brittregay-blog

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Be My Player Two?

Talk Nerdy To Me Vol.4

In the spirit of Valentine’s Day this past month, I wanted to focus on couple gamers and those who game with their significant other. What could be better than sharing your favorite hobby with your favorite person?! For me, this is a relatively new experience. In all my previous relationships I was the gamer and none of my past boyfriends expressed the slightest interest in gaming. Crazy-- I know! Which is why I love that in my current relationship I am able to share my love of gaming with my boyfriend, who’s just as a big of a gamer as me! Whether he’s eating my dust in Mario Kart or dragging me through Aperture Labs in Portal 2 at speed that would even make GLaDOS mildly amused, being able to share our love of gaming has allowed us to connect in a way I have never experienced before. Other than just helping me collect all the Wumpa fruit in Crash, playing together has strengthened our relationship in unexpected ways.

COUPLES WHO GAME TOGETHER, STAY TOGETHER There’s nothing like your partner seeing you buckle under the pressure of a group of Clickers barreling your way, but in the end you're better for it! Not only does your partner make you a better gamer, but you two bond over these shared experiences and learning how to fail in front of each other. No one is perfect at every game but playing together allows the opportunity to balance each others strengths and weaknesses. One of you may be the explorer, puzzle solver, and stealth master while the other has quicker reflexes and is a fantastic sharpshooter and gunzerker. Personally, I'm awful at driving in games (with exception of Mario Kart) and I immediately pass the controller when a driving mission comes up. You don't even want to know what the streets of Gotham looked like when i was behind the wheel of the Batmobile in Arkham Knight! I love the fact that every game offers something new to us that we can both work together as a team and excel at. 

READY PLAYER ONE With all the different game genres out there, there's many ways you can play with your significant other and you can change it up depending on your mood. MMO's are a great option especially if you're in a long-distance relationship. This gives you the opportunity to spend time together even when you're apart. I interviewed many couples who hailed online gaming as a means of staying connected in ways that solely talking on the phone couldn't provide while experiencing long distance.

You also have the option of playing against each other vs. together. If you and you're partner can handle some friendly competition then games like Super Smash Bros. can really turn up the heat on game night! While gaming can bring out the worst in some people, especially when it comes to competition, it can also bring out the best. And there's nothing like that feeling of triumph when you finally best your partner at that game that they're better at than you. While I do enjoy a good couch co-op, my favorite games are actually single-player games.I love a game with a great story behind it, but that also means there isn't a second player option for my boyfriend to play alongside me. So what do we do? Well this is where I feel like I've finally found my true gaming partner.... we still play together and just take turns! This creates memories of adventure for both of us and we turn it into our own story. Whether we are making decisions together like in Detroit Become Human or are alternating chapters in games like Uncharted, we still get to experience the game together.

POWER UPS In addition to getting to enjoy one of our favorite hobbies together, I have also discovered how gaming together has had unexpected benefits to our relationship. Couch co-op games like Overcooked and A Way Out require us to work together as a team toward a common goal. While this certainly has led to us yelling out the TV and each other to move faster under pressure, it has also taught how to better communicate to each other under pressure. Communicating is one of the most important facets in building a strong, stable relationship and it's amazing how video games are able to help facilitate that. If communication is something you want to work more on in your relationship then try adding a weekly game night into your routine and see if that helps cultivate a more communicative relationship.

Another added benefit that games teach you is patience and playing together will help you exhibit more more patience from your partner. Not everyone is an experience gamer and so you have to be willing to have the patience for your partner to not only learn the controls and rules of the game but to gain confidence in their own ability. Nothing is worse than feeling your not adequate enough to play with your significant other and be left feeling like you're holding them back.

Video games are meant to be fun, entertaining, and adventurous! Getting to experience that will your partner should be just as fun! Everyone games differently and finding what works best for you is key, but once that has been established you may find that it is one of your favorite things to do together.

[brittregay-blog]

Game Over

Talk Nerdy To Me Vol. 3

Tragedy struck the gaming community Sunday afternoon when a champion gamer’s decision to open fire at a Madden NFL 19 qualifying tournament at GLHF (Good Luck Have Fun) Game Bar in Jacksonville, FL—killing two people and injuring ten others before killing himself.

David “Bread” Katz won other Madden tournaments in 2017 and traveled from Baltimore to compete — only to be eliminated, witnesses said. But Katz wasn’t done. As his competitors continued to game Sunday, Katz got a handgun and clearly targeted other competitive gamers, walking past patrons in other parts of the restaurant and opening fire in a back room. Horrified fans watched the violence unfold on a livestream online. 

Friends, family and fans mourn victims of Madden Jacksonville shooting-- Eli ‘TrueBoy’ Clayton and Taylor ‘SpotMeplzzz’ Robertson. Clayton, 22, and Robertson, 27, were both prominent members of the competitive Madden NFL community and were beloved by fans, and other competitors in the gaming space. 

Taylor Robertson (left) and Eli Clayton | Twitter

Eli "trueboy" Clayton Clayton was a former member of the Calabasas High School football team in California is described as “one of the best in competitive Madden,” and a “frequent face in EA Majors.” Clayton boasted a 40 percent win rate, according to his EA Madden profile.  

"Elijah's family wants you to know that he was a good man. He did not believe in violence. He never even had a fistfight. He loved football and out of all the video games he could play -- he settled and mastered Madden. He made a good living gaming and he saved his earnings so he can afford to go to college to continue his education."  

Taylor "spotmeplzzz" Robertson Robertson, who was from West Virginia, had career winnings of more than $80,000 and had won the Madden NFL 17 Classic is described as “one of the toughest opponents in competitive Madden”, according to his player profile on EA Sports.  Robertson also was a first team all-state football and basketball player.

A vigil was held at the school Monday, where Robertson's friend Andrew Evans told WVNS-TV he was a couple of years younger than the star athlete so he looked up to him as a hero and that, "he was the most humble human being to have the abilities and the talents that he did."

Community As the game community bands together to mourn the loss of two of their own, there’s an additional underlying sadness that this resulted from a fellow gamer. It goes against everything that is the gaming community and strikes a cord with gamers everywhere. Gaming culture as a whole is full of wonderful giving, loving people with so many in this community who just want to help.

The Madden NFL publisher Electronic Sports released the following statement:

The entire gaming community has spent much of the past couple of days online coming to terms with the violence that unfolded in Jacksonville:

Tony Montagnino, "G-Tech," was one of the victms shot, said he was struck twice in the lower body: "One went through. The other was lodged," Montagnino tweeted. "Still doesn't feel real. Saw a lot of things today I wish I hadn't seen. But I also saw a community of people rally around each other and a massive amount of support from friends and family to check on everyone. I'm thankful for everyone of you guys in the community. I love y'all."

x D3liveranc3 x‏ (@mpinter9): “To anyone ive ever blasted or talked smack to on stream I sincerely apologize. I was always talking to the gamertag in the corner of my screen and never the human being on the other end of the sticks. Things gunna be different going forward. I respect everyone out here doing this.”

This Will Not Define Us “This will not define us." That's the message that the Jacksonville gaming community is sending out.

"We don't want to see this being what defines us," said founder and president of GAAM, Ryan Paul Daniels, in a Facebook Live Sunday night. (GAAM, or Games Arts And Music, defines itself as a culture company that throws events revolving around video games and "tries to bridge the gap between the gaming and non-gaming audience," according to its Facebook page.)

He described the gaming community as a close, tight-knit friendly and supportive group.

"A majority of my friends, I wouldn't have if it wasn't for this [gaming] community," he said in the hour-long broadcast. "This is a group of great people ... This is a group of people who don't judge one another, who care for one another, who support one another."

Daniels also said Sunday's events may have scared the gaming community. "We're all afraid now, he said. "We're afraid of where we are going to go to be with each other. We're afraid of what the media is going to say about us."

Even so, Daniels told his fellow gamers to stand up against those fears.

"It's ok to be afraid. It's what we do in the face of fear that will define us," he said. "I think, we're all standing together in this. Standing up to this fear shows what kind of people that we are. We're the people that will stand strong together. We're the kind of people that will love one another."

United We Stand As a gamer and a member of this community, this tragedy affects me very deeply. I am both bereaved and enraged that this incident was the result from a fellow gamer. For me, this community means acceptance. It means family. It means home.

These gamers gathered together to celebrate their love of gaming and compete with their fellow community members and never once anticipated that one of them would turn violent against them.

It also upsetting that during this tumultuous time in our country where people are already looking toward video games as the reasoning behind gun violence, that a gamer would do this. This tragedy will only aide in the crusade against violence and video games, which is a topic that I do want to discuss but out of respect to the victims, I will touch upon that in a future point in time.

I know this has deeply shaken our community as we regather our bearings. Tragedy unites more than it divides and gamers will be talking about this for a long time. Together we will continue to stand strong, support one another, and continue to use games for change.

[brittregay-blog]

Press Start To Play

Talk Nerdy To Me Vol. 2

THE MECCA OF GAMING

With E3 last month, the game industry is abuzz following all the showcases, gameplay and announcements. And why wouldn’t it be? This is looking to be another excellent year in gaming.

E3 is a platform for the industry to talk to the world, an opportunity to showcase our innovation and art that will define the next year of interactive entertainment. It provides a light for where gaming innovation is taking us, not just for gamers, but industry professionals as well. It’s an opportunity for professionals to see what other companies are doing and how they are leading the charge into the future of gaming.

For many professionals in the industry, E3 is a time of elation mixed with exhaustion as teams prepare for the largest gaming event of the year. It’s an opportunity for publishers, developers and retailers to meet, and it has traditionally been a place where deals and connections are made behind closed doors. As a gamer though, I still view it as the industry’s annual Mecca, where everyone in the industry comes together for one purpose: to showcase their love of games.

There was a lot of exciting coverage this year with many great titles on the horizon, but as a single-player gamer at heart, there were a couple titles that I completely fan-girled over.

LARA CROFT BECOMES THE TOMB RAIDER

Crystal Dynamics has slowly been building Lara Croft’s character to become the Lara we know from PlayStation 1--- and I gotta say, I think we’re here. The first installment of Crystal Dynamics’ Tomb Raider trilogy focused on a young, naïve Lara being hunted and forced to learn how to survive. The second title embodied Lara’s independence and need to set out on her own. Shadow of the Tomb Raider is all about mastery. As seen in the gameplay footage, Lara is no longer the prey. She has become the predator and she is not trapped in the jungle with Trinity. They are trapped in the jungle with her.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is set in a fictional lost civilization in Latin America that blends Incan, Mayan and Aztec influences. Tombs and puzzles will be more prevalent and deadlier than ever before. This makes me happy to hear, since I miss the longer, intricate puzzles that dominated the original PS1 Tomb Raider.  Also, instead of the quick ‘fetch quests’ that we saw in Rise of the Tomb Raider, side quests will be multi-step stories, where you can learn more about the community, and the history behind this world.

As Crystal Dynamics has taken their time layering the scars upon the mercurial adventurer, I look forward to seeing Lara Croft take the final steps to becoming the Tomb Raider she’s destined to be.

THROUGH THE VALLEY: TLOU 2

Five years later, and The Last of Us is still one of the greatest games in video game history. It’s ability to evoke strong human emotions such as compassion and tenderness makes it a unicorn in this industry.

E3 showcased the first gameplay trailer of The Last of Us Part II and if there is one lingering impression from it, it’s the starkness and grimness of the violence. Which Naughty Dog VP, Neil Druckmann, says is the point. The game is designed to make you feel uncomfortable. 

If the first game’s over-arching theme was the primal idea of love and the unconditional love of a parent for a child, then the second game’s primal theme is hate. Something we’ve all experienced when we see injustice being committed and something that’s easy to lose control of. Druckmann’s aim in TLOU 2 is to make the player feel that and to reflect and show the consequences of violent actions.

Unlike other games, where violent action is not intended to be meditated on, here it is different. It’s gristly and slow, with all the messy intangibles of real violence to make you reflect on. It’s not supposed to be fun. It’s supposed to be engaging—to make you feel these moments, which can be hard to watch as it should be with human suffering and cruelty.

These are the concepts that no other studio has been able to master in a game quite like Naughty Dog. For me, The Last of Us Part II is undoubtedly my most anticipated game to come out of E3. Taking place four years after the first game, I’m ready to walk in the shoes of Ellie and see how the world has turned her into resilient, survivor she’s become today.

GAME ON

While Shadow of the Tomb Raider and TLOU2 may be at the top of my most anticipated games to come out of E3, there were still several other notable titles worthy of the hype.

·CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077 is a FPS with heavy RPG-elements whose gameplay trailer left the audience in awe. It’s an ambitious crawl through a seedy city’s underbelly in a grimy, dystopian future. From the creators of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, this expansive story-driven, open world RPG is certainly one to watch out for.

·Ubisoft’s Assassins Creed: Odyssey was announced and the trailer looked breathtaking. Set in Ancient Greece during the Peloponnesian War, for the first time you get to choose a male or female protagonist. Ubi’s also hitting hard on the RPG-elements with individual pieces of armor, dialogue trees and romance options for your character. Interestingly though, it’s set several hundred years before the creation of the Assassins (AC: Origins). While only a theory, since we saw the birth of the Assassins in the last game, I wonder if we will see the birth of the Templar in this one.

·Beyond Good and Evil 2 was announced last year at E3 as a prequel to the 2003 game, Beyond Good and Evil, and this year Ubisoft showed off a new trailer that wowed long-time fans of the game. It’s confirmed that both Jade and Pey’j will be in the second game, but Jade isn’t the girl we thought we knew. It seems that she was once deemed a ‘nemisis’ and the trailer ends with Jade rushing toward Pey’j wielding a katana with rage in her eyes. Intrigued, I can’t wait to learn the origins of one of my favorite space operas.

Stay tuned each month as I use this platform to discuss, ponder, and illustrate the complexities within the game community and industry. If there are any topics you’d be interested in reading about or seeing discussed, please don’t hesitate to reach out!

[brittregay-blog]

Ready Player One

Talk Nerdy To Me Vol. 1

READY PLAYER ONE!

So, to kick this thing off… I’m Brittany Regay! I play games by day, read comics by night, and run around tomb raiding on the weekends. I decided to start this column to provide a platform to discuss, ponder, and illustrate the complexities within the game community and industry. If there are any topics you’d be interested in reading about or seeing discussed, please don’t hesitate to reach out!

WHY GAMING? At an early age, I recognized that video games were an unprecedented form of entertainment. Used to not only connect and engage players but create ownership over an authored experience that no other medium can match.

One of the truly amazing things about video games is their capacity to inspire. Games give you the opportunity to embody characters who go to wondrous places and have exciting adventures, and as a player you get to create and actively be a part of that experience. I was seven when Tomb Raider was released in 1996 and quickly Lara Croft’s adventures began an inescapable desire within me to explore.

One of the reasons I immediately identified with Lara is that she is such an inspirational character. I saw in her, not only a little piece of myself, but someone I aspired to be—adventurous, strong-willed, intelligent, articulate, resourceful—all of these great qualities that led me to embody her and tackle the world with the same level of fearlessness. The fact that something as complex as self-discovery can be found in a video game exemplifies how unique a medium video games truly are.

Since the humble beginnings of Pong, games have tremendously evolved and have shifted from being a fad to an art form. This is because the medium itself is able to offer something that no other form can—visual cues, auditory cues, and player engagement. The reason video games are completely unique in this is because: they allow players to determine their own stories at their own pace, implement new perspectives while allowing the players to experience the consequences for themselves, and reinforce independent thought and personal growth.

Games create a sense of presence that we control the way we take in the experience and balance engagement and interactivity. There are some games that transcend their medium and transport you into a different world that is so engrossing, that it actually starts to feel real to you.

Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us is a masterful example of weaving together storytelling and gameplay. The game’s macabre world recognizes your every ounce of hope and joy and slaps them out of you with frighteningly cold indifference, but in the end, you’ll be glad for the experience. Because, other games aside, no other entertainment medium can evoke such raw emotion and can make you care so passionately about its characters. It’s this level of engagement that differentiates video games from any other form of media.

This was why video games have always spoken to me and what inspired me to try to turn my hobby into my dream life. In visiting these fantasy worlds, battling these imaginary enemies, and exploring uncharted lands, I discovered my true self. Through these experiences, I recognized that I want to be a part of an industry I feel passionate about and be involved with this community. With the video game industry continuing to grow at a rapid pace, it will be interesting to see what the next level of gaming will look like and how the medium will evolve.

[brittregay-blog]

Atlanta’s Got Game

As published in Hub Magazine, March 2018 Edition

Atlanta’s competitive gaming scene has grown significantly in the last few years. The rise is due to Georgia’s ‘Film, Television and Digital Entertainment Tax Credit,’ which offers tax credits for up to 30% of in-state film production costs. But one unexpected result of the tax incentive is how rapidly Atlanta has become one of the top cities in the U.S. for gaming. Due to the ‘Digital Entertainment’ aspect of the initiative, Georgia is home to over 115 game development studios, including industry leaders like Hi-Rez Studios, CCP and Tripwire Interactive. 

According to a new report by gaming data company SuperData Research, the eSports industry generated over $1.5 billion in revenue. Last year, the global competitive gaming industry was estimated to generate US$1.5 billion in annual revenues by 2020, with an estimated US$660 million in 2017. The eSports industry is growing far faster than industry experts anticipated with little signs of slowing down. 

This growth potential motivated Turner Broadcasting to launch their own Atlanta-based initiative into eSports in 2016 – ELEAGUE, which airs on TBS and brings Turner’s production expertise to live competitive gaming broadcasts. Creating eSports events for games such as Counter Strike: Global Offensive, Street Fighter V, Overwatch and Injustice 2, ELEAGUE is the premier destination for eSports content.

Turner Broadcasting wasn’t the only Atlanta-based company to initiate premium eSports tournaments. Local independent game development studios, Blue Mammoth and Hi-Rez Studios, also enacted their own annual championships. Blue Mammoth’s 2nd annual BCX: Brawlhalla Championship took place last November, with top players from around the world competing in a $100,000 prize pool in the battle royale game, Brawlhalla. Hi-Rez Studios just had their biggest annual event, Hi-Rez Expo (HRX) in January, featuring the best teams from around the globe competing against each other in the SMITE and Paladins World Championships.

With such a rapidly growing tech sector, the Atlanta gaming community has evolved with it, with new organizations emerging to help foster its growth, such as Pharaoh’s Conclave (PCX). PCX strives to be the connectors of the eSports and gaming ecosystem, from a macro to micro perspective. Involved in all key levels of the industry, they possess the expertise, network, and passion to connect, inform, and engage all the participants in this vast and uncharted arena. From participating in industry events, such as DreamHack Atlanta and SIEGE Con, to hosting workshops and eSports invitationals, PCX provides the tools needed to navigate and evolve in this growing industry.

Launched in 2017, the Georgia Esports League (GEL) is a service of the nonprofit Georgia Game Developers Association (GGDA), allowing varsity college teams around the state to compete for internships at video game studios as well as scholarships. The League hosts tournaments around Georgia in addition to a state championship and is open to public universities, technical school and private colleges. The GEL is the first eSports league to provide internships as well as scholarships, with aims in assisting students in pursuing a career in the game industry.

The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) reported that in 2017, the video game industry added $168 million to Georgia’s economy with an annual 5% growth rate. As the industry continues to grow on its projected track, it will bring jobs to Atlanta and economic growth for Georgia.   

[brittregay-blog]

My passion for gaming originated in my childhood with my first Sony PlayStation. Video games are an unparalleled form of media that has created such a diverse community; connecting and engaging players all over the world. I have battled the Dahaka. I followed in the footsteps of Sir Francis Drake and discovered the lost treasure of El Dorado. I am the Dragonborn. I raid tombs on the weekends, and I liberate towns from Templar oppression. I am as adventurous as Lara Craft, as courageous as Nathan Drake, and as driven as Ezio Auditore. In visiting these fantasy worlds, battling these imaginary enemies, and exploring uncharted lands, I discovered my true self. Through these experiences, I recognized that I want to be a part of an industry I feel passionate about and be involved with the teams that create, distribute, and promote these games.