing comebacks and victories, the Crisler Arena has never been as loud and stifling as it was against State. When Stephen Garcia came to lecture our class, he discussed the psychology of competition and essentially concluded that the closer you are with someone, the more competitive you act towards them. This competition leads to pushing yourself to do as much as you are capable of because the competition has become personal. This certainly explains what was going on in the Crisler Arena. Every player on the court gave as much energy and effort to every play on both sides of the ball. With two schools separated by only a few miles, with decades of intense combat in their past, the competitive drive of not only the players, but everyone associated with the rivalry is at its highest level.  

           

One of the greatest aspects of the athletic program at the University of Michigan is that the games that these incredible athletes play brings together one of the largest student bodies in the country, as every student bleeds Maize and Blue. As huge sports fans, we constantly try and help energize the crowd but during this game, no help was needed. The emotional ride that these players gave to the fans was something that can only be explained to someone emotionally invested in arguably the greatest rivalry in college sports. The building was loud from the opening tip-off and while the game was completely sold out, not one chair was filled. Every person in the stands remained on their feet rooting hard and the atmosphere was absolutely incredible.

          

Inside the huddle, Coach Beilein mastered without even knowing it. With just a few seconds left on the clock, Beilein knew that the Spartans would go to their top scorer Draymond Green around the free throw line. With this knowledge of what the Spartans would do, Beilein was able to select the best matchup for Green, our savvy senior Zack Novak, and he also inserted our biggest man, Jordan Morgan, into the game for a double team at the free throw line. Michigan was able to produce an extremely successful double team and forced Green into a bad shot, clinching Michigan’s biggest win of the season in Ann Arbor.

           

The crowd went absolutely wild as all negative emotions from Michigan’s near loss of the lead were released and turned into frantic celebration. The players jumped around on the court and the entire arena joined in a very spirited and harmonious “Hail to the Victors!” as the Michigan State players exited the court, heartbroken from what could have been. While this may have seemed like this was just a game to the average viewer, to the students of the University of Michigan and all of its great followers, this was part of life. We, as the students of this University, have become emotionally invested in these teams and players because they are our best representation of what we stand for as the Michigan Wolverines. This is especially apparent against big time rivalries like Michigan State because it means more to beat the best competition there is. This Michigan victory proved to the college basketball world that the Wolverines are a true threat for the Big Ten Championship and beyond into March.

           

In a post-game interview, Coach Beilein said to his players, “There are tremendous amounts of people in maize and blue who live for this game each year. You made them all very, very happy today.” As an in-state rival, this game had added significance. Jockeying for the rights to be called the best team in the state of Michigan, the players, fans, and coaches all knew what was at stake. The win meant more than just a victory in a Big Ten game; it meant bragging rights between bitter rivals who battle each year at the highest level of competition. Being a part of this crazy rivalry, being in the stands feeling the emotions of the players, and watching an incredible finish was an amazing experience that we both hope to have many more of for the next few years and beyond our graduation. 

Alex Mandel and Zach Amateau

Reflections on Video Gaming Past, Present, and Future

For my first minor quest, I decided to venture up to the Duderstadt Center on North Campus and visit the Computer & Video Game Archive. While I was there, I played several classic arcade games including Ms. Pac Man, Galaga, and Donkey Kong. I also played some more recently released console games like Street Fighter IV and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. I will now attempt to dissect several of the differences in game design and playing experience from the perspective of what we have so far covered in class.

Galaga logo.

Before I discuss arcade games and console games, I shall give an overview of video games as a whole. Video games are strictly programmed in a way so that each individual game has its own set of rules, its own “magic circle¹,” or so to speak, that is virtually impossible to violate without the aid of some manner of hacking device. This means once someone decides to play a game (from here on, “game” shall refer to video games), he commits himself to the rules that bind the game unto itself. These magic circles are what gives games their individuality, what separates Galaga from Space Invaders from Contra from Call of Duty. As individuals, we may have a greater affinity for some magic circles than others, hence categories such as “retro gamer,” “MMO gamer,” and “FPS gamer.” This is the same with sports; someone who likes football may not like soccer. Broadly speaking, video games immerse the player in some sort of fantasy element to capture interest. However, in most cases, mere interest is not enough to captivate a gamer. There must be competition.

Pictorial representation of a high score.

In examining the nature of competition in video games, it is useful to separate the arcade games from the console games because the different nature of each category’s general game design determines how each treats competition. Tetris, Pac Man, and virtually all arcade games all have a scoring system in which players may compete for a high score. This entitles them to bragging rights; in fact, there exists a professional society of arcade gamers where a select elite constantly tries to best itself in its already-astronomical “high” scores². In the more recent console games, however, the N-effect, which states that the motivation/intensity of competition increases as the number of competitors decreases3, plays a much larger effect. Perhaps this is the reason why game design today focuses far less on the high-score model, which, although still existent, has declined significantly in popularity. For example, take the FPS (first-person shooter) Call of Duty: several players on two teams duke it out on a battlefield, intimately acquainted with the fantasy situation. As I watched my friends play, I could only describe their energy as a sort of focused intensity, expressing great frustration when their avatar dies or when their team loses and great elation whenever they successfully “frag” a particularly persistent enemy player. 2D fighting games like Street Fighter take this to the extreme: there is one person competing directly, and I emphasize directly, with the other player, turning competition up to the absolute maximum. It boils down to an extremely fast-paced, iterated game of rock-paper-scissors, weighted in favor of superior mechanical skill and heavily in favor of superior mental prediction ability. I suggest, then, that the evolution of competition in games has been mostly actualized. Although there will always be niche markets for competitive models of every type, innovation in player interactivity will probably act as the stage-setter for future games.

Screencap of a battle in Street Fighter IV.

If this is the case, then a deeper issue is at play. A commonality among all the games I played during my visit is that they were designed almost purely for the purpose of entertainment. As pieces of procedural rhetoric⁴, they fall short because they do not deliver any lasting messages to the mind other than “we are fun, come back and play another time.” Which, depending on your perspective, could be either a fortunate or unfortunate status quo. There are some who will advocate that games should be pure entertainment, lest they lose their fun factor. And they have a point, because games that are designed with some sort of social agenda usually fail to capture the audience they want to capture – gamers – due to a variety of factors ranging from poor production value to shoddy design that ultimately make them unfun. More visionary types suggest that, should there come a way for these issues to be resolved, and they believe there will, then a new age of social progress will unfold. Myself, I have high hopes for this, but when it comes down to the heart of the matter, I want to be entertained, and I’m not playing something that won’t entertain me, be it an arcade game, a console game, or the newest form of procedural rhetoric lauded by activists and academics alike.

Huizinga – Homo Ludens ¹

http://www.twingalaxies.com/²

Garcia and Tor – The N-Effect ³

Bogost – The Rhetoric of Video Games ⁴