I like many others really enjoyed this article above all other assigned readings. I think that this article did a great job at explaining how music plays such an imperative role in games. I especially like how he explained his concept of flow. In class, we discussed how flow was kind of like Koster’s concept of grokking. You become so immersed in what you’re doing that you don’t know you’re doing it. You simply “go with the flow.” In terms of music, flow is established when music is able to expand the concept of a game’s fictional world or to draw the player forward through the sequence of gameplay (Whalen). The result is this sort of trance effect one gets while playing the game.

 I have most definitely experienced the effect of music on gameplay most recently with the game “the crossing.” What makes this game is the music. Like Whalen noted, music does indeed draw me into the game and keep me playing for many minutes at a time (playing for more than 15 minutes is an achievement in my book). However, while playing this game yet again, I thought to myself: could it be that a game with such peaceful music really keeps me that entertained? Would I still play this game if music were absent?

I investigated the answer to this question. Without music, this game is very boring and this game really has no real purpose to being played. You simply move animated deer to the other side. Turn the music back on and this game is suddenly a lot more entertaining again (not in terms of being challenging or anything of that sort), but the sounds bring you back into the state of mellowness and keeps you playing for another 15 minutes at a time. The deer become more than just animated pixels. They become deer and you become sad everytime you let one die.

Whalen made a statement that I think best sums up “The Crossing” and a lot of other games that use music to enhance gameplay. The result of music “is that the musical cues and non-musical sound effects instill objects with even more life than the simple appearance of figures in motion” (Whalen).

I have got to say, this is by far my favorite article that we have read for this class.  Although I agree with Dani that some parts were a bit confusing, I found myself agreeing with the majority of Whalen’s claims.  As always though, I particularly enjoyed the parts of this article that described aspects of videogames by referencing things that I find easier to relate to and understand.  For example, my favorite part of this article was his description of “flow.”  It is through this “distorted sense of time, or sense of freedom or abstraction” that scholars are able to analyze the communication involved in videogame music.  At first this was difficult for me to wrap my head around, even with his explanation referencing reading.  However, even though I am no star athlete, when he hinted that this concept of flow could be experienced through athletics, I began to understand it.  When I am playing an (what I believe to be) intense volleyball or basketball game, or even during a long run, I get so caught up in it that nothing else matters-my surroundings and physical sensations almost cease to exist.  I think this is why I end up finding scrapes and bruises the day after a basketball game without having any idea as to when they were created.  If Whalen is correct, as I believe him to be, and people get this same sensation when playing videogames, I feel that I owe “intense-gamers” some sort of apology for judging their extreme gaming habits.  For, if the “flow” they experience is anything like what I’m relating it to, I understand lacking the desire to ever stop.  As far as Whalen attributing the “flow” sensation largely to the music of the game, I am embarrassed to say that although I have played all the games we have been required to play, I have done so to the track of my ipod with the game sound on mute.  Perhaps this explains my lack of love of videogames? Who knows?… I promise to play all further games with the sound on and see where that leads me..

I think Whalen does a beautiful job of describing the effects that music has on a player’s perceptions in videogames. I feel like the article may be a bit difficult to read if you have never played a musical instrument before, because Whalen makes reference to multiple musical terms that aren’t used in everyday language.

I completely agree with the way Whalen describes the effects seamless changes in music have on the game. In my opinion, Koji Kondo is a musical genius and I feel like his soundtrack is half the reason that Ocarina of Time was so successful. Not only does the music correspond to the action in the game, but it also changes depending on the area that you are in. This creates non-diegetic ambiances that work in accordance with diegetic musical cues as Link encounters various enemies, items etc. The music is so good, that the noise for collecting a small item is my text message alert on my phone.

My question would be are there any games without music out there? And if so, are they actually something that can hold your interest for a long period of time? Or is that just the equivalent of muting the game? And what effect does muting the game have on the amount of attachment a gamer has with the game they are playing at any one point in time?

Whalen’s article examines videogame music on multiple levels. The author uses previously discussed Galloway concepts of diegetic and nondiegetic to classify different music clips. Whalen discusses how the source of the music itself is diegetic while associated character actions are seemingly nondiegetic.

In my opinion, the most intriguing aspect of the article is the psychoanalytical analysis of videogame music effectiveness. This lens allows the effectiveness of sound within videogames to be related to previous class discussions and new questions to be introduced. In previous classes, it has been discussed why a player relates to a videogame character, how the given soundtrack of game provides a trademark for that particular game play, and the role of the game as a narrative.

By providing the research of Annabel J. Cohen, a psychologist who studied subject interpretation of movement and emotion in relation to music, Whalen successfully combines the preceding class discussions. Exploring “the potential for simple shapes and sounds to evoke a narrative, cognitive meaning” (Whalen 2004) conveys how stories are told through diegetic and nondiegetic gamic actions.

As previously mentioned, early class discussion included the connection of the player to the game character. Cohen’s studies suggest that the reason for this connection may be a subconscious reaction to the sound accompanying character actions while a trademark sound allows the brain to create a correlation between the game and reality.

With the above statements one must ask what other factors create subconscious or conscious relationship with an aspect of the game? Is it universally agreed upon that music has an immense impact of game play? How would a change in music result in the alteration of the game narrative?

So since there were not any posts to respond to, I decided to focus on the video that we watched during class on Tuesday. There was a part that discussed the focus on youth in games and the fact that video games allow you to remain in a child-like world even as you develop into an adult. This sparked my memory of an article that I read in Vanity Fair entitled “Addicted to Cute.” While the first part of the article discusses exactly how cute is displayed in a variety of mediums throughout the United States, the discussion of Japanese “kawaii” culture on pages four and five have a connection to the article on Nintendo’s marketing technique. There is a discussion of a 10 year time lag and the creation of this kawaii culture during the postwar 1940s and 1950s. While companies like Sanrio and HelloKitty had a big influence on this, I feel as though Nintendo was a power player as well in fusing Japanese culture into American society. Not to mention that the adoption of kawaii into American culture could easily be a representation of a switch of positions with the Japanese in a much more powerful position than they were 60 years ago and the state of depression on the United States. I wonder to what extent that the family-oriented, graphically cell-shaded Nintendo video games had an influence on this? And does this perhaps a political commentary attached to it as well?

At the end of chapter 5, Koster writes, “Games aren’t stories. Games aren’t about beauty or delight. Games aren’t about jockeying for social status. They stand, in their own right, as something incredibly valuable. Fun is about learning in a context where there is no pressure, and that is why games matter.”

Throughout the chapter, Koster presents an interesting take on the relationship between games and stories. He writes, “It’s as if we are requiring the player to solve a crossword puzzle in order to turn the page to get more of the novel.” (page 86) I have noticed this in many games that I have played. However, Every Day the Same Dream is an exception. Even though parts of the story are revealed after completing tasks in the game, the very act of doing those tasks over and over again contributes to our experience and understanding of the story. In this case, game play is not separated from the narrative, but rather, the two are intertwined. And, in my opinion, the game play enhances the story, instead of other cases where the story is used to enhance an otherwise mediocre game.

Playing Don’t Look Back caused me to somewhat disagree with Koster’s statement that games are not about beauty or delight. Again, I believe that games may not be solely about these things, but at the same time, these aspects can certainly be involved in games and game play. “Delight strikes when we recognize patterns but are surprised by them”-we recognize patterns in Don’t Look Back, as the game play is rather similar to games such as Super Mario Bros., but are certainly surprised by the end of Don’t Look Back, “when everything falls into place” and we realize what the whole game has been about. (page 94) This realization is similar to Koster’s claim about beauty – “Beauty is found in the tension between our expectation and the reality.” I would imagine that approaching the game with no knowledge about what the game might really be about certainly results in tension upon reaching the end of the game. Who would have expected that a seemingly simple game (though perhaps difficult to beat) with simple graphics could convey a rather complex, deep message?

Ralph Koster, I thought you were a pretty cool guy. But you had to go and mess it up, didn’t you? Yeah. Good job.

What kind of elitist is this guy? “Games are not stories.” I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that he’s never played Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Or any of the Final Fantasy series. Or Fable, or Chrono Trigger, or or or or…

What made those games amazing? Obviously, people who played the Final Fantasy games just really liked to grind. Except… no. People play those games for their stories. They don’t suffer through battling the same mobs over and over again because they like to– they do it because Sephiroth cast Meteor and it’s going to freakin’ destroy your planet and you might not actually be a human and oh, my god, Aeris is in danger and you’re going to tell me you wouldn’t put up with 600 of the same mob just to save everything?! And you know the funny thing about Final Fantasy VII? I’ve never even played it. When I was in elementary school, my best friend got the game and I stayed over at her house for two days straight, watching as she played through the game (I wasn’t much of a gamer myself back then). If I can get this worked up by a game’s story even though I’ve never played it, that says something about the ability of video games to tell stories. And what’s this about games being all about people’s actions, and stories being all about people’s emotions and thoughts? I mean, sure, puzzle games don’t really have a lot of emotion. But there’s more than one type of game. In Japan, dating simulation games are a very popular (albeit creepy) genre. Those games are all about emotions and being empathetic. (And in my opinion, a book where people just sit around and talk about their emotions through the whole thing doesn’t sound like a “good story.” It sounds like the exact thing you want to avoid being trapped in with your girlfriend.)

And it’s not like stories have always been what they are today. Stories used to be set to music and told in rhyme. They used to be spread by mouth, as a community activity. I’ll bet the story elitists of way back when got pretty huffy when Beowulf was written down. I’ll bet they got themselves in a tizzy again when films started telling stories. I’ll bet they said something like, “Films are not stories. They’re for lazy people! Where’s the imagination aspect of a novel?”

Don’t be such a conservative. Don’t be so opposed to change. Is it really such a blasphemous idea that the story could benefit from an interactive aspect? In the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the story and gameplay merged seamlessly together to create one the most highly praised games ever created. And when people reviewed the game, did they rave about how powerful it made them feel (because, like you said, games are all about power and control)? Did they gush about what a sense of accomplishment they got from putting that nasty ol’ Ganondorf in his place? No. They extolled the amazing and epic journey of that brave boy who didn’t have a fairy. (I say they extolled it, but what I really mean is they creamed their pants and could manage no more than a “HOMG.”) Would it have been the same game if the story element had been removed? Since a story only “adds interesting shading to the game but the game at its core is unchanged,” and all that jazz. The answer is no. Games can be a perfectly viable vessel for storytelling. The genre of interactive storytelling could even evolve to have an edge over regular storytelling.

(Also, “commonest” is a silly word. So there.)

Every so often I find a news article detailing a murder, assault or suicide perpetrated by some disturbed male teenager.  Almost invariably, the article prominently displays the fact that the boy had a history of playing “violent” or “war” games, and almost invariably I stop reading.  Certain parents and certain parts of the media have long been concerned with the way videogames affect the morality of children, which is understandable.  But stories like http://www.gosugamers.net/starcraft/news/10598-18-year-old-stabbed-girl-after-disconnect-in-starcraft are absurd, and often for more than one reason.  First and most minor, oftentimes the game mentioned contains violence which is highly pixelated or otherwise non-offensive, is staged in a war setting (i.e. a situation in which it is generally acceptable to kill people)etc.  More importantly, as Koster explains, “Running over pedestrians, killing people, fighting terrorists, and eating dots while running from ghosts are all just stage settings, convenient metaphors for what a game is actually teaching” (p. 84).  Killing Russians in Modern Warfare 2 is not teaching you that slaughtering people is fun, Modern Warfare 2 is teaching hand-eye coordination and awareness of one’s surroundings.  Though the “dressing” does affect the appeal of any game, the underlying patterns, as Koster says, not only remain unchanged, but are largely the reason why we play them.

And besides, a normal human, even a child, is able to discern the nip from a bite, as it were, and understand the potential implications for bringing a game-situation to real life.  I have played violent games my entire life.  In fact, after posting this I will likely go down the hall and begin to slaughter enemy soldiers for several hours; I am also, at the same time, unable to watch bull-riding at rodeos out of fear I’ll see someone get hurt.  If you are someone at risk for psychotic behavior and might be influenced by violence in videogames, the games are the least of your problems.  If they don’t push you over the edge, something else will.

These articles discuss the role of narratives in games, and whether games can be expected to have a narrative, or whether this is just a projection of what academics want to see in games. There were several areas that I thought were particularly interesting.

The first area is Aarseth’s imagery of the colonizing literary academic in the new found computer-game land. This was really interesting that he immediately sets up this distance between academics of different areas  (“academics from neighboring fields, such as literature and film studies, are eagerly grasping “the chance to begin again, in a golden land of opportunity and adventure”). Clearly the articles were quite opposed to literary academics imposing their need for a narrative and a story onto the computer game. Basically, I was suprised that both articles clumped literature, and film into groups as if that was all there was to them. For example, in my literature class I read Grapes of Wrath and of course I fully expected to discuss the narrative. The book was written to be discussed for it’s literary value. In my spare time, I read Reinventing Romeo which I doubt anyone with a degree in English has ever read, much less analyzed for it’s narrative.  They are two different products being marketed to two different groups of people. Beyond this basic example, there are books about everything, to suit any academic area of interest. I would say the same is true for art, and film. It seems to make sense, that while video games are still young now, as they develop, they will branch out to provide different areas of study with more specific material.

Besides this, I thought Aarseth made a very interesting case for narratives in current video games by looking at the translation of narratives to video games and video games to narratives.

“but the cultural conventions, such as the setting and character types of, say, Star Wars, are translated. While, as Jesper Juul has pointed out (Juul 2001a), the story of Star Wars is unextractable from the game of the same name, the setting, atmosphere and characters can be deduced. So, although nonnarrative and nonludic elements can be translated, the key elements, the narration and the gameplay, like oil and water, are not easily mixed.”

I would argue that what is so brilliant about translating a book or film to a video game is that the player, in a sense, becomes the narrator, and that’s the main appeal, over the game itself. As he said before, games are as old as stories, and being able to shoot a bad guy is a familiar game, but when you become Harry Potter, and you are in a battle with Voldemort, not only are you the main character, and the constraints of the game, the rules themselves, and your actions all combine to shape the narration and results of the story and game.

I hope this all makes sense!

The articles we read covered a bunch of topics, everything from violence in videogames not actually being violent game play but just a theme to artificial intelligence taking over with Pokémon to the warring hybrid that is the adventure game genre. The part of the reading I found interesting was the last point I mentioned: can adventure games ever be truly successful due to their conflicting goals.

The biggest argument against adventure games being a successful drama is that they have storylines that “would make a grade B movie” cringe.  In Aarseth’s article he argues that the most successful games of the Adventure genre are Myst and Deus Ex. I have played Myst and found it to be a boring game that had no relatable characters (or even characters for that matter). Myst was a very early adventure game as the genre all but died out after the release of Adventure. I agree that Myst wasn’t a great example of the iconic adventure genre, but I would like to argue that Aarseth’s article was written in June of 2004.

Fable is an adventure game that is unlike any before it, especially with the release of Fable III this year. The Fable games allow for, at least in my play, the ultimate adventure experience. The game doesn’t have a completely stagnant story line in which players just have to complete tasks along the way. In fable there are factors of corruption and good, love, riches, etc. There are a great deal of ways in which the player can alter the storyline to really make it their own. This so far seems to be the pinnacle of the adventure game genre. I would really love to see if Aarseth considers the Fable series to be as great of a disappointment as he did all the other games of the adventure genre.

At the beginning of the “Racing the Beam” article, the authors ask how the art of video game design compares to more established art forms such as poetry and photography.  The article went on to examine how video game design developed as its own art form through the Atari VCS and other early consoles. I was intrigued by the explanation of the different components of video games and how they work together to produce the entire experience of playing a game.  Is it reasonable to say that when a game designer is “writing software in a high-level programming language” he is going through a similar creative process as a poet stringing together rhymes?  Though the actual game that players engage in is a crucial element to the gaming experience, without the technical aspects such as the microprocessor and video card you’d be left with useless strings of code with no interpretable meaning.  Video game designers, as artists, are responsible for constructing the various mechanical pieces of the work.  This is similar to a photographer’s rigorous process of chemical induction and film developing to produce the final, comprehensible piece of art.  Without the technical process, photographs would just be undeveloped film and novels would be un-conceptualized ideas in the minds of writers.  Most people only consider the aesthetic elements of the game to be artistic features (such as the graphic design, plot and sound effects/soundtrack) but fail to understand the immense amount of technological achievement and advancements that have been made to produce even simple games like Combat, PacMan, and Pong.

I am quite ignorant of videogames, whether they be from 20 years ago, or the game that everyone was standing in line to buy last week.  I played mostly computer games: the Backyard Sports series, games by The Learning Company, various versions of The Sims, and RollerCoaster Tycoon were my favorites; so I often have no background in the first-person shooter games that are quite often the topic of discussion.  However, I was relieved to find that Nick Montfort’s critical analysis of Combat through different contextual levels of the game increased my level of understanding.  The way Montfort broke down the parts of gaming helped me digest the complex information much easier.  Although some of the analysis was still a tad over my head, I found that the presentation through levels was quite appropriate and almost familiar, even for a non-avid videogamer.

The levels of context I could most relate to were the Platform and Interface.  My friend (and our classmate) Lauren and I have bonded over the music we listened to while playing and watching Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3.  I was listening to a song from the soundtrack one day, when Lauren looked at me and exclaimed something about Tony Hawk.  What followed was a lengthy discussion of what we remembered about the various skate parks, characters, and the game’s soundtrack.  We soon learned that our experiences differed at the Platform level, for Lauren used an Xbox, and I a Playstation.  The platform difference seemed to affect the game (and interface) in many ways; the controls differed, some skating venues were not shared, not all viewpoints were attainable on one game system, and some music selections differed.  Looking back, I found that the music in many computer and video games has affecting my playing experience.  One memorable aspect of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 was the ability of the player to select the songs for the game’s playlist.  Possibly because of the popularity of the game and its songs, a soundtrack was released.  Unfortunately, some of both Lauren and my favorite songs didn’t make the cut.

I found Montfort’s 5 level method of video game analysis to be very appropriate for the study of videogames. I think this method of analysis really gives us our first look into the debate over whether videogames are art or are something entirely different that stand alone and deserve a different kind of analysis. Montfort clearly believes that videogames deserve a separate technique for analysis of videogames since he outlined his personal method at the beginning of the article. I found it interesting, however, that in the reception and operation portion of the article, Montfort examines Combat similarly to how one would examine a piece of literature or a piece of art, identifying the theme of violence throughout the game, and explaining how the social contexts of the era influence this theme and the way in which it is presented. Even the questions Montfort attempts to answer in this section seem like questions an art critic would ask of a painting: “Is Combat narrative or dramatic? What story does Combat tell?”

Montfort does not claim that we should not analyze videogames as art or literature, however. He says that this is only one step in videogame analysis. To stop at this step would severely limit the amount of understanding we can gain from videogames. Further analysis of the interface, gameplay, game-code, etc. is required, as Montfort suggests. After reading this article, it seems Montfort sits somewhere in the middle of the argument over videogame analysis, and I have to say I sitting right next to him.

We talked a lot last week about the military’s impact on the history of video games and on the content of video games, but I want to point out a connection between the military and video games that most people don’t think about – using video games to teach soldiers foreign languages. My dad is an intelligence officer in the U.S. Air Force and he wrote his Ph.D dissertation a couple of years ago on the Tactical Language & Culture Training System, particularly its use of video games to teach Arabic (you can read his full 136 page dissertation here).

I feel this aspect of military training is often overlooked in favor of the more violent weapons and combat training, but that does not make it any less important. In this era of global combat, it is vital that soldiers be able to communicate and interact with foreign peoples. Video games are an especially effective way to train young male recruits who probably already play video games in their free time, so video game-based language training doesn’t seem like a chore and can better keep their interest. Video games’ interactive environment also suits language learning well, since responding to game challenges and practicing new vocabulary within the game reinforces the player’s new knowledge.

It is undeniable that the military has had an effect on the rise of violent, combat-based games, but we should not forget to also appreciate the military’s influence on incredibly popular computer-based learning systems such as Rosetta Stone.

After reading Montfort’s analysis of Combat, which predates most of our gaming experiences, I thought about some of my earliest childhood memories of videogames.  My cousin had a Sega Genesis and my favorite game was Bomberman.  Here is some game play .  This is from the original Genesis.

This is about as simple of game I remember playing.  Whats interesting though is that last semester I saw my roommates playing Bomberman via Xbox Arcade.  I played the game, of course, and here is a video of the updated game play . Clearly the interface has changed drastically.  My question is if the interface changes to the degree that Bomberman’s has been in the Xbox version, does that change the game entirely.  Does making it more complex, by adding additional players, intricate interfaces and 3-d gameplay change what we “get out” of the game?  To tell you the truth I felt like I was playing a different game, yes the concept and the goals were the same, but everything else had been changed to match up with the modern videogame.  Users are able to change their character images incorporating details as minute as eye patches.  Montfort says, the interface “sits between the player and the game form, connecting them.”  Since the interface has been changed drastically in Bomberman’s modernization, I think that remakes of classics could be considered entirely different games.  In Montfort’s article he cites O’Connor who says, “t’s refreshing to see a videogame that pares down creativity, revealing the very essence of gameplay.”  Well in this case the reverse has happened.  The interface has been revved up to make the game more appealing to players who are used to Call of Duty and Halo whose intricacies are unmatched.

Sidenote: If anyone wants to try and take me on in Bomberman consider yourself challenged