Videogames and Canon
No, this is not what I mean at all.
I've been having some conversations with my PhD supervisor about the finer points of one of my chapters as I near completion, and some interesting angles for further writing have come up. In some ways my thesis is setting myself up for a whole lot of more specific research questions later, which I guess is a good thing. This topic is one of them.
I'm becoming more and more interested in Mass Effect as time goes on. I haven't even managed to play the third one yet, but its now on its way to me from everyone's favorite importer, OzGameShop. I've already wandered into the territory I'm going to discuss here, though, before the whole fiasco with the ending to Mass Effect 3 transpired (and continues to). My thesis, generally, doesn't deal with people at large, but more with individual players as much as possible. Yet, increasingly, it is becoming apparent that to work out some of my interesting problems, I'll have to bring in "people at large" in a pretty big way. In trying to erect a useful framework for analyzing games, both in their ludological interactivity and dramatic narrativism, I've gotten into interpretations of canon.
The Orthodoxy of Videogames
A certain chunk of videogaming culture is evolving into a monstrous brotherhood which increasingly resembles a kind of religion--or a cult, if you prefer. I do not claim that all members of the videogame industry, media or playing public are part of this cult, but only that this dangerous and outspoken fraternity is increasingly vocal, visible and concentrated. They present a more coherent group than do gamers who are not this way, and therefore threaten to represent us all. I for one, protest. The following is a conceptualisation of my fears, which have not sprung out of my imagination, but from simply observing the hideous, masochistic thrashing of videogame culture over the past few months. The villain is not "videogame culture" in so far as any such thing can be said to exist. It is not even videogames, as objects. It is the people, the vile, bigoted, hateful people who are hell-bent on maintaining their own idiotic, sheltered state of ignorance that are the problem.
The Australian Videogame Industry
With every day that ends...
The Australian videogame industry is suffering right now, in a bad way. Though the small, more agile teams and the two juggernauts of iOS games Halfbrick and Firemint are going gangbusters, the larger-scale, higher budget sector has been all but obliterated over the past four or five years. Following this, there is a perceived 'brain drain' (how often we hear that with regard to the Australian workforce...) or an 'exodus' of talent moving overseas, particularly to Canada. Why are the pastures so much greener in the snow-covered gardens of our northern Commonwealth brothers? What has happened to the local industry to cause such a drought? How can we pick up the pieces and carry on?
I've been talking to a lot of people about this, and I have some thoughts.
Something about Draw Something
OK, least gamified game is a pretty horrible turn of phrase, I realise this. But I’m talking about all the additional stuff that frames the gameplay loop in games like FarmVille or TinyTower: the gathering of currency, the limited number of moves or actions you can perform in a set time, the dozens of ways you can display your accomplishments to your friends, and the social pressure that comes with all that. With Draw Something, the only Facebook integration is the handy method for finding people to play the game with. That’s it. There’s no badges to earn, there’s nothing to buy with real cash, none of that. All the game wants you to do is draw and guess.