Stage 4 - Part 5 - "What makes games so DANGEROUSLY addictive?"

So I shall bore you all quickly with a 23 year life span summarised into one paragraph. At a very young age, around my first memory, I started playing computer games and since then I genuinely do not remember any extended period of time that I lived without them. I recall trying, but whether or not I succeeded I don't know, because they were probably the least entertained parts of my life.

It's not been too much of mystery as to why video games are, at times, perceived as an addiction; never mind their active role in the affliction, but a brief examination in the human behaviour around them, and you can already see assets of a disabling bond. Jobs, relationships, money, time and personal welfare are all lost and cast aside in order to maximise the time spent defeating the boss, leveling up, or just being entertained. To say that I am addicted to games at this time is under question, but to say that I once WAS addicted to games is the same as asking if a bear in the woods is a bear in the woods. Whilst recently reading an article outlining the "Emotional Monetisation" of game design (earning more money without charging more money), my perception slowly translated it into "How do we make more money as game developers? Make gamers feel unaccomplished without us". It was not so much in an 'Overprotective Parent' type of way, but in a 'Overly Attached Griflriend' kind of way. Their sole purpose of creation is for gamers like myself and, perhaps, yourself to love them because if we did not love them, there may be a chance they will not survive...


Digging into a combination of this article, and my lessons in game design at University, it comes to a speedy and awkward halt when it becomes a little clearer why games are DANGEROUSLY addictive. Ultimately, they are designed to be so. A well designed game is so because it makes the player want to continue; they will grab you, hold you in, and not let you go until you decide you want to. An excellent game could hold you down for as long as it lasts, and the scary part is, some games last forever.


Without wanting to deliver the entire 3 year course on game design, there is a very fine science behind the creation of a good game. It is geared by the types of challenges put forward, the way in which they are put forward and the careful curve in which they become more challenging. Tetris will be a great, basic, example; if the blocks fell at the same speed throughout, then the game would actually only get easier as the player would grow familiar with the structure and flow and adapt accordingly. Speed up the fall of the blocks, and the player is forced to constantly adapt and even change their play styles to continue progression. In this, the challenges are harder and thus feel more rewarding. This is the most basic example. It can have more dimensions such as power-ups, weapons, new enemies etc etc. The timing of these things are all decided carefully to ensure the game does not become so easy it is boring, or so hard it is unplayable and hated.

The hook and grasp of a game is based around these parameters and then targeted at a particular person. Indeed, anyone who may expose themselves to a video game could potentially get addicted. It's just about finding the right game for the right person! About 10 years ago, video games were only for a particular group of people; move forward a little and suddenly stay at home mothers, bored house wives and generally those who never thought themselves to get involved, were hooked into Farmville, and now, it's Candy Crush.


These games were not simply designed and put out there, they were carefully crafted to be as engaging as they are, but also designed for a particular market. Perhaps they did not hit the market they were looking for, but they found one, and it worked magically for them! It is in this that games are DANGEROUSLY addictive, because on the whole, not only can they be addictive to anyone, they are pretty much designed that way. They are created with intention of a future investment in more of the same. Look at ALL the big franchise games at the moment, and then look at their market of gamers: Starcraft 2, World of Warcraft, League of Legends, Call of Duty, Battlefield, FIFA, Candy Crush, Zelda, Pokemon, Grand Theft Auto, Assassin's Creed, even Dynasty Warriors. So long as these titles continue to reappear on the shelves, they will continue to be paid for, because of their clever design and mechanics that have gamers hooked in, until they cock of up a title so furiously it brings the developer to its knees.

If you have anything you wish to share with me or indeed the readers, feel freeto comment or e-mail me at twentyfiveand0@hotmail.co.uk - Don't forget to check out the What Have I Been Playing pages found on the right! OR Check out my channel at www.youtube.com/ike1luv

Stage 4 - Part 4 - "The (Potential) Power of Integrity"

WARNING!! - TOTALLY NOT A VIDEO GAME RELATED POST BUT I STILL PLAY VIDEO GAMES ON MY CHANNEL SO I HOPE THAT THERE IS A SMALL GLISTENING RELEVANCE THAT HOLDS THROUGHOUT THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

I have just recently spent the day spunking my wad "YouTube Style" all over my Channel, and was happy doing so. Some few of you may recognise that I have had to sacrifice 180 videos and approximately 40 subscribers worth of work to start over properly, so every now and then I attempt a game of catch up to appease the unsatisfied YouTube gimp deep inside me.

THE BIG 3 (We should start calling them that)

Strange how I work; I have 3 separate communicating channels through which I put my material; soon to be 4. There is, of course, the domain upon which my videos are posted, Twitter, where the first port of call is made for new uploads, which then directly links to the Facebook page. There are subcultures of behaviour of these 3 sites that have caused me to respond with conflicting morals and somewhat shameless promoting. But one thing that has certainly struck me today, has allowed pause for thought in the manner of which I create, produce and publish my stuff. Before I bestow such a lesson upon your beautiful, impressionable minds, I will explain what I am to understand about the operation of Facebook Page's "Likes", Twitter's "Follows", and YouTube's "Subscribers" and how they all affect the post's popularity.

Ultimately, all 3 of these things are one and the same; a (FB Page) "Like" works like a "Subscribe" which works like a "Follow" but a YouTube "Like" operates like a regular Facebook "Like"... you follow? What they are suggesting is that a person, group or organisation has shown enough interest in another person, group or organisation that they wish to see or hear more of it on a regular basis. That's the simple, middle of the road, vanilla ice cream operation of it all. But then, you add popularity, potential sponsorship, the ability to earn some cheddar on the way and it changes everything! People make agreements, arrangements and deals, some long term, some not so much! This is where it gets silly.

On Facebook, it doesn't seem to happen so much, and I am happy for it. People are free to like your page, and don't ask for anything in return, because they are liking it out of their own... well, liking it. Twitter, however, is like some strange warehouse full of lost wanderers, where handshakes are made every other second, "Follow" for "Follow" and such. It almost seems to be an unspoken rule now, as random people will just "Follow" me, and then "Unfollow" me a day later, because I shared no interest in partaking in their little deal. It felt dirty, impure and BLERGH... YouTube is different, and I know it happens, because it happened today and opened my eyes to a world that's only purpose now is to remind me that I am making good decisions. But it doesn't seem like a working tool on YouTube, as opposed to how it is working on Twitter. There are a couple of reasons, but I'm getting there.

Now, for some reason, on Twitter, I have fallen victim to this "Follow Back" game, and while I was always sitting on a negative imbalance of followers to followees, this game has put me a handful of followers up, so I'm happy! Why? Because my micro-posts on Twitter get out there to a few more people with an increased chance of my videos being watched... when this person subscribed to me today and IMMEDIATELY IN THE COMMENT SECTION OF ONE OF MY VIDEOS requested a subscription back, I was annoyed. I am not sure, EXACTLY, why, but it really bugged me. I still checked out the channel, looked at a couple of videos and then looked around a bit.

People were asking him how he had acquired so many subscribers (450, with 94 videos which by any Gaming Channel standards, is not really all that bad!), and his response...?

"Subscribe to my channel and I'll subscribe back"

I wasn't sure if this was him giving advice or literally his robotic, soulless response to any communication with another channel.

It really is... am I being arrogant...?

Safe to say, I left it. But what left me laughing, even with less subscribers, videos and viewership, was one simple fact. His videos were particularly bad... and that's being nice. The notion that simply having more subscribers was going to get this guy anywhere was mildly laughable, because SURE he may get more views, but eventually they may tail off when it is clear that, for a year, he refuses to buy something better than a bag of sand to record everything with. Also, having recently watched the AMA with Arin and Dan from Game Grumps (thanks, Scott!), they gave me a deep, content feeling that I was heading in the right direction, with still a long way to go, but not making massive mistakes so far.

I may say it with arrogance, perhaps pretension, but to gain viewership and favour of the crowd simply through my material is a far greater success to me than "Handshaking" my way through a cloud of "Will it, won't it" while my videos continue to lack improvement or sign of positive change. At least then I will know for certain if what I am doing is or is not working!

If you have anything you wish to share with me or indeed the readers, feel freeto comment or e-mail me at twentyfiveand0@hotmail.co.uk - Don't forget to check out the What Have I Been Playing pages found on the right! OR Check out my channel at www.youtube.com/ike1luv

Stage 4 - Part 3 - "The Wall"

I do recall, not that long ago, a simpler time for me when being pleasant and delightful was a tiny chore. Not even that, perhaps it came as simple as breathing. I also remember back then that I was not yet bored of being relatively broke for a lot of the time; I did not wake every working day wishing that someone would call me to tell me my work place had burned down; I really had not reached the point wherein customer service had become a new found level of hell in which cynicism reared its ugly head and painted a perspective of human behaviour I don't think I ever wanted to see. Both customer and business wanting quality and quantity without the price tag.

Filming and posting my videos is my true escape. While it is a private venture into, perhaps, a pipe-dream, it is also my hobby, my time to spend doing things I enjoy. But now I am looking at it thinking how seriously I need to take it. I recently bought a new piece of hardware to record my videos with, and naturally, it will take some getting used to. What I failed to look into was how to take full control of the quality I was actually recording so I went ahead and filmed 8 videos in one sitting... all of which were filmed with a subscriber of mine who pretty much took the afternoon off to play along. The videos, which actually could have been quite entertaining, have come out sub par, and I wonder what steps to take. A) film them again; B) edit the fuck out of them to make them work (this costs all the time I don't have!); C) give up and eat ice cream for the rest of my life.

The dilemma is actually relatively small, as I sit with less than 10 subscribers at this stage it almost seems redundant to care about how regularly I am posting things. Personally, I am furious. At myself. For allowing this to take place. Of COURSE, you dry run every angle of the hardware before you try and publish anything, of COURSE you ensure that the quality of the FIRST video goes out well, of COURSE you don't ASSUME that everything will work out. STUPID DAN! STUPID STUPID STUPID!! To put things into perspective, I have pretty much fired a gun before checking where the safety is; I have switched on the food processor without looking to see if the lid is on; I began shitting before looking for toilet paper within arms reach.

That's right, I am having a tantrum! I am stomping my feet, waving my arms and screaming my throat coarse. It is silly mistakes like these that make me not trust myself! They make me concerned about my own ability to simply function like everyone else! TWAT!!

I know it may seem melodramatic to you all, and I understand why you might wince at my almost childish response to getting something wrong, but it really was how I felt when I realised what had happened. I even started working on editing everything, but soon stopped and decided to finish off last nights curry take out instead, as it felt less productive and more punishing.

As I reach the end of this post, I actually feel better about the whole thing. Like I put myself through therapy... but the only thing that could make me feel EVEN better is knowing that I am not the only one who goes through this. A moment of moronic relapse that then leads you to a sensation of such shame that you actually begin to question your own function as a human being!!

If you have anything you wish to share with me or indeed the readers, feel freeto comment or e-mail me at twentyfiveand0@hotmail.co.uk - Don't forget to check out the What Have I Been Playing pages found on the right! OR Check out my channel at www.youtube.com/ike1luv

Stage 4 - Part 2 - "What am I doing?!"

It has indeed been a long, sometimes silent, journey since I spoke to that c***-hair James Aldridge, regional director of Hayes Recruitment. For the record, I did not need to find the business card to remember the name, or the job, or the company, because that interview was the reason I started this blog! For those of you not aware of what I am talking about, you can find out by starting RIGHT from the beginning!!

I remember being told that I had done nothing with my life, that I was not even worth an entry level job at a company that basically takes squares and fits them into square shaped holes... time taught me that I was indeed being challenged to apply an appropriate retort, but I took the comment head on, and fell flat. At first.

Over the last 3 BLOODY YEARS, it is clear to me that my efforts to achieve something other than nothing have never faltered, but my direction has been waving left to right, leading me carefully towards security, order and normal, until I realise that I am too much of a stubborn twat to accept that that is what my life could end up being. I spend a large amount of my day contemplating where I want myself to end up, and thinking about the near future wondering what might come of it with what I am doing now.

So what is it I am up to now, after the dreams of working alongside the imagination stations of tomorrow, the pioneers of techno-tainment, sculptures of the visions of the past, present and future? The story went, I worked at an MMORPG developer as part of their customer representative team, which was shortly followed by play-testing another couple of kinect titles. After a one off experience doing that, it became hugely evident that perhaps I was not to work alongside them, but continuing to celebrate what they do, just more publicly than in my own room by myself.

I had to go further back than this blog and further back than James Aldridge, right into the depths of this and parts of this... activities I thoroughly enjoyed, and to this day wish were still part of my every day work. I learned a lot since this blog began, and one thing was how important it is to hold on to the things you enjoy, no matter how big or small; at some point you might find yourself sat staring at a list of numbers you don't know and people you've never met or cared about, listening to voices that who hate you all day while your partner picks every available moment to be with someone other than you... yes, that was a really good time!

I came across this guy during a random YouTube session, and safe to say he did make me laugh. I had never seen a medium of entertainment like this before, and at the time the video I saw seemed like another one off skit that went viral and was forgotten after a week. Turns out I could not have been more wrong, and this guy rolled on to being the most subscribed channel on YouTube as well as an inspiration to what appears to be millions upon MILLIONS of individuals looking to YouTube and earn like he does. As time went on, I continued working in restaurants trying to figure out what to do with myself, and what opportunities might lie ahead of me. Creating games was out of the question as my ability to do that clearly fell at the first hurdle, making an online show proved too shaky as the level of dependency on a multi-million pound media company was ill-measured, and just because it was a show and I got to present, which was fun, I needed to be connected to games in SOME way. No matter what it was, I just had to be linked to video games, as I had invested so much of my money, time and emotion into them it seemed rational (to me) to share my love for games with everyone else!

So I started up my own channel... badly! The Channel name doesn't match the name of the show, the URL of the page doesn't match anything, and it basically looks like I suddenly decided to put gaming videos on YouTube like everyone else and their mother. Seriously, there a so many fucking channels right now it is like YouTube said if you start a gaming channel in 2012-13 you'll be given £5,000,000 for your first 5 posts. Nonetheless I pushed forward relentlessly, posting whatever the hell I filmed and watching eagerly while a view would arrive once a week. The channel has grown since, and I am actually really happy with the results coming in, but it's not breaking records or causing internet hysteria, so I'm holding my breath. What is important to me is that aside from the pressure of life, aside from the constant questioning of myself and my own expectations, aside from the rest of the world being annoyingly curious about what I am doing with myself, this channel has become my new safe haven. Thankfully, there is little judgement in what I'm doing, little pressure except for the pressure I apply to myself, and I get to do what I love. It's like combining good and good, hobby and hobby... I guess I have found some hybrid super hobby that takes distraction from the real world to an almost intergalactic scale. Excellent!

What it means is that what I am doing right now means sweet F.A. If I die tomorrow, I would not mind really, because I have found true joy to be had in life. A joy that is completely personal and mine. Only I can know what great sensations I feel when doing what I love doing. My job is exactly that, a job. Not a career, or hobby, or sport; it's a job that pays the bills. I could not give two fucks if the sales are down one day, or the labour is up the next, I could not care less if the company feels like we are not putting the effort in to the growth of the business. People enter the restaurant, I serve and feed them, they leave happy. Simple. The channel is like my new pet lizard, as in I never realised how much I wanted one till I realised I could actually HAVE one! Everything is a learning experience, with the community, the editing, the filming, the sound, the lighting; it's all new to me but it isn't so daunting that I don't want to do it. The only greater sensation would be for me to know that others are sharing and wallowing in my effervescent glee! But that's a long way away, and I only use that vision for when I masturbate.

If you have anything you wish to share with me or indeed the readers, feel freeto comment or e-mail me at twentyfiveand0@hotmail.co.uk - Don't forget to check out the What Have I Been Playing pages found on the right! OR Check out my channel at www.youtube.com/ike1luv

Stage 4 - Part 1 - "Video games are for kids"

URGH! THIS GAME IS SO GOOD!!!!!

The first incident - I was minding my own business in my girlfriend's flat, playing possibly the most addictive game of the last millennium. I just recall switching off, and allowing peace to reign in my very soul, all the while trying to train up a bloody Hardware Engineer so I can develop a BLOODY console... anyway, a male acquaintance (and friend of my girlfriend) sharing the couch space, leans over for a brief look at what has kept me silent for all of 4 hours in the day and states,"Aren't you a little old to be playing this...?". I did not have the adequate time to stop playing to discuss his ignorance, so in one short second I looked at him, fighting with all the power in my being not to respond with, "Aren't you a little too old to be smoking weed twice a day, keeping weed at your friend's flat in case you get busted, getting mugged after passing out at a bus stop because you got high AND drunk, and then refused to stop smoking even though your doctor has given you a rather abrupt deadline for existence...?" I didn't, because I did not wish to waste my breath on the 44 year old man.

This is bitch to get off the ground...

The second incident - I am at work, chatting with friends about GTA Online, discussing high end apartments, mission failures, monetary gains and losses etc. A friend tells the story of a mission in which he is to hi-jack the Titan out of a heavily guarded aircraft hangar and land it at the Grand Senora airport near Trevor's place. He muses over how he managed to overshoot the airport by such a degree that his fellow players on the ground are watching in silent awe and amazement as their $10,000 pay-off sails gracefully over the top of their heads and into the ground. Oh, what jollity and merriment! Another work colleague has been listening in quietly, and clearly reaches a peak of curiousity, "What the hell are you guys talking about?". Laughable was the momentary silence that holds another unspoken query, "How the fuck do you NOT know what we are talking about?!". "GTA Online!" I say, hoping it would render a more familiar and joyous reaction. "Gawh, isn't that a video game?! How old are you again...?" My innards recoil and I am perhaps a little upset by such a condescending retort.

There are more incidents that took place over the 2 decades of video gaming I have partaken in, but this notion of video games being for the young and the impressionable is already so old and so monotonous, that I would like to petition for it to go into the categories of racist and sexist remarks. I do understand that video games may ONCE have been for kids, as we were all growing up, the primary games you saw were colourful, cuddly, easy going, bloodless adventures. Mario, Zelda, Sonic; even some games today are for kids; Kinectimals, Just Dance, Disneyland Adventures, but shit I'll still play them. Why? I am nearly 28 years old, I should have a career, perhaps a wife and kids, a car and a dog. Things that most people who judge me have, but then I think... they're all REALLY expensive, both in money AND time... games are fun! Like... REALLY fucking fun, like if they are not any fun, I don't have to spend ANY time with them at all, fun. But wait, there's more.

So let's perhaps look at what is for kids... crying. Crying and tantrums are for kids, right? Yeah, stomping your feet and throwing your toys around, because you did not get your own way. You wanted to eat that piece of cake, but you can't and now, you're screaming, and crying and shouting and stomping. Like a sports fan... a sports fan whose team just lost. If only the referee had seen that thing that happened, or if the manager had brought on Phillips instead of Rogerson, but they didn't, and now the team lost. BOOO! Sad times, let's drink ourselves into a stupor, and try to forget this terrible time ever happened.

What else is for kids...? Oh shit, yeah making a mess. Drawing on the walls, shitting ourselves, vomiting everywhere, jumping in puddles, rolling in mud... like FESTIVAL GOERS! Sure, except they've paid over £200 to do all of that stuff. They have INVESTED on throwing their piss around, getting so drunk they don't remember half of it, and not showering for days on end. Yeah, anarchy!! Chaos! DESTRUCTION! The glory of freedom from protocol, uniforms and daily routines! Ah, just magnificent freedom! URGH! Don't you LOVE IT?!

Now, I'm not judging sports fans, nor am I judging festival goers. They are at liberty to enjoy what they enjoy in their own personal fashion. I am totally cool with that because I enjoy games in exactly the same way. When, what and how I want! One point being, the idea that games are restricted to kids is possibly a poor perspective that COULD tenuously be linked to kids OWNING games they shouldn't even know about. The main point being that, there are a lot of things that are apparently "for kids", like Lego, FANCY FUCKING DRESS, cartoons, comic books... My Little Pony... but that does not by any way mean they are only FOR kids. If need be, they may have been "grown up" a little, with the addition of adult themes, perhaps some cursing, nudity, violence, multiple sex partners... they can be tailored for adults, and thus making them more apt for the occasion. A throwback to childhood with more mature content.

NOT FOR KIDS! NO!

Back to video games, what is definitely true, is that we (gamers!) grew up with them, and they grew up with us, with some strange attempts at growing up a little too fast, so we understand them better than others. There is indeed some joy to be grabbed from games that stayed 'young', if we want to look at the excruciatingly invasive behaviour of Candy Crush, or Farmville, they're not exactly R rated debauchery, but they are (allegedly) fun, right? So why the hell not!? But some definitely, definitely grew up. According to these "Games are for kids" people, smashing a mans head in with a bat, is for kids, ripping a man's head off with you bare hands, is for kids, THIS, IS FOR KIDS?! I mean ALL OF THIS is for kids...?!?!

AW! WOOK AT DE POONUM!

There is a monstrous library of games that would immediately prove games are not JUST for kids, and while I will not deny that yes, some of them are, what really is important here is that it shouldn't fucking matter. If I want to play Terraria, I'll play it, if I want to play Buzz! Quiz World, heck I'll give it a go! What I do NOT want to hear, is an ignoramus telling me that I am "too old" for games. Not only should they say then that I am too old for books, music, TV and film, but they should also take note of the fact that I have a dream. One day, when I am old, lonely and near my death, I wish to be in a room, by myself, closed off, with a toilet, shower and sink, TV and console. I don't care if I reach 150 years old (which I won't because my genetics won't allow it), that's how I hope to live. Proving that you can NEVER be too old to play video games, nor can you ever try to stop me... never!

NOT FOR KIDS!

If you have anything you wish to share with me or indeed the readers, feel freeto comment or e-mail me at twentyfiveand0@hotmail.co.uk - Don't forget to check out the What Have I Been Playing pages found on the right! OR Check out my channel at www.youtube.com/ike1luv

Stage 3 - Part 9 - "It's Just Too Easy!"

This was actual discussed: Aiming down the sights.
Red Orchestra 2 = 0.7s
Call of Duty (B.O) = 0.5s

This article danced its way into my world recently and, as everything does, gave me pause for thought. For those who cannot be bothered to read it, it outlined not just the fact that Call of Duty had ruined first-person shooter players, but how. In summary, the developers had shrunk the learning curve dramatically, meaning other games looking to take on the market were literally forced to basically become "copy-cats" of the franchise. During the testing process of Red Orchestra 2, a lot of the players were crying for a more "CoD" style, frustrating developers and leading them down an unoriginal and less inspired path.

One thing I can speculate on in this regard, is that Call of Duty has indeed brought a huge increase in the amount of traffic in the video games industry. Its popularity is almost incomparable, and sales of consoles should almost be thankful to the franchise for its aid. This is of course, at the expense of what games used to be; challenging.

The question I would like to pose to developers all over is what is really more important to them? What Tripwire Interactive appear to be protesting is their lack of freedom to do what they dreamed of doing from the start. It is down to the popularity of video games and one video game in particular that has quashed the vision of creativity and individuality outright. The reason I always loved video games was that same freedom of creativity, exploration and experiment, however their accessibility and global reach have meant the culture has become stronger, broken out from the underground and accepted as an official member of the Entertainment sector. Gamers do not need to shy away from potential judgement, and developers can create bigger and better games. This is mostly in the mainstream video games market, however, and perhaps this is the problem involved in developers making their games. If they are looking for big budget projects to earn big numbers, they need to play by the rules of supply and demand. If the public want "CoD" then other developers have to deliver something close enough to it that it could almost be a spin off of the same game. Either that, or the developer has enough of a solid following that it can create its own franchise and comfortably set itself aside from other products. Fifa and Pro Evo played off each other over the years, where Konami put forward a far more arcade-style with EA consistently playing the Simulation card. Konami were consistent to a point, but realised that they needed to change their design somewhat to keep up with the sales of the ever-growing popularity of Fifa. At one point, they actually performed better in ratings than Fifa, which then forced Fifa to become more accessible much like the Pro Evo series; this is how I understood it based on forums, ratings and hearsay. The same thing happened to sandbox games, between Grand Theft Auto and the Saints Row series; it is a battle of wits that transpires over a matter of years.

More than $20m has been pledged already since the end of 2012.

But it is not something that developers alone have to consider, and there is some undeniable evidence that they have not suffered alone in the battle of corporate business suffocating the creative ingenuity. Kickstarter last year allowed nearly $85,000,000 worth of investment go towards the video game industry, funding consoles, art work, comics, books and of course independent companies to build, design and publish their very own concepts. True gamers understand the vast potential of constant originality in the games world, and thus put their own money forward to encourage it. The market in which the article is regarding is not for these gamers, but for the 'generic' gamers. Call of Duty, Fifa, Halo, Gears of War; they are some of the big budget, "Hollywood" titles that not only play to new gamers, but old as well, and thus they hit a broader group, and become a challenge to those developers trying to break into the same reach.

From where I sit, while my utter disdain for the CoD series holds strong, it is a simple case of 'fair play' in the game development world. If a company have stumbled on an idea or design that has rocked gamers to their core on a grand scale, then they are deserving of a standing ovation and a heavy collection of awards to boot; after all you cannot argue with the sales figures. Nor can you really argue the motive of a video game - to entertain. Developers should not fret that they are not hitting the same grand fanbase that others are, unless of course it is causing severe unpopularity or lack of funds, but instead should understand that not everyone can be on top at once, and not everyone will appreciate it when they ignore what they have done well and been rewarded for, for the sake of an extra buck.

If you have anything you wish to share with me or indeed the readers, feel freeto comment or e-mail me at twentyfiveand0@hotmail.co.uk - Don't forget to check out the What Have I Been Playing pages found on the right! OR Check out my channel at www.youtube.com/ike1luv

Stage 3 - Part 8 - "Man In The Mirror"

I had a weird dream the other night, wherein I was playing a video game so good, that I burst into tears and began writing letters to people in my past whom I had once wronged; I was a changed being, a better being, with greater moral values, a whole new belief structure and felt happiness beyond that of a hyena on ecstasy.

As usual with dreams like this, I could not for the life of me remember what the hell I was playing, but it did get me wondering if there could ever be such a game that could move a very large majority of players in the same way. I'm not just talking about the industry altering moment where Aeris died, or the first time you hijacked a car in GTA 3, but a game that gets under your skin. A game that will not just make you shake like a giddy pug in the cold, or call your friends and scream unintelligible shit for 5 minutes (Yes, I have done these things), but will possibly take the wind from your sails and force a kind of self realisation that leaves you speechless and either particularly proud or profoundly humbled.


Gamers love statistics, and knowing how you have stacked up on your kills, purchases, money earned, travelling distances can give the player a good idea of how they have been playing the game. In some games, you can set attributes of your character before even playing the game allowing the player to get a head start on creating their own alter-ego straight away. But what of the mind? What of the moral construct of the player? What of the importance of socialising over lockpicking? What does the play-style of a gamer actually say about them? This is something that has roused curiousity as of late, as there have been times playing a game wherein the simple "good and bad" construct has not seemed quite as black and white as the developer may like.

"Unlikely", you say? "Fuck you", I say! Forever dreaming of a day where a video game will create pause of thought and allow judgement of the self to take place, I would love to see a developer challenge players on, potentially, their least comfortable subject. Their own character. While morality slides has been involved in games for a good several years, it is usually a case of "You are a BAD PERSON!" or "You are a GOOD PERSON!" or "You are ON THE FENCE!", which is all very good and well, but I want to be judged on more than a hot or cold scale! The separation of "real world" to "game world" immediately alleviates the sense of responsibility, guilt and culpability. A perfectly natural reaction and indeed one of the full draws for people towards a game that measures morality; making decisions without personal consequences. It becomes more of a trial; testing someone against themself, and in some cases actually pushing the moral boundaries with surprising results. I usually play the good guy in games of "Hot or Cold" moral scales, just because I find it more rewarding and actually in trial, it turns out to be more fun, for me. I see different paths towards being "good", whether it is helping someone out, helping everyone out, or realising that an NPC is not really someone to help, and thus hinder their progress in achieving.

Development cycles for games creating such a dynamic scale can be exhaustive, I'm sure; Telltale's The Walking Dead: The Game was an incredible effort of displaying trees of story branching constantly to give the player an impression of multiple outcomes, results and consequences. What is difficult, is getting the player to feel wholly responsible, but not opening up the world so broadly that the main story or cause is lost. The other challenges arrive in the form of genuine involvement of the player. It would mean giving the player enough of a motive to force them to think very carefully about their decision. If the final goal is something of value to them and they are not sure how exactly to achieve it, the choices put forward can actually promote forethought and moral construct. This is where I would love a game to go.

I look at all the tools available for this kind of psycho-analysis, and cannot struggle to see it being put into a game; not to say it would be an easy project; but in terms of an experiment it opens up both a philosophical and psychological side of video games that perhaps can have a strong part in the mainstream market of the industry. While it is always of the utmost important to ask "Is it fun?" during the development of a game, and some will argue that indeed it is not fun to find out that actually you're a sociopath, or a sex pest, or a secretly deranged serial-killer, games have been fun and educational more times than we know. Greek Mythology has been taught in God of War, multiple corners of history are taught in the Assassin's Creed series, and heaven only knows what we have all learned about what could happen if the zombie apocalypse was in fact possible. Game developers love to get the facts right, and should it ever come to understanding people's choices and outlining the construct of their decisions, they could have a whole load of fun.

Like I have said already, no one wants to know something truly bad about themself, but it does not have to be a case wherein the player has been told they have serious parental issues or have issues with long term relationships, but if they are indeed actually honest, if they are actually easily motivated, whether or not they are actually good at making big decisions under a lot of pressure. At least, this is something I would love to see in a game. They can challenge you on your reflexes, on your conscious thought and response process, but what of the subconscious; a part of the mind the player had yet to truly explore. Can it be done? Could it be done? Would players be willing to take on that kind of challenge? Possibly. It simply becomes a matter of context. Make the right game and it could become more popular than anyone predicted. In a sense, I look at the attribute system in Fallout; and while your final character has all the attributes built the way the player wants, it would interesting if the game took all of this and then outlined what kind of person you were as a result. Just an example.

If you have anything you wish to share with me or indeed the readers, feel freeto comment or e-mail me at twentyfiveand0@hotmail.co.uk - Don't forget to check out the What Have I Been Playing pages found on the right! OR Check out my channel at www.youtube.com/ike1luv

Stage 3 - Part 7 - "I really, REALLY love Medieval Fantasy games"

So I was looking to expand my gaming experiences beyond "duck, shoot and boom"; looking through the demos on XBLM left a lot to be desired, which was depressing, but I did find intrigue in a particular title, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. Now I do not venture fully into the fantasy world often; the last time I took a tour, I fought a dragon and traded the game in within 24 hours*, previous to that I believe it was Baldur's Gate. Every now and then I dip a toe in, take a look around, get a pang of deja vu and leave again.

During the demo of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, it suddenly hit me why I had never really embraced this genre sooner, and why I could never get truly stuck in like the rest of the 'nerdomites' (My word... it's mine).

IN ORDER TO VALIDATE THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT

Endless Possibilities
For one, as the genre could communicate, it has limitless possibilities on its design, theme, presentation, even in-game language and context. You remember Kameo? You could transform into loads of different species of crazy animals and monsters. Well, those days aren't over; of course there are going to be gigantic worlds with forestation everywhere, and caves, and then a village, and maybe a house on its own with a lonely person in it. Of course there will be some deserted run down village which has been "deserted for years", and dungeons with giant bugs in it. I mean, come on, there's creativity and imagination at play, to some extent I think they're abusing it.

The Names
My favourite part by a long way are the names. Names that somehow appear to translate to "Grand Warrior of the West Country" or "The Great Wizard of the Top 3 Tallest Mountains in the Region", when really they probably have a unique formula for generating these names that have absolutely no meaning at all. I picture a building where they have several private booths set up; each booth with a male and female participant, and either a table, or a glass of freshly squeezed lemon juice with the bitter skin of oranges, or black pepper and really hard mathematical equations to solve... you ready for this?

In the room with the table, the participant, with the recording equipment in place, is to kick the corner of the table and ultimately stub his/her toe, and blurt out any sort of semi-profane words they can think of. These are noted and split into categories of Good, Bad, Elven, Human, etc. For example:

"SHIIIIII-HAAAAA" - Shia - Queen of "X" - Good (???), possibly neutral

"FUKSHI-OOOOO" - Fookshio - Wanderer - Willing to team up with you, specialist in close combat and stealth

The participants with the juice/skin mixture, would be blindfolded, and made to drink the liquid and very much do the same: "EEERRRRRRGH-EEEHTH!", "AAAAHMMLAAAAMLAAAM". The black pepper and maths? Well, try it yourself. Out loud, solve an equation with black pepper sat under your nose. You get the idea.

The Story
So you start of as a stranger, lost, probably in a cave somewhere, with no idea how you got there, what you're doing there and why you should care. You walk for some time, and you come across an NPC who suddenly freezes and goes "My God! You are real", or "The Gods were right, you returned!", or "You are alive! The prophecies have manifested to be true", or "He exists... All this time... How can this be?", or "Everyone told me you were dead, that you could never return, well, they'll see who is mad now!". You're standing there like, "DUH! Of course I'm the fucking ONE, that guy you've been searching for or whatever, otherwise this would be a really dull game! Geeeeeeeez... so why am I the one? What's going on?"; the game then proceeds to leave you in the dark until the very end where you fight some dude who knew all along that he was going to fight you, heaven forbid he did not choose the START of the fucking game, and then you're all like "OOOOOOOOOOOHHH!".

Of course, along the way you may join a guild, help some people kill some stuff and delve a little too further into someone's personal life than you should be comfortable with. Seriously, these designers a-BUSE their freedom of creativity. Or they used this.

The Apparel/Armory
I actually think this is clever. Hundreds of developers, hundreds of titles, and yet they all unite in the naming and design of gear and weaponry up until the very last few minutes of the game where you grab the "Sword of (Insert World Name Here)". You know you are in it for the long haul when you rape a corpse of its clothing, coins and the odd rat hide, and for the next 30 minutes you are picking up "Dirty Leggings", "Worn Gloves", "Tattered Cloth". Then, oh? What's this? Steel Plated Gauntlets? Hello there! Iron Dagger? Ooh! What next? Could it be? Oh, yes it is, the Crossbow. Huzzah!

But we cannot ever forget the magic. The elements need always play a part, for that I have nothing. Personally, I see elemental magic as the girl who flashes her pants "accidentally" at house parties and gets "wasted" so she can be "taken advantage of". She probably would not be missed, but it wouldn't really be a proper party without her. You go girl.

Outside the Game
Perhaps this is personal to me, but I had a rather traumatic experience as a child wherein I turned up to a school play dressed for the wrong show. Everyone saw me, I cried, everyone saw me cry, I think I took more of the attention of the audience than the play itself. It was harrowing. I believe it is because of this I hate costumes, dressing up, fancy dress, and all the sort. I cannot stand it. Even on other people. This is actually true by the way, if you ever have the pleasure of meeting one of my friends they will tell you, I hate fancy dress. It is because of this, that cosplayers could seen as the halo topped nuns and priests in my personal emporium of goodness and pleasantries. Why not dress as a wizard? Why not dress as a warrior? Oooh, which generic race are you? Awesome! I bet it feels amazing to know you look like a jester from a medieval dungeon of freaks, while on the inside there is a nagging voice questioning how every tiny decision and turn of events have brought you twisting and winding to the moment where you look in the mirror at a party and go... "I am Druxlor, Mage of Umbtka. I can't wait to drink till my make up melts off my face and some dude shoves a carrot up my arse while I'm passed out."

Oh, and finally, "I used to hate jokes that never changed or evolved or were never funny in the first place... then I took an arrow to the joke..."

*Please send all hate mail to twentyfiveand0@hotmail.co.uk

If you have anything you wish to share with me or indeed the readers, feel free to comment or e-mail me at twentyfiveand0@hotmail.co.uk - Don't forget to check outthe What Have I Been Playing pages found on the right! OR Check out my channel at www.youtube.com/ike1luv