Gaming's Problem with Narrative

One thing you probably have noticed through this political season was the heavy use of narrative to define the candidates. Obama especially emphasized "change" (using quotes as a point of narrative, not as a commentary on it) to put himself into a certain light.

So, one problem that the ESA has to tackle is the narratives that are surrounding video games to non-gamers. And there are several.

1) "Games are for kids." Probably came around during the classic area of games, the Atari and Nintendo (NES) era. Games at this time was marketed to kids, although there were attempts to break out of that mold. Nintendo, as part of their quality control, had limits on what content couldn't be in games, like blood or use of religous symbols.

2) "Games are violent." Mortal Kombat and Grand Theft Auto are to blame for this.

3) "Games can be addictive, keeping the player in front of the screen at all times" This is a confusion of both perception and confusion over the term. For the term, gamers use it the same as "can't put a good book down." As for the perception problem, I think many parents would see that games put in as a regular activity, something akin to how sometimes a kid would "watch too much television."

As you can guess, problems arise when those narratives aren't just put in seperately, but in combinations. Rule 1 and 2 put together is often something that has been accused by video game critics.

So, how can the industry, or gamers themselves, break the narrative. Well, I would like to say factchecking journalism helps, but can just as often hurt. One problem that journalists can have is that they often compare percieved narratives of topics at hand (like the ones above).
Just repeating a narrative doesn't nessisarily mean it reenforces it. But if a journalist doesn't emerse him/herself into the community properly, they can misinterpret that their subjects into being an exception to the narrative, rather than the actual norm.

One thing I do think helps is the Penny Arcade Expo. There, you get a variety of people, all in a community setting having fun.
Even something like The Guild can help. Although it exploits some of the more negative narratives about MMO's (mostly for humorous effect), the actual themes of the series go to the heart of why we love those games, and why we are gamers.

It will be a very high hurdle. It took comic books decades to be accepted as an adult medium. However, even today, comics aren't considered a "serious" medium like books, movies or even art. Time isn't the answer. Having the gaming community branch outward, like what the Wii is doing, does help, but can be done wrong and might not reach everyone still.
The only real answer I see is to have some game that captures the non-gamer market in a way that they see it as a true means of expression and not a toy.

A Geek's Way of Celebrating Veteran's Day

Seeing plenty of Twitter posts on Veteran's Day put a thought into my head: what media (shows, movies, videogames, ect.) is most appropriate for this day.

On the gaming end, it's easy just to point to the WWII shooters. Call of Duty seems to be the pinnacle of those games, taking the player directly into the environment of combat. Most of the time, WWII shooters try to mix patriotic feelings with horrors that are inherent with war. Some go one end, some go the other way.

But the game that comes to mind for me on this day is Half Life 2. Specifically, late in the game there is a chapter in which you, as Gordan Freeman, is part of a rebellion against the Combine. In that rebellion, you know what costs you have to endure, and why you and everyone else is fighting. The only critique of the game as a whole is that chapter was the best, and probably should have ended there.

Then with movies, there's of course the Private Ryans and such. But here, I think Serenity has a note in it that's appropriate. Again, rebellion is key, as rebellion fights for a truly better world. If you haven't yet seen Serenity yet, stop reading right now, and you'll see why I mention it here.

A series I would have down is Battlestar Galactica. The entire series is based around what happens in times of war, and more over the price people have to pay during that time. BSG: Razor especially asks what a person on a individual level have to become in a time of war.

Anime has plenty of series that has war and fighting as a major topic. Pretty much anything Gundam has war in mind, often to a negative tone. The fist series I saw, the spinoff Gundam Wing, tries to ask why war happens, why people fight, and how to stop that.

But the one series that I say is best for this day: Gurren Laggan. It just aired on SciFi, and is one of the best anime series out there. It might be consider spoilers, but much of the series deals with what they call "fighting spirit." While Gundam and such had a different opinion on why nations fight, this series shows why veterans volenteered to fight. Again, if you haven't seen this, go do it now.

So, for anyone reading this: what's your show, movie, game or otherwise for this Veteran's Day?

Aftermath of this Election

Barack Obama will be President come January.
I'll skip the "history made" and such that has been discussed ad-nauseam on the networks.
Instead, the first thing that you'll see with this is the lame duck session that will be comming shortly. This would have been a strange session either way, since we would see a sitting senator become President. With Obama now the official President-elect, we will have to see how he'll act while he is still a senator, even during a lame duck session.

And as I suspected, the Democrats did not get the 60-seat requirement for a filibuster proof senate. I know one discussion on CNN was that the Republicans, reeling from the defeats of the the '06 and '08 elections, would not use the filibuster that often to avoid looking partisan. The problem I see with that: they now have less power than they had in the past two years. They NEED the filibuster to have any relavency in politics. Even if the Democrats try to reach across the isle, it may be tough due to the Republicans having no clear leader.

One last thing to watch in the comming days in the senate races: the Minnisota Race between incumbant Republican Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken. As of this post, they are in a near dead tie, with recounts to ensure.

While the legislative and executive branches have been getting attention from this election, some ballot measure are sure to give the judicial branch some election aftermath love.
Arizona, Arkansas, California and Florida took up the matter on gay rights. Arkansas is the different of the other three because this ballot measure banned adopting to gay couples. The other three called for a ban on gay marriage. With all these measures looking to be passed, expect this to be a major issue for the courts.
On the other hand, it looks like voters widely rejected a probably court battle as Colorado rejected an outright ban, and South Dakota rejected a measure that would have limited late-term abortions. Even a measure in California, on parental notification, was rejected.

So if you're tired of politics, you'll just have to ignore it. Politics will be continuing in the comming weeks, months, and years.

EDIT: corrected some mis-interpreted results. I really don't like the format that CNN put out, which showed the "winner" first, which confuses me when the No's win, as it appears first.