Girl Meets Geekdom

I turned on the TV today to find that video games invaded MTV. Maybe I’ve been living in a hole or something, I haven’t watched much TV since I started college, and I’m not surprised that there’s Xbox 360 coverage, but what on Earth is This Sims Life? That was certainly an eye opener on the MTV generation of today. This Sims Life is a pseudo-documentary in the style of a human inspiration story that takes a glimpse into the lives of various Sims addicts. Since I am a great believer of bringing video games to more mainstream audiences, I guess I should consider this to be a positive step. However, the content of the show, or lack thereof, creeped me out a little. One girl talked about how the Sims helps her understand her relationship with God and it got me to think—“wow is this what it means to make games mainstream?” On a station like MTV I’m sure they went for the unique stories and good-looking people to interview, but they could have said something about our generation of gamers, or of gaming addictions, good or bad. Instead it was, “Hi, my name is Jane, I am addicted to the Sims, this is my boyfriend Paul, and this is what happens when I kill one of my Sims.” Sure, this is a fabulous marketing ploy, it felt more like an infomercial rather than a documentary anyway, but couldn’t it have said something a little more? I think I would’ve preferred yet another criticism on how games destroy our lives just for a little more substance. This was some attempted praise for a game that had no substance and had a funny way of saying that people who play the Sims are superficial and live to deeply in a make-belief world.

Since when were gamers part of the MTV generation? When I was part of the MTV generation, I barely even played video games. I guess, for me, it sucked the character out of the gaming population, at least the part of it that was personal to me. In their attempt to maybe show the diversity of the Sims audience, they somehow reduced everyone to a shallow annoyance who all sound the same in the end. For a while, I thought that the Sims demographics was a group that broke out of the demographics of violent or nerdy young men. Instead, they get to be shallow. How did gaming culture fall into this depiction? Mass culture doesn’t depict movie-goers or theater buffs this way!

I guess the bottom line is, the MTV generation tends to lead to stereotypes that I just don’t want to be part of. As a female gamer, I already deal with stereotype and often feel strange playing certain video games. The conventional gaming audience, altogether, is one big stereotype! There is just so little out there to really give substance to the richer gaming population out there. This show is one of the only ones of its kind, and it is speaking for the Sims audience. Well, I am a Sims fan, and I resent that This Sims Life would choose a wishy-washy way of saying nothing about our culture and giving its fans no true substance. I’m glad that The Sims has more publicity now, but this show really shouldn’t have been made.

While we are on the topic of emotion in video games, I figured I’d share my opinions on what makes Final Fantasy the #1 emotion evoker of all games. There are a lot of reason, but the biggest element, I would have to say, is linear story. A lot of game designers seem to frown upon linear storylines in general, arguing that it defeats the purpose of player control in gameplay. Of course one should focus on gameplay as the core of a video game, but let’s get over the no-duh statements and take it to the next level. Otherwise it would be like making movies with your entire focus on FOVs, f-stops, and film speeds.

Linear Story does NOT Mean Linear Gameplay
Critics tend to argue that linear stories limit gameplay, which maybe true to some extent, but less than you would imagine. For one thing, a linear story operates on a progression the way most games have levels. Even in a game like Tetris, you have to pass level 1 to get to level 2, which is really the basis of a linear progression. Generally, you can wrap non-linear gameplay around a linear story by allowing the player to customize characters, allowing the player to explore the world freely, filling the world with mini-games and sidequests, etc. Games like Bethesda’s new Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and consequently the entire Elder Scrolls series, champions the non-linear RPG, but at the core of their game is still a fundamentally linear story. It’s certainly different from games like Final Fantasy, but the principal of the linear story is still there.

Not being able to choose has its advantages
Not being able to choose your character’s path is only a negative if the designer fails to use it to the game’s advantage. I remember one instance in beginning of Final Fantasy VIII, where the anti-hero, Seifer, disobeys orders and leaves his post and heads to a place of rumored danger, forcing you to follow. At that point, I was not too drawn to the game and found it annoying to have to follow even though I had selected not to when prompted. Sure, this is a frustration, and maybe viewed as the pitfall of linearity, but think of the set up. This follows a very cinematic model—one character has entered a place you know you shouldn’t be. You know something bad is going to happen. In film, you have no choice but to enter that space with the character and whatever happens to the character is out of your control. In video games, you are forced down that path, but cannot take the passive viewing approach. Think about the apprehension you feel when watching a horror movie, when you know that the main character is headed for danger, now put the control of that character in your hands—the stakes go up.

Linear Stories Allow for Better Characters
The best part of a linear story lies in the potential of creating dynamic characters. Linearity permits a character to change as a result to the games events. Moreover, linear structure raises the stakes for each character because the things you do can potentially change the character—you might not have control over the ultimate outcome, but it feels that you do. When Aeris died in FFVII, many people spent hours figuring out ways to bring her back, wondering if there was some way in which she could stay alive. Linear stories ultimately allow for characters to react to scripted events and to have that reaction carry through the rest of the game. When Aeris died, Cloud will never be the same again. By contrast, a character like James Bond–in either the games or movies, starts and ends practically the same, no matter what happens. Sure, they might be sad, confused, or profoundly affected by a lover’s death, but you know that when the sequel comes, it’ll be as if it never happened. Dynamic characters is a fundamental reason why games like Final Fantasy can evoke emotions—they are able to develop characters, then use the game events to change them fundamentally. These changes are what evoke emotions like love, sympathy, and pity.

Final Words
Despite my belief in the potential of linear stories in games, I do have one piece of warning: If you are going to force me down the dangerous path to rescue the princess, I better have a damn good reason why. Linear stories have the potential for what I described above, but they don’t inherently carry it. A good linear story is harder than it sounds, but that is a different discussion altogether…

Someone once related to me a scene in Final Fantasy 4 that, many years back, had brought two teenage boys to tears. Was this an anomaly of two gamers too deeply involved with their game, or something more universal to the gaming experience?

Today’s Wired news cites a study done by Bowen Research on the emotional element of games. The researcher, Hugh Bowen, found it surprising that “two-thirds of all gamers think games exceed, could exceed or could equal the emotional richness of other major forms of art and entertainment.” He did not expect that, at 78%, RPGs would top the list of most emotional genres over MMOs. Even more surprising to him was that gamers told him video games inspired such feelings as love and compassion.

Finishing my first Final Fantasy redefined me as a gamer. I was completely taken in by the richness of the characters and how greatly I became attached to them. In Bowen’s research 104 out of 535 people cited Final Fantasy as a rich emotional experience—and why not? Honestly, I’m surprised that only two-thirds of gamers believed in the emotional richness of video games. I would venture to guess the other third invest more time in genres such as strategy, sports games, non-linear quest based RPGs, multiplayer-shooters, and MMOs and other competitive social games, which tend to have less of the reflective type of emotional experience. The significance of titles such as Final Fantasy and more story driven RPGs and shooters is that they are partially interactive movies. The time you invest into games greatly exceeds that of films and because of that the characters grow on you—that is, unless the designers created shallow characters. Wired and Bowen’s report both talk about grown men crying over Aeries’s death in FFVII, but seriously, you don’t even need Aeries. With a good plot and good characters, those 8-bit pixels in FFIV can do it.