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Critical Analysis

Malkowski, J, & Russworm, TM (eds) 2017, Gaming Representation: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Video Games, Indiana University Press, Bloomington. Available from: ProQuest Ebook Central.

The author of this book is Jennifer Malkowski and TreaAndrea M. Russworm, although there are some co-authors I think I’m going to introduce those marked on the cite. Jennifer Malkowski is an Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies, at Smith College and also the founder of the college’s Video Game Research Lab. She teaches about digital media and focuses on the topics of race, death, and gender in the media. TreaAndrea M. Russworm is a Professor of Interactive Media & Games Division at the University of Southern California, she teaches courses on video games, television, and streaming platforms. We all know that in recent years, there has been a growing focus on identity and representation in the gaming industry, the author found that although journalists and bloggers who have public volume have brought this topic to the table and game developers are in the same chat room, there’s still lack academic discussions about the representation in such a new media so she decides to gather scholars in related field to publish this book. The page I chose to analyze is talking about gender in games, especially women. The author makes 5 points and arguments in these two pages, the first one is “The historical context of Femme Fatale”, first the author starts from the historical perspective and points out that this kind of character concept appeared in 1940s Hollywood, particularly in film industry, offering powerful female setup besides being a secondary role, the Femme Fatale was portrayed into smart, sexually attractive, and powerful, breaking away from the domestic roles traditionally given to women in the movie industry. This context provide the argument that the femme fatale was an innovative character, offering diversity and power for women in the movie industry, something rare at that time.

The second point is “Misogyny in the movie industry”, the author compares the “contemporary video game industry” with “1940s Hollywood's misogyny” arguing both have problems with female representation, and sometimes portrayal of women often remains problematic, the author made the analysis through history of femme fatale related to contemporary discussions about gender in video games.

The third point is “Femme Fatale as a Solution?”, the author points out “femme fatale” could be a good example for video games to create a female main character, because The femme fatale character type can provide strength performance and diverse ability to perform anything for the game needed, and the most important part is also being attractive at the same time. The author argues that this kind of character type is an ideal character to make the gaming industry balance, creating an appealing character for both male and female audiences.

The fourth point is “ The misuse or not enough representation of femme fatale.”The author criticizes the lack of playable femme fatales in video games, she takes “Max Payne 2” and “Heavy Rain” as examples and argues that when such femme fatale-like characters appear they often narrate their weakness or do not fully realize their power.

The fifth point is “Challenges in Adapting the Femme Fatale to Video Games”, the author first argues that because this kind of character is not built to fight enemies face to face, they use tricks and strategy to fight more than physical which could make it difficult to adapt to a video game format, where violence and action are central to most of the video games. Then the author acknowledges that the femme fatale relies on society's growth because the resistance is not due to mechanical limitations but rather a cultural issue within gaming culture in which men are afraid of the rise of women's presence. However, this part sounds subjective because of the lack of examples and the process of logical inference.

Why is the text interesting? First of all, I’m not from a culture that digs into gender and representation this much, it’s hard to see different kinds of skin color on the street in my country and I didn’t feel gender equality problem in my life at all and seldom heard from my friend. I heard there are D.E.I (Diversity, equity, and inclusion) problems in the gaming industry recently but I don’t know why this is the thing to makes people choose a side, I always think “Let money talk” for making games, nothing will happen if you make good games. It was kind of a culture shock when I realized this is such a big topic after I arrived UK, I still remember the moment I searched “What is “I pronounce” mean?” on the phone during class. Okay, I went a little bit far let me back to the topic.

The arguments presented in these two pages are interesting and important for me because the author went through the issues in both the past and present, especially in the Hollywood movies industry and the video game industry. The text starts by using the example of the character “Femme Fatale” in the film “Noir” to highlight a time mark about the iconic character type that represents women, exploring how these character types can be used and increase gender dynamics. In conclusion, the author finds that history seems to happen again by comparing the different media, it’s reasonable that we took the movie industry as an example to see the new kid which is the game industry.

I think the primary purpose of these two pages of text is to criticize the current state of female representation in video games through the historical aspect of women's representation in Hollywood films especially using the “Femme Fatale” in the film “Noir”. First, the author seeks to analyze the character “Femme Fatale”, and then points out the gaps in the video game industry, the next step is to propose a solution by providing the character type “Femme Fatale” which was analyzed at the beginning, and call for culture to change. In conclusion, the purpose of the text is trying to call readers to rethink the way women are represented in video games.

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10. Pushing limits...or not

Before running into the topic, I want to briefly talk about brand placement in video games. We all know brand placement as a kind of traditional commercial trick, a company pays or cooperating with film and television works like movies and animations to incorporate their product into the works to get public volume, there are some famous examples like the 007 series, James Bond is always wearing an OMEGA watch and driving Aston Martin. Especially in Skyfall, the company paid $45 million to let Bond drink Heineken, maybe you will doubt “Is it worth it?” “45 million sounds like a lot,” “but Bond is a global property. If you break it down into all the different countries that the company would be advertising in, anyway, it doesn’t seem so much. Heineken also knows that people will be watching a Bond film for decades, so it’s not as if they’re paying for a one-off ad. They’re paying to become known as a premium brand in the long term. It’s more about shifting perceptions than shifting products.”(Chris Sice, managing director of Blended Republic) We can tell although brand placement is an old commercial strategy for publicity anything, it’s still works! This strategy also works in the game industry, like Monster Energy in Death Stranding.

Fig 1. Monster Energy drink in Death Stranding as a consumable object(post by Gejzirowski)

We all know that making a triple-A game “A lot of money, A lot of resources, A lot of time” There’s never too much money and commercial support, while it takes so much time making games, having some income other from product selling itself is always something game company love to see. While game companies started using 3D or even VR engines to create games, there are research that discovered that brand placement seems to work worse on 3D and VR versions than on 2D versions!? “Presence was highest in the VR video game and lowest in the 2D video game, presence in the 3D game was in between.” (Johanna Roettl, Ralf Terlutter) It means the presence level varies inversely with how effective brand placement are, how’s that? “Brand placements suffer by an increase of the video game technology. We expect that performing the primary task of playing the game likely needs more cognitive resources (i.e. higher cognitive load) in the VR and the 3D video game as compared to the 2D video game, hence, these cognitive resources are no longer available for performing secondary tasks, such as processing and memorizing the brand placements in the game.” (Johanna Roettl, Ralf Terlutter, The same video game in 2D, 3D or virtual reality – How does technology impact game evaluation and brand placements? 2018) Just like some people will get dizzy playing 3D video games, not to mention VR games, I get dizzy after 3 minutes of racing in the VR world but I’m fine playing 3D games. Since technology keeps pushing our playing experience to a more “Realistic” level, the traditional marketing way might not work as well as it used to.

Bibliography:

Roettl J, Terlutter R. The same video game in 2D, 3D or virtual reality - How does technology impact game evaluation and brand placements? PLoS One. 2018 Jul 20;13(7):e0200724. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0200724. PMID: 30028839; PMCID: PMC6054385.

Barber, N. (2022) Does Bond’s product placement go too far? https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20151001-does-bonds-product-placement-go-too-far.

Fig1. Wiki, C. to D.S. (no date) Monster Energy. https://deathstranding.fandom.com/wiki/Monster_Energy?file=Monster_Energy.jpeg.

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9. Gender in the virtual world

“By design, the femme fatale neither alienates men nor demeans and bores women. She is an erotic object but also an active subject— in fact, one of the most active female character types in film that could be translated into the action-based medium of video games.”(JENNIFER MALKOWSKI, Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Video Games, 2017) We all know that in the early days of the video game industry, as player characters, female characters appeared in a particular role: Super charming, erotic, and strong, the best example of this character is Lara Croft, the protagonist of Tomb Raider(1996). But we can see how the female protagonist changed their role from time to time by the recent sequel of Tomb Raider(2015), the body type is more realistic and the costume is more practical that fit the mission she is facing.

Fig. 1 The box/cover art of TOMB RAIDER(1996) can or could be obtained from Core Design and Eidos Interactive.

Fig.2 The cover art for Rise of the Tomb Raider(2015). The cover art copyright is believed to belong to Crystal Dynamics.

However, as supporting characters, they are sometimes vulnerable and waiting for rescue. Like Princess Peach in the Mario series, she gets kidnapped most of the time.

Fig.3 This is stock art by Nintendo, representing Princess Peach in her normal attire

But there are also support characters that have femme-fatale way personas, like Ada Wang from the Resident Evil series, she is charming, mysterious, skillful, and definitely not a vulnerable character. From Resident Evil 2 (1998) to Resident Evil (2012), this femme fatale persona never changed and the public gave a positive response to this kind of characterization, but her appearance in Resident Evil 4 had been criticized for being overtly sexualized.

Fig.4 Ada Wong, in Resident Evil 4 (2005). copyright belongs to Capcom.

We can see those characters with strong “Female” stereotypes are mostly belong to the sequels that published around the year 2000, it’s hard to find some impractical costumes or certain kinds of stereotype missions in new release games, I’m not judging whether this is good or not but we can see the industry is changing.

Bibliography:

Malkowski, J, & Russworm, TM (eds) 2017, Gaming Representation : Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Video Games, Indiana University Press, Bloomington. Available from: ProQuest Ebook Central. [31 December 2024].

Fig1. Wikipedia contributors (no date) File:Tomb Raider (1996).png - Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tomb_Raider_(1996).png.

Fig2. File:Rise of the Tomb Raider.jpg - 维基百科,自由的百科全书 (no date). https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rise_of_the_Tomb_Raider.jpg.

Fig3. Wikipedia contributors (no date a) File:Princess Peach Stock Art.png - Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Princess_Peach_Stock_Art.png.

Fig4. Wikipedia contributors (no date a) File:Ada in Resident Evil 4.png - Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ada_in_Resident_Evil_4.png.

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8. Affect, emotion, Kratos

God of War (2018) is a video game made by Santa Monica Studio(Sony Interactive Entertainment) and it is the eighth installment in the God of War series. Kratos is still the protagonist in this installment, but different from killing every Greek god in all the previous sequels, this time he becomes the father and a man who buried all his past and seeks peace. “The public of video games has witnessed the evolution of this medium and has seen how the content of the games that occupied the shelves of the stores was increasingly gaining in quality and narrative complexity.”(Pablo Medina, Kratos, Mythical Father. 2020) As a player who has had this sequel company since I was a little boy, I feel something when controlling the father Kratos, we grew up together. To me, playing video games is not all about defeating your virtual enemy anymore, it is about mapping myself to the character and feeling the aesthetic affect of the game.

This is the part I think can represent all the affect and emotions of this installment, in this part, Kratos had no choice but to retrieve the weapon that represents his cruel past, you can tell his hands are shaking, and the movement is hesitant. This is one of the biggest emotional moments in video game history, an old man retrieves his past to save his son. If the player has never played any other God of War sequels before and their reaction will just be “Oh, dual blade”, but the player who knows the past of Kratos “(Crying, can’t say a single word) “When we talk about reaching the heart of the audience, we do not mean just selling tickets. This is the logical consequence of the impact and thrill caused by art.” (Pablo Medina, 2020) As stories started to pile up, games are more than games than ever, it’s about the “true story” that happened in the virtual world that company us for decades, and maybe more.

Bibliography:

Fig1. RabidRetrospectGames (2018) Kratos gets The Blades of Chaos - God of War 4 (PS4 Pro) - God of War 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR9TzSFZ_-E.

Medina, Pablo. "Kratos, Mythical Father." Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics, vol. 43, no. 4, winter 2020, pp. 90+. Gale Literature Resource Center, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A643395609/LitRC?u=anon~ad6ebbcf&sid=googleScholar&xid=6a5a6a6e. Accessed 31 Dec. 2024.

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7. Representation, Stereotype, Interactivity and "Skul: the hero Slayer"

At the moment The Devil Lord leads his/her demon army to invade the human world, a young man appears, he gathers his teammates and levels by every single fight they face, and finally defeats The Devil Lord. Sounds familiar right? Hero, usually a white man who brings “justice” and saves the world from the Devil, is the character that exists in every single medium and even one of the earliest fantasy story material. the reason why can this kind of story is so popular is simple: Everyone must at least imagine once being the hero to save the world when they are still young. But the game I’m about to mention works in the totally reversed direction, you are going to be the weakest small skull in the demon army that died and revived, again and again, trying to rescue The Devil Lord. This game has 46000+ VERY POSITIVE reviews on Steam(the biggest PC game platform), and won bunch of indie game awards.

Fig1. the Official Launch Trailer of Skul: The Hero Slayer

Why is that? Is being a typical hero not welcome today? I won’t say that, being a typical Hero is still the majority material nowadays, but! I can tell the representation of “Justice” is not always a positive adjective and has even been talked about in sarcastic way in society recently, sometimes it represents some kind of stubbornness and paranoia.

“The concept of portraying evil and then destroying it - I know this is considered mainstream, but I think it is rotten. This idea that whenever something evil happens someone particular can be blamed and punished for it, in life and in politics is hopeless.” -(Hayao Miyazaki 宮崎駿, Animation Director)

Since Justice is not stuck on the stereotype anymore, everyone has their own Justice and people prefer to stand for the weak so the weak skul becomes the ones people stand for this time. (Maybe the game is too fun to play which causes the interactivity to overwhelm the narrative… A pretty fun game for sure, I already spent 50 hours being a cute skul.

Bibliography:

Fig1. IGN (2021) SKUL: The Hero Slayer - official launch trailer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqk8JL76fXI.

“The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness”, (November 16, 2013) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3204392/quotes/?item=qt5902556&ref_=ext_shr_lnk

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6. Are you implying a particular way of seeing things?

「只要一點點光，就能帶我們到很遠的地方」“Just a bit of light, can take us far away.”(-李屏賓, Director of Photography, Taiwanese) As a student working in the 3D virtual world most of the time, it’s normal for us to focus on the interaction between light, objects, and the medium that affects the light bounce… Even in the real world. Although sometimes it became hard to enjoy a beautiful scene because I’d start analyzing the structure automatically, I became more sensitive about what was happening around me and captured many interesting scenes from my daily life.

“See that house with the Ivy on it? From that rooftop, what if you leaped onto the next rooftop, dashed over that blue & green wall, climbed and jumped up the pipe, ran across the roof and jumped to the next? You can, in animation.” If you could walk along the cable, you could see the other side. When you look from above, so many things reveal themselves to you. Maybe race along the concrete wall. Suddenly, there in your humdrum town there is a magical movie. Isn’t it fun to see things that way? Feels like you could go somewhere far beyond… …maybe you can…”-(Hayao Miyazaki 宮崎駿, Animation Director) I like the way how Hayao Miyazaki sees the world, if we add more observation and some imagination into our daily life everything will be different “Where is that bus heading?” “The grass looks shiny today!” “The neon light reflect from the water after rain looks so unreal.” We are living in a more splendid world than we imagine. Apart from actually “seeing” things, as one of those Highly Sensitive People, making misunderstandings and uncomfortable others is the worst thing I can ever imagine and it will haunted me for a very long time after once it happened. I started to set another me floating in the air behind the people I’m facing when having the conversation to analyze why they said that and whether my words might cause misunderstanding. Tired but interesting, I highly recommend for everyone to try it.

Bibliography:

“The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness”, (November 16, 2013) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3204392/quotes/?item=qt5902556&ref_=ext_shr_lnk

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5. "What is the Bechdel test, and how does it relate to representation? What do you find out? Justify your reasons and comments"

The Bechdel test is actually not a formal “test”, it’s Alison Bechdel's newspaper comic strip “Dykes to Watch Out For.” There’s a scene of a woman talking about she only watches the movie that meets the following three conditions. 1.The movie has to have at least two named women in it, 2.who talk to each other, 3.about something besides a man. It becomes the measurement of the representation of women in artworks like films and movies, if a movie doesn’t fill the condition means the female character doesn’t have enough woman representation. I did some research about this test and I know the “passing rate” is lower than everyone expected, but I don’t want to bring that statistical information to the table because anyone can search it on the internet.

The thing I want to discuss is how a movie was made.

First thing first, we need a script. Where does the script come from?

Based on a true story, existing artworks like novels, or it’s a originated script (speculative screenplay) picked up by the team? Before you judge a movie that doesn’t pass the Bechdel test, I think finding the original script to see whether it passed or not and exploring why is more practical because it’s meaningless to add something intentional into the movie just to fit those conditions. If the “problem” is on the script director? Why do they write things based on a male perspective? We all know that the movie industry is business-oriented if a male-perspective movie makes more money and there is no reason for the team to choose something that makes less money just like sports! Female athlete fight for their right to equal pay but if the box office is just lower(earn less money for the team) there’s no reason they get paid equally. I know this sounds mean but this is a fact, sports fans are always pursuing the highest performance to watch and the movie is a kind of action-based performance, as long as action movies are one of the most popular categories the number won’t be balanced statistically.(If they are fighting the whole film the chance of having well-developed female characters will be low.)

“Hollywood movies are about people on the extremes of society — cops, criminals, superheroes — [which] tend to be men." Such films were more often created by men because "women's movie ideas" were mostly about relationships and "aren't commercial enough for Hollywood studios"(-Kyle Smith, National Review, 2017) Of course, the above citation is talking about the business model of Hollywood only.

If the scriptwriters know from the start that male-perspective stories have “more chance” of making more money, why do they need to change? There are already many examples of 3A games that got into big trouble because they follow the trend of political correctness for some reason(or we called it DEI, Diversity, equity, and inclusion), there’s no way for them to take any risk just to pass this “test”.

Perhaps the fundamental problem is, how we make female perspective stories marketable.

Bibliography:

Smith, Kyle (July 10, 2017). "If You Like Art, Don't Take the Bechdel Test". National Review. Archived from the original on July 18, 2017. Retrieved July 18, 2017.

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4. Semiotics and "Traditional Chinese words"

As Taiwanese, we are one of the last two countries that use traditional(unsimplified) Chinese characters, which are the only logograms still used worldwide. The traditional Chinese characters originate from oracle bone inscriptions, a kind of mature development hieroglyph words used in East Asia 1500BC. It’s fun to realize that while the alphabet is symbolic as signification, the oracle bone inscriptions are indexical as signification. Although as time changes traditional Chinese characters are not hieroglyphs anymore and it became mostly iconic as signification we still maintain some features of drawing out the features of the object in our words.

Fig.1 How 龜(turtle) looks like the actual turtle(I made this image)

I think the word “龜(turtle)” is a good example of the trace of being indexical. Somehow this complicated word never changes from the beginning, I believe we can all recognize this looks like a turtle when you tilt your head to the right!

Fig.2 How 火(fire) is written around 1500BC

In the traditional Chinese words we are using, instead of drawing the whole object, we took some features from the object and combined them with other icons to become another word. Like the words “火(fire)” we can see it makes sense when you ask someone to draw fire with four strokes. “炭(coal)” the layer above the fire, “燙(hot)” the soup on the fire, “災(disaster)” fire burning and the smoke above, “炎(flame)”. Although this looks very fun I can’t imagine learning this as a non-first language, with respect to those who dare to challenge!

Bibliography:

Fig2. File:火-oracle.svg - Wikimedia Commons (no date). https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%E7%81%AB-oracle.svg.

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3. Medium Specificity and how to define video games

“For some time, questions about what defines video games could be disregarded following the logic of scholars like Carroll (1985, 1996) who critique medium specificity for leading to overly determinist frameworks and minimizing the way forms of expression are practically experienced, in short, accusations of “media essentialism.” Even as digital media scholars like Bogost (2007) and Galloway (2006) have made notable attempts to rhetorically delineate video games through decisive characteristics like “procedural rhetoric” and “action”, respectively, video games continue to present difficulties for scholars hoping to fit the entire semantic category into preexisting discursive models. This is because a given video game might at once be approached as a source code, a social networking platform, a graphical interface, a literal game, a series of animated moving images, a software protocol, a representation, a simulation, a design, a text, an artwork, a hypertext narrative, and so on.”-Hakimi, J. (2020). “Why Are Video Games So Special?”: The Supreme Court and the Case Against Medium Specificity. Games and Culture

I subjectively think there's no need to go that deep when talking about artworks, to divide things apart, especially telling artists what to do or don't do anything. "Medium Specificity" may be a way for people to judge the artwork itself, but Art is so subjective, if a photorealistic painting catches the viewer's heart and eyes, what is the meaning of comparing it with photos shot by a camera? You can't win the applause doesn't mean others can't either.

Let's push the time backward, I believe no one is complaining about "The colors ruining the pureness of the stroke drawn by graphite, they should only be used in dyeing things."

Sounds ridiculous right?

Since Art is the ultimate subjectivity and free thing, it doesn't mean that much to create a word to define and restrict them.

Bibliography:

Hakimi, J. (2020). “Why Are Video Games So Special?”: The Supreme Court and the Case Against Medium Specificity. Games and Culture, 15(8), 923-942. https://doi-org.ezproxy.herts.ac.uk/10.1177/1555412019857982

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2. Intertextuality and Souls-like games...and food?

The term “intertextuality” "has come to have almost as many meanings as users”(William Irwin) To me, after learning this word, I believe our society was built on intertextuality, at the very beginning when the first gestures were being created to communicate(not even need to be words), the intertextuality began. learning other’s gestures is a kind of intertextuality, In the early days, humans built their language from words by words every individual.

"Plagiarism" is the term that always appears in the comments under every Soulslike game, because they copy the playing style of the great Demon’s Souls(2009) and the Dark Souls series, however, the term “Plagiarism” is too strong for them. Miyazaki Hidetaka(The Director of From Software) created a whole new style of video games, just like Roguelike games, other game developers followed the path to create their works.

Fig1. The cover of Dark Souls 3

“The “Souls-like” role-playing video game genre was inadvertently created due to the influence of the “Souls franchise”.”(Tibor Guzsvinecz, 2021) Besides From Software, the Soulslike games created by other companies are living under the shadow of “The true Souls game” Every new release will be reviewed critically, not only being compared with those masterpieces made from From Software but also being evaluated as “Not creative", pay respect to those who dare to challenge the giant. But there are still some great souls-like games that did a good work like Remnant 2.

Fig2. Remnant concept image, Gunfire Games/Gearbox Publishing

They keep the souls-like gaming mechanism but modified into third-person shooting games that encourage cooperating with other players, this is much different than the classic Souls franchise: give the player a sword and watch them become a one-man army or a broken person. “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”-(Issac Newton) Standing on the shoulders of giants or become the giant, both works.

Back in the modern day, we read, heard, and created. Our great ancestors built the words we used, and the next generation will read the works we created, this is how culture was built.

Except not using “text”, I think the influence of two different food culture can be called as kind of intertextuality! Like Yoshoku 洋食, in Japan, after Meiji Restoration many “Western food” were imported into Japan and were modified into unique dishes, they blended perfectly sometimes you can’t even tell if they originated from Japan!

Fig3.tonkatsu, by Minseong Kim

Tonkatsu is a kind of cutlet-style fried pork and its origin in France’s fried steak and Viennese deep-fried, but it become so unique like it was born here.

Fig4. Kare Raisu, by Hal 0005

Kare Raisu is basically Japanese Curry, it’s origin from India and being modified into a less spicy and sweater version, but not like India curry, the sauce of Kare sometimes doesn’t contain the diced meat, it’s common to pair with tonkatsu and salisbury steak.

To me, Inter”text”uality, is the interaction between people, culture and everything that brings us here.

Bibliography:

Guzsvinecz, T. (2022). The correlation between positive reviews, playtime, design and game mechanics in souls-like role-playing video games. Multimedia Tools and Applications. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-022-12308-1.

Fig1. File:Dark souls 3 cover art.jpg - 维基百科，自由的百科全书 (no date). https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dark_souls_3_cover_art.jpg.

Fig2. Steam - REMNANT II® (no date). https://store.steampowered.com/app/1282100/REMNANT_II/?l=tchinese.

Fig3. File:Tonkatsu of Kimukatsu.jpg - Wikimedia Commons (2013). https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tonkatsu_of_Kimukatsu.jpg.

Fig4. File:Curry in Sapporo 20180211.jpg - Wikimedia Commons (2018). https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Curry_in_Sapporo_20180211.jpg.

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1. Interactivity, Narrative, and "Battlefield 1"

I just finished my BF1 gameplay about 30 seconds ago, and the lecture topic "Games and Narrative: Opposing Elements?" came to mind.

Just like many other shooting games, there are campaign and multiplayer modes in BF1. In campaign mode, the player experiences the true story of what once happened to a man during WW1. In multiplayer mode, all the player needs to do is aim, shoot, and drive.

The narrative of the campaign mode in Chapter 1 “Storm of Steel” is quite different if the character the player is controlling dies, after showing their name and date of birth and death on the screen, you'll switch to another character on the same battlefield, sometimes the one you switch are allies, the one besides your previous character but can do nothing but watching you died, sometimes you will switch to the enemy, the one just killed your previous character. And this cycle happened again and again. “As you and your fellow Hellfighters desperately try to push back the incoming German forces, you’ll meet death time and time again, but it won’t necessarily be your fault. Sometimes death is awkwardly forced upon you if you end up surviving longer than the script expects, because death is part of the plan.”(Chloi Rad, Battlefield 1 Review, post on IGN,2017)

Fig 1.The cinematic cutscene of BF1 Chapter 1. Storm of Steal.

Fig 2.The screenshot of the BF1 gameplay in Chapter 1. A goosebump moment: One German soldier and a USA soldier aiming at each other.

Not gonna lie, my tears dropped at the end of the chapter. The narrative style shows the cruelty and nonsense of war, you will be lost after several times of side-switching, for those soldiers who fight in the front "No one is right, no one is wrong." The best campaign game I've ever played in my life.

So, are games(interactivity) and narrative the opposing elements? My answer is "No", they are both important elements that create a game, of course, if there's 0% interactivity and it can't be called a game, we call it a Movie, novel…etc. On the other hand, we can still build games with 0% narrative. Most of the time these two elements are complementary, interactivity 30% +narrative 70% or 50:50. But this time the campaign of BF1 did such a wonderful job, you feel everything while shooting continuously.

The boundary between interactivity and narrative can be broken, and when it happens, it is the birth of a masterpiece.

Bibliography: Battlefield 1 review - IGN (2017). https://www.ign.com/articles/2016/10/21/battlefield-1-review.

Fig1&2. Ruba (2016) Battlefield 1 - Storm of Steel - All cutscenes (Cinematic). https://www.youtube.com/watchv=0JFNDl1ZC7Q.

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Reader

Magsamen, S, & Ross, I 2023, Your Brain on Art : How the Arts Transform Us, Canongate Books, Edinburgh. Available from: ProQuest Ebook Central. [31 December 2024].

The arts, by their very nature, reflect and inform the time in which they are created; they take the pulse of their time, but the artists have also been essential for forecasting the future, and serving as an early-warning system for society. The Greek chorus of classic antiquity was a creative theatrical invention that became the moral voice of civilization. The arts have spurred societal shifts: The Renaissance propelled humanity out of the Middle Ages with evocative music and visual storytelling, and the citizen artists of 1980s Germany turned the Berlin Wall into a bold tableau of political protest, to name just a couple of examples. Paola Antonelli, a senior curator at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, once aptly noted that art and design offer “a renaissance attitude that combines technology, cognitive science, human need, and beauty to produce something that the world didn’t know it was missing. Or as Christopher Bailey, the WHO’s lead for arts and health initiatives, told us, “The arts make visible what we are feeling but may not have been able to name just yet, enabling us to see that we are not alone.” At the last chapter of the book, the author quotes “The arts make visible what we are feeling but may not have been able to name just yet, enabling us to see that we are not alone.”-Christopher Bailey, the WHO’s lead for arts and health initiatives. This text means while people are all captured by all those high-tech things which provides revolution to our physical material world, the artist are expanding the world of sense behind the scene.This give me a complete different perspective to see the world, -the artist are no more working behind the scene anymore, they standing at the sideline with scientist being the pioneer of the world together. As an art school student ,this give us a whole new self-awareness that we are no longer fighting for ourselves, feeling kind of excited already.

Malkowski, J, & Russworm, TM (eds) 2017, Gaming Representation : Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Video Games, Indiana University Press, Bloomington. Available from: ProQuest Ebook Central. [31 December 2024].

“But why do games ignore the femme fatale or include her in disempowered forms? One could surmise that because the femme fatale’s power is generally social rather than physical— in other words, she deceives an enemy more often than she shoots him— her character would be difficult to adapt to the medium, as violence-based actions are so central to video games.” In Chapter 1, the author mentioned “Why do games often overlook the femme fatale or portray her in weak roles? One reason might be that her power is more about social manipulation than physical strength—she often uses deception rather than violence.” This text provides a different perspective but very basic point about why in the early days most of the main character in different kind of medium are male. Before reading this part, I used to think because most of the screenwriter is male and they always sync with their main character trying to fulfill their fantasy, it’s obvious that they can’t speculate the thoughts of different gender well so having a female character is kind of hard and unnecessary in early days medium.

Truitt, ER 2015, Medieval Robots : Mechanism, Magic, Nature, and Art, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia. Available from: ProQuest Ebook Central. [31 December 2024].

Such an interesting book, there’s a paragraph talking about how automata were understood by medievel people in a system of creation involving God, Nature, and humans. And the words “Natura artifex” has been mentioned to explain Nature's role in this system. it’s fun to understand the thoughts from religious culture and the process of adaption between technology and believing adapted to each other. It’s also interesting that while everyone is chasing the most high-tech stuff in the world in modern days, even in the field of games artists are all building future sci-fi robots and spaceships that can’t be built in existing technologies(including me), learning the thought from thousand years ago gives me a different aspect about the art style I’m pursuing and this brings me up the art style like steampunk, the retro-sci-fi style concept art. I sight are wide again, thanks a lot for the reminder!

Kidd, C 2006, The Forging of Races : Race and Scripture in the Protestant Atlantic World, 1600-2000, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Available from: ProQuest Ebook Central. [31 December 2024].

This book discusses how the Bible has influenced Western values about race. After the author delves into history, a paragraph caught my attention: The author lists out many kinds of “Race-as-…” it could be biology, ethnicity, class… I know it might be common sense for Western people to think about how they define “race”, but in Taiwan where I came from, it’s not usual to see different colors of people in my daily life. After I studied in this university I joined the volleyball representative team, I still remember asking a black person in the tryout session “Where do you come from?” He asks me back “You mean nationality or ethnicity?”, this question still stays in my mind and pops out sometimes. Yes, how to define race? Or race isn't even a word that should exist? I’ll keep thinking about this.

Enns, M. (2021). Understanding Game Scoring: The Evolution of Compositional Practice for and through Gaming (1st ed.). Focal Press.

First of all, I’m a person who can be influenced by music easily. Movies, animes, and games, as I discussed above work with anybody, and the element of music always plays a huge part in my overall score.This book talks about a lot of techniques and case studies of game scores, I can only understand a few words in it, the part that inspires me is the first few pages of the introduction.The author makes a clear boundary between game scoring and soundtrack, explains the focus point behind game scoring, and the relation between software programs.It’s happy for me to learn more about the thing that plays a hugely important role in my heart, even though I’m reading it like a textbook.

Latikka, R., Bergdahl, J., Savela, N. and Oksanen, A. (2023). AI as an Artist? A Two-Wave Survey Study on Attitudes Toward Using Artificial Intelligence in Art. Poetics, 101(101839), pp.101839–101839. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.poetic.2023.101839.

This research explores the public’s view of AI as an artist from the aspect of human psychological needs, especially relatedness and autonomy. In conclusion, while humans have more positive thoughts about AI’s application on other fields, fostering positive personal experiences with AI is key to overcoming the resistance to being used in the field of creative arts. I think this research came just in time, we all know that AI-generated art has been a big issue in the field of creative arts, not only for professional users it’s been widely used by amateurs to create high-quality images by typing and some simple clicking, compare to the born of the traditional artwork we can almost call it “effortless”, understanding the diverse factor that influences the thought is important for future art worker like us.

Devine, T. C., Presnell, W. A., & Miller, S. (2014). Games as Art and Kant’s Moral Dilemma: What Can Ethical Theory Reveal About the Role of the Game Designer as Artist? Games and Culture, 9(4), 277-310. https://doi-org.ezproxy.herts.ac.uk/10.1177/1555412014538812

This article explores the aspect of ethics in video games by researching the mission “Tranquility Lane” in Fallout 3 made by Bethesda, by using Kant’s Categorical Imperative the author not only explores the ethical dimensions in game design but also talks about the responsibilities of game designers as creators to the public. I am a huge fan of Fallout 4(pretty much the same gaming style as Fallout 3 ), I’ve played hundreds of hours of Fallout 4 and I know that making the decision in the game plays a very huge part in the gaming experience in this game, you can tell what kind of person is the player by knowing the decision he/she make. No doubt, more games start applying this kind of decision-making into games to create multiple endings like Sekiro and Elden ring and it creates more depth to the game.

Plass, J.L., Homer, B.D., MacNamara, A., Ober, T., Rose, M.C., Pawar, S., Hovey, C.M. and Olsen, A. (2019). Emotional design for digital games for learning: The effect of expression, color, shape, and dimensionality on the affective quality of game characters. Learning and Instruction, [online] 70(101194), p.101194. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2019.01.005.

This research highlights the importance of certain elements that shape the emotional response of player in an in-game base environment, like expression and dimensionality. This study suggest the designer should prioritize these elements while designing to get the better response and better learning experience. My background is an industrial designer, back in the days when we were still learning, our professor told us “While you are doing for yourself, you are doing art. If you are doing for others, you are doing design” As a game art student, although we have “art” in our name we are doing work for players, so knowing how to stimulate the player's emotions is the first thing we should take care of. Carefully manipulating visual design features such as color, shape, expression, and dimensionality will get a better player-designer connection.

Atkinson, P., & Parsayi, F. (2021). Video Games and Aesthetic Contemplation. Games and Culture, 16(5), 519-537. https://doi-org.ezproxy.herts.ac.uk/10.1177/1555412020914726

In this article, the author highlights while video games are primarily designed for interaction and gameplay, they also have the potential to offer aesthetic experiences similar to those found in the visual arts. I can highly relate to this statement since the video game is a “total work of art”, it’s a complex medium that provides different kinds of stimulation. I’ve played thousands of hours of Destiny 2, after playing hours of mission shooting and bombing things, I’ll stand at the yard(the place where the player can organize their equipment and chill) to see the magnificent scene of “The Traveler” and the city under, enjoying the light and the peaceful moment. I’ll even stop all the rush to see the story written on the achievement list, feeling what the designer wants to express and fulfill besides all the fancy visual things.

Roettl J, Terlutter R. The same video game in 2D, 3D or virtual reality - How does technology impact game evaluation and brand placements? PLoS One. 2018 Jul 20;13(7):e0200724. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0200724. PMID: 30028839; PMCID: PMC6054385.

This research shows how different present methods (2D, 3D, VR) can impact brand placement. In conclusion, for 3D and VR versions, player have lower memories of the brand and this is caused by the increased cognitive demands of these formats, while players need to focus on other stimulation more they won’t be able to focus on the brand information. But in the 2D version, the in-game brand placement is more effective because players have more “CPU” to process brand information. I think this research is quite important for the game design team for the early meeting about which kind of game are they going to make, because the more advanced tech used doesn’t mean the better, we all know that VR games still have problems for making a high percentage of player to be dizzy, just like me, I can do nothing while feeling dizzy. If 3D element is not what the thing designer needs to present, using a simple 2D way to make a game will be a much better choice the designer can focus more on the essence of the game, we can see in these years after the 3D game craze, so many indie games rise and produce some top-sell 2D or even pixel-style game, like Dave the diver and Stardew Valley. It’s good that people started to think about what is gaming about again.