SpeedRunners: A Multi-Player Competitive Experience

Even though I grew up in a household that played video games, I never really played them. I would always find more enjoyment in watching people play than playing the game myself. However, after a friend showed me SpeedRunners, I began having second thoughts about only watching.

SpeedRunners is a game in which you can share the enjoyment with your roommates, friends back at home, and even random people online. In my experience, it is best played when all the players sit with each other in front of a single monitor, as everyone playing the game can witness each other’s live reactions in person.

It’s a game that anyone can pick up, including someone who has never touched a controller before. Everyone plays on equal grounds, no unique in-game character advantages. The controls are simple: sprint, jump, slide, and activate powerups. The objective of the game is to be the last player on the screen, beating out the other competitors in a race.

The course is guided by the screen, moving only as fast as the leading player, making the screen itself an arena. Courses in the game are not unending, but the course loops if more than one player reaches the end of the course. The players fight and race while the bounds of the screen continue to shrink. The smaller field of vision calls out the slowest runners, as those that fall behind and are consumed by the border are eliminated from the round.

The fun doesn’t end when you’re knocked out, as watching your friends compete is equally as engaging. From 4, down to 3, to finally 2 competitors, the stakes are highest as the remaining racer is crowned the winner of the round. The winner of a match is selected by the first player to reach 3 wins. Once the game ends, the most important question is asked, “Do you want to play again?” The most common answer to this is yes.

References:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/207140/SpeedRunners/

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nintendo.com%2Fstore%2Fproducts%2Fspeedrunners-switch%2F&psig=AOvVaw1eDvZ6vhv4HdCQgKBS7AGE&ust=1680082652922000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CA8QjRxqFwoTCMiI8t-p_v0CFQAAAAAdAAAAABAS

– Shwe Khin

Relationship-Building 101: Gaming?

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a big gamer. I mean, I’ve definitely played my fair share of games, that is if you include games like Candy Crush, Roblox, or even the occasional Call of Duty. I am by no means good at any of these, however, and I only began playing because of recommendations from friends or family.

A family friend developed an obsession with the mobile app, Candy Crush Saga–an obsession that soon took over my household. For the next few months, my mom and I were constantly competing, seeing which one of us could surpass levels at a faster rate and make it farther down the candy path. Later, after the Xbox came out, my brother tried to teach me how to play console games, but gave up when he realized I just wasn’t going to learn. When each round became difficult, I routinely handed over the controller to my brother in hopes of him passing the level for me. After I realized console games weren’t for me, my younger cousins introduced me to Roblox, an online platform that allows users to not only create games, but also play games created by other users. At every family function, six of my cousins and I would gather together in a room to decide which Roblox game we would conquer next. It seemed like there was a game for every occasion because Roblox housed a wide array of selections including obstacle courses, role-playing fantasy games, first-person shooter games, and even town and city games. 

From Fashion Famous to Flee the Facility to Superhero Tycoon, every game had an entirely different narrative and end goal. In Fashion Famous, players had 3 minutes to dress their character in an outfit that best corresponds to their given theme. Then players would walk down a runway for judges. Getting higher ratings on your outfits allowed you to climb through levels and unlock new accessories.

Switching gears entirely, Flee the Facility allowed five players to play in a server, randomly picking one to be the beast and the rest to be survivors. Survivors were responsible for traveling through the domain to hack computers and open an exit before the beast found and captured them. Superhero Tycoon, on the other hand, enabled players to pick a superhero and build a tycoon by buying droppers that make money. As players build their house and acquire weapons, they can attack other players and steal their gears.

I’ve played each of these games, and many more, for hours on end. Though I’m not a big gamer, I’ve found that I have connected a lot with people through gaming. Even if it was as simple as losing to my brother in Call of Duty, or basking over my victory in Candy Crush to my mom, or even calling my cousins every night to play Roblox, I strengthened my bond with the people I played with.

The competitive nature that games provide enables players to interact with others and provides a foundation for a relationship to further develop. Often, gaming has a negative stigma as people believe it reduces social interaction or is only meant for children. But, in my experience, gaming is what enabled me to enhance my relationships with loved ones by giving us a common interest through which we could work together or compete in order to achieve a particular goal. It’s funny to think that my close bond with my cousins can be attributed to a newfound Roblox obsession. If you’ve ever played Roblox or have any game suggestions, let me know and I’ll be sure to mention it at my next family event!

-Riya Patel

Loading into Life: How Video Games Form and Mold Identities.

I have played video games for almost as long as I can remember. Starting with flash games on the internet like Stick War or Age of War, I quickly fell in love with the struggle of being challenged and the euphoria of overcoming whatever obstacles were in my path towards success. No game better demonstrates this rush I got from gaming than Poptropica. Within Poptropica, there are many different islands which have their own puzzles that one must complete to finish a larger storyline. While beating the islands was by itself rewarding, there was something greater that made the game so memorable: competition with friends. My entire class in elementary school would spend recess in the computer lab trying to solve these puzzles and be the first to finish islands. We were so competitive, that we eventually naturally sorted ourselves into a competence hierarchy based on ones online success.

Image from Poptropica.com

As a result of this hierarchy, kids that were better at Poptropica were seen as “cooler”, and people wanted to hang out with them more. While I was not the best in my class at the game, the success that I did have gave me a confidence that I carried with me throughout the rest of my gaming ventures. As competence in other games grew, so did my confidence in myself in the real world.

Another game that has drastically shaped my identity is World of Warcraft (WoW). Inside of WoW, you can choose to pursue many different paths towards entertainment. Some people enjoy exploring the world and doing quests, others like to find cool pieces of armor to wear, some just like collecting pets. To me, WoW was always about killing the big bad guy at the end of the game.

A big bad guy from WoW, all credit goes to Activision-Blizzard.

In order to kill the big bad guy in World of Warcraft, which is a massive multiplayer online role playing game, you need to have a team of 10-25 other real life players. Not only does each individual need to be high level and very skilled at the game, the team also needs to be coordinated. This coordination requires a talented commander, usually called a “raid leader”, to ensure that everyone is working together to kill the bosses. Yet, because the game involves so many real people with real lives, oftentimes the raid leader needs to coordinate more than just the in game fighting. Every raid team will have interpersonal drama, scheduling conflicts, and a battle of egos from every player that thinks they are the best. The raid leader, therefore, needs to be an adept leader in real life if you want to have any chance of victory in the game.

An example of a raid team in WoW, 20 different real people coordinating to beat a boss. Credit goes to J!NX and Method.

When I started raid leading, I did not have any of the leadership skills required. Many of the teams I was with would disband, not kill any bosses, or overthrow me in mutiny. Over time however, I learned valuable lessons and some subtle methods to help my group of people work together and overcome obstacles as a team. I could keep morale high throughout failed attempts, and I could coordinate scheduling compromises so nobody felt cheated. These skills eventually translated to leadership positions in real life.

Consequently, video games taught me both how to be confident, as well as how to be a capable leader. These traits I think are integral to both my online and real world identities, and I will carry them with me for the rest of my life.

Valorant: Less is More

Shooting games have become increasingly complex. Every year a new Call of Duty is released with even more guns and even more game mechanics.  To have even a small chance of winning a game of Fortnite, hours must be spent in creative mode just working on building without a single shot fired. In almost every game there are a multiplicity of different factors which must be mastered in order to have a competitive experience. As a result, I have always just been a casual gamer, unable to and unwilling to overcome the barrier to entry into the competitive shooter gaming sphere. However, Valorant’s release this summer changed all of that. This game takes an extremely stripped down and streamlined gameplay approach with almost no gimmicks. The concept is very simple: one team of five attempts to defend the bomb sites while the other team of five attempts to either kill everyone from the other team or successfully plant and guard the bomb. Besides being able to pick different characters who have different abilities, there is nothing more to the game. This game appeared so simple to me that I decided to give the game a serious attempt.

I started out by just playing the game. I would enter a match, have fun shooting people and being shot, and then call it a day. However, after about a month, a ranked game mode was released where your performance was tracked, and you could be promoted or demoted based on it. I quickly got tired of being demoted as a result of just comeptlely missing the person I was aiming at and for the first time in my life actually committed to  improving my aim so that I could continue to improve my rank. Valorant makes this commitment easy as they have a training mode where a bot spawns in and you have a split second to shoot it before it disappears. At the end you can see your score which can be anywhere between 30 and 0 based on how many bots you missed. On a scientific level, every time the bot spawns in, your aim is practiced as you try and snap on to it, resulting in about 30 simulations per minute, or 30 clicks per minute. This is far more practice than you would ever get in a round of Valorant as you might go 30 seconds to a minute before seeing an enemy and engaging. That means that if in a game you average 1-2 aim battles per minute, aim training would result in 15-30 times more reps per minute and as a result lead to much faster improvements in aim.  However, after doing more research, I learned about aim trainers—games that only exist to improve your aim. I purchased Kovaak 2.0: the Meta. This “game” is really just a variety of aim training simulations focused on maximizing repetitions per minute. With this game I could average up to 180 clicks per minute, meaning that my aim would improve even faster.

The other facet I focused on was strategy. I watched countless YouTube videos and studied the pros who streamed their perspectives during live tournaments. I began to understand fundamental concepts such as its always better to be the farther away person when watching an angle, and that high ground had many advantages.  However, I also began to focus on strategies that were bigger than just myself. Valorant is a team based tactical shooter so just like in football, it is necessary to develop plays. When my friends and I started playing as a team, with set entry strategies and contingency plans, we noticed our rank rapidly increase.

I managed to rapidly improve at Valorant over this summer as a result of its extremely basic game design. The game’s simple gimmick free style results in a smaller barrier to entry, and also allows for focused progress as a gamer. I would recommend Valorant to anyone that is new to the shooter scene and is looking for a game they could actually get into and enjoy!

Pokemon Showdown: The Underground Community of Smogon University

We’ve all played a Pokemon video game before. The iconic franchise started with Pokemon Red and Green in 1996 and has since spawned eight generations of video games, a theme park in Japan, and countless Pokemon cards cherished by 8-year-olds around the globe.

Pokemon Red and Green were originally released in Japan in 1996 for the Game Boy console.

For the past 25 years, Pokemon video games have all followed the same formula:

1. Receive a starter Pokemon.
2. Battle other Pokemon trainers to increase the level of your Pokemon, including bosses called “Gym Leaders” along the way.
3. Defeat the final boss, the “Champion” of the region.
4. The End…?

Classically, every Pokemon video game starts with a battle between the player’s starter Pokemon and his or her rival’s (the in-game archnememy) level 5 starter Pokemon.

For me personally, the model has gotten stale for a couple of reasons. Firstly, Pokemon games are non-competitive; players are mostly self-contained within their own environment and the infrastructure within the game to battle other humans is mediocre at best. Secondly, the “leveling grind” to level your Pokemon to the maximum level of 100 is mind-numbingly boring. Here’s some context: a Pokemon requires approximately 1 million experience points to reach level 100. Defeating the average wild Pokemon, which takes 30 sec-1 min, will grant approximately 500 experience points…yeah. You can do the math. To many of us, these games just start to feel a little old.

I don’t know how long it took this person to get Rhydon to level 100, but it was probably too long.

Enter: Pokemon Showdown.

The days of leveling up Pokemon and defeating pre-programmed NPC’s are no more. In the span of 5 minutes, you can visit play.pokemonshowdown.com, customize a team of Pokemon by level, move set, and other traits, and then engage in battle with another user who has done the same. The Internet is truly amazing.

Gameplay of a battle with another user on Pokemon Showdown.

What impresses me so much about the Pokemon Showdown community is how creative it is. TPCI (The Pokemon Company International) created a competition circuit revolving around the official Pokemon games, but Pokemon Showdown has them beat by a landslide in popularity. Members of the Pokemon Showdown community have converged to an online forum dubbed, “Smogon University” to create their own rulesets, ban lists, and tournaments completely separate from the official Pokemon ones.

Smogon University forums: a repository of advice, competitive Pokemon battling resources, and friends.

Pokemon Showdown appeals to even casual Pokemon fans. There is a game mode named, “Random battle” where a team of Pokemon will be automatically generated for you to play against another player with a similarly random generated team. My roommate and I often take advantage of this mode during late nights, or particularly boring Zoom lectures. Further, many more artistically talented members of the community have resorted to creating their own Pokemon, complete with art, move sets, and other data given to real Pokemon. Pokemon Showdown even has a game mode called “CAP” (“Create-A-Pokemon”), made specifically for competitive battling using both real Pokemon and these fake Pokemon, something I think is really beautiful and indicative of both the community’s creative spirit and competitive drive.

“Necturna” and “Syclant” are just two examples of Pokemon that were 100% designed, balanced, and created for Pokemon Showdown. Made by the community, made for the community.

So next time you are about to switch on your Nintendo console to level another Pokemon to level 100, think again. An underground, community-generated world is available to you within just a few quick clicks of a mouse. See you on Pokemon Showdown!

Oh, and here’s a quick guide to Pokemon Showdown if you are interested:

A guide to Pokemon Showdown by a popular youtuber, “PokeaimMD”.

A New Chance in an Old Scene

With its original release in 1999, the Super Smash Brothers franchise has been around for nearly two decades, with the next iteration on the horizon.  As December 7th quickly approaches and gamers from all different walks of life gear up to play this seemingly timeless classic, others (myself included) are preparing for a dramatic shift in competition and are grinding to achieve the status of a professional gamer.

The Super Smash Brothers franchise has been a part of the esports world for over a decade, spanning across every version of the game.  Players from all over the world come together to LANs to compete, show-off combos, and yes, even play for thousands of dollars.  This makes Smash Ultimate not just a game, but an entire lifestyle and culture that people spend hours a day training for.

So while Smash Ultimate may just appear to be a new release of an old game and nothing much seems to have changed, competitive players have spent nearly every waking moment since the game’s initial announcement studying anything that they can get their hands on.  Despite not even having any copies of the game until recently, players have already gathered frame data, possible tournament legal stages, and have even gotten into some debate as to whether or not the overall rule set of the game should change. So even though most players will only see a new Piranha Plant beating their favorite characters senseless in the game, competitors trying to “make it in the big leagues” will be looking at how characters are no longer viable–or possibly stronger–than they could have ever imagined in previous games.  To dedicated players, every bit of information that they are able to get their hands on matters.  Even something as minute as the fact that Pikachu’s forward air now appears to have three less frames of landing lag could be the reason that a devoted player wins their next tournament.

A comparison of Pikachu’s frame data

Smash Ultimate brings new opportunities to players.  With so many new mechanics being added and others taken away, there are multiple possibilities to “shake up” the rankings.  Someone who may not have been good enough to compete at Super Smash Brothers for WiiU may now have the opportunity to be the best in the world at Smash Ultimate simply because these small nuances now fit their play-style, unlike in previous titles.  A new edition also generally gets more players involved as players are more likely to join a new competitive scene.  Not everyone is likely to pick up a game after multiple years of it being released and then suddenly decide that that is the game they want to be the best at. However, someone may decide to get into a new scene because that is the only thing that they have heard from their friends for the past few weeks.  This new and very active player base will cause the game to grow, yielding even more opportunities for the players who are just now deciding to settle it in Smash.

Tournaments for Smash Ultimate have already been organized for 2019, prize pools included. There are even opportunities for new players, as arcadians-tournaments built specifically to show off new players’ skills-are already starting, such as Last Stock, a tournament that is offering travel to one of the biggest tournaments happening later this year: Genesis 6.

Teams are also looking for fresh talent everyday and new avenues to explore, including creating new teams for Super Smash Brothers Ultimate.  This leads not only for better sponsors and money in the community overall (as more professional level companies in anything often means better tournaments and winnings for players) but also a larger amount of competitors.

To most people this game is just another thing to plug in and play when they have a break, to others, Smash Ultimate provides a chance for a future career.

-Trae Stroud

 

Player Interaction in MOBAs

Hello! I’m Kevis Tsao. I’ve been an avid moba gamer all my life, from the earliest flash games like Minions and VORP! to the largest franchises today like League and Dota 2. I love all kinds of games, especially roguelikes, deck-builders, and strategy turn-based games, but the genre that holds my heart and my mind is the MOBA.

MOBA stands for Multiplayer Online Battle Arena and is synonymously known as the RTS, or Real Time Strategy. Mobas take two teams of players, from 3v3 to 6v6, and place them within an arena in which they select characters to outfight and outwit the enemy team. Many believe that games are just that: games. Things to waste time. Some games might not have any effect after finishing it, but I think mobas have lessons to teach.

If We Could Go Back In Time…

Text by A.A. BENJAMIN, Game Demo by JO KIM, Characters by SPARLING

Our fictional Once Upon A Time Machine video game proposal (<–see our powerpoint presentation here) had one obvious blunder. We had a cool game demo but treated our presentation as separate from the demo.

As we talk about hyper-meditation in this English New Media course, finding ways to merge the two would have been an opportune way to express what we’ve learned in the course. However, timing issues and mishaps aside, the highlight of this project was collaboration. Our bouncing ideas transformed into a proposal that mimicked gameplay and a fun intertextual commentary that made gaming attractive to a target audience.

The Narrator

We built a video game model off of the arcade style and well-known Mario Kart race track design. The premise of the game is that you can choose one from ten playable characters designed from H.G. Well’s novel, The Time Machine. You then race against your friends in your choice of eight vehicles derived from methods of time travel across literature and film to date, all with their pros and cons. Along the courses which follow the novel’s plot, you use items and special weapons to work your way to first place, surviving the clingy Eloi and destructive Morlocks. Our game provided some intertextual game play for intellectuals in their 20s and 30s, as well as sci-fi and steampunk fans. We also took liberties with H.G. Well’s more obscurely described characters to create gender and race-inclusive characters.

The most enjoyable part about this project, to me, was the generation of ideas together and then watching them develop through art and imagery. One thing we would have needed to do if this were a real proposal would have been to fully design our own concepts and/or cite our sources (drawing them would have been super fun). Though we wouldn’t have to consider copyright issues with the aged H.G. Wells novel, we concluded that we could keep the vehicles as direct references under the Fair Use doctrine. Also, as indicated by our classmates, we could have described the functions of more of our characters, vehicles, and levels rather than focusing on one or two, so here some drafts that didn’t make the cut:

 

Man With A Beard–Spontaneous combustion whenever using matches

 

Time Machine Sled–Can hold endless items. The more you have slower you are. Items attract Eloi, sled itself attracts Morlocks. Enables use of mace

Tardis–Unaffected by villains. Overheats when lighting matches. Your matches don’t work on villains (because you’re in a box. Basically, just avoid matches). Disappears momentarily. Works best with Medical Man

Final Stage Kill Screen: In the old arcade games, the machines had limited space and therefore when players got far enough the graphics began to devolve. The Time Machine ends with the Time Traveller disappearing without a clue of where he went, so the last stage could be a “kill screen,” racing at length until the game graphics begin to deteriorate.

Unfortunately, we are mere undergrad students incapable of rendering the game in such the intricate way that we imagine, so if we were to get a chance to build it, it’d probably be less compelling. But it was fun to dream, anyway. Isn’t that where all great games begin? Progress!

–A.A. Benjamin

Women And The Gaming World, also #Gamersgate

I’m not going to lie, I approached the whole gaming world with many pre-conceived notions and stereotypes of gaming culture and the very people that played these games. I pictured the overweight, late-twenties male in a stained and dirty t-shirt hidden in his parents’ basement playing games alone for hours, with the reflective glow of a screen illuminating his pasty white skin providing the only light and the quick twitch of his hands on the console being the only sign of life. My perception of the gaming world mostly came from its negative (or at least off-color and sensationalized) portrayal in the media, and specifically Brian from the film The Sisterhood of The Traveling Pants (pictured below), which was one of my first introductions to gamers. One of the bloggers on here has already mentioned that the gaming world really seems like a boys-only club akin to something out of a 90s movie, and before I approached the world of gaming, I would say that I agreed 100% with that statement.

from fanpop.com

Before I started gaming, I thought my entrance into the culture would be a bombardment of ostracization in the online community. I thought the people playing games would be jerks because I wasn’t a guy; I have to say though, I have been very pleasantly surprised. Please keep in mind that my experience is limited to only a few games, but I have found that people for the most part have been very welcoming and helpful. I guess there isn’t really any way to tell outright that I am a woman, but I think that this gender neutrality is a plus of gaming. In the game, one assumes the identity of his or her avatar, and thus the gender of the gamer is kind of a moot point. Video gaming provides a unique and cool situation in which men and women can compete against each other and be on teams together in a completely equal way, which is more than one can say for most organized sports. So basically video gaming is the utopia of gender equality, right? Right?

Well… not so fast.

The gaming world, especially now, has been getting a lot of flack for a lack of diversity, ESPECIALLY with how the gaming world regards women. I’m spoiled that in LOTRO, I have the option of completely customizing my character to be whichever gender or race I want it to be, but in most games, this is far from the case. In the vast majority of games, one assigned an avatar/ protagonist character from the beginning, which would be okay if men and women characters were generally equally spread as protagonists throughout games, but that isn’t what happens. The majority of games have a male protagonist, and women characters are highly sexualized. Geek Feminism made a list of games and how women are portrayed in them, and the protagonist section is woefully low. It’s missing a few, but considering how many games there are, the message is overwhelming.

You can read their info here: http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_Women_Characters_in_Video_Games

Sadly, this misogamy is carrying over to the real-life world. While female playership is increasing greatly, some male players seem to be pretty mad that the “boy’s club” aspect of gaming is on the decline. You may be familiar with the “#Gamergate” situation that is currently going on, and if not, the gist is that a female game maker, Zoe Quinn, and another female game critic, Anita Sarkeesian, have been harassed and threatened by members of the gaming community to the point where they have had to flee their homes. You can read more on the situation here: http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/09/24/349835297/-gamergate-controversy-fuels-debate-on-women-and-video-games

This behavior is unacceptable. Gaming is not a man’s world, it’s everyone’s world, equally. I think the fact that we play using avatars speaks to this. While the characters display sexism, which needs to change, the games themselves are gender blind. The age of the damsel in distress and femme fatale is over. It is time for the gaming community at large to welcome and respect the influx of women that is helping to make it so hugely successful, both online and in the real world.

-Sparling Wilson

Enjoy this satire:

from geeksaresexy.net

A Story About My Failure

By A. A. BENJAMIN

There’s a game sitting in my Steam queue that I haven’t played for months. I’ve gotten to the very last level, and just can’t get across this dreaded chasm.

It’s called A Story About My Uncle, and trying to “grapple” with computer keys and a touch pad didn’t drive me nuts until this stage. In class on Thursday I was struck by the “I don’t care if I fail” consensus. It was so interesting to me, to see how a person can be both competitive and yet so careless about failure. Commence brain malfunction in 5…4…3…

I think I have a problem. I have diagnosed myself with “sore-loser” syndrome. It’s not that I kick my feet and whine about how it’s not fair or that the computer “cheated.” I just give up. I tell myself I can’t bear to get so far again, just to have to do it again, and again, and again. I tell myself I have to drastically change my strategy each time rather than just trying the same strategy again with more patience. So, A Story About My Uncle sits in my queue undefeated indefinitely. (A quick note: I absolutely love these kinds of simplistic games for their visuals and story lines…quite stimulating for an aspiring author. But that’s another story.)

Oh, but it doesn’t end there! My relationship with LOTRO began with me blazing through the Intro and Prologue. What did you say? I can do side quests? You mean stop and help those peasants with their remedial chores? BAHA! I think not…But first came the warg, when I got too cocky curious. Then came the marsh, where some short marsh thing blasted me with a firebomb and I almost ran away crying. Almost. Then came Bree, and all the smack of reality that comes after it. I found myself dying. Once, twice, three times, nooo! Then I was not only dying, but failing quests. Then not only failing quests, but having quests lined up in red because my level was so “embarrassingly” low. And don’t even talk to me about the Old Forest. The last time I just tried to make it out alive with a bucket of water, and when I finally made my last steps toward victory, time ran out and the bucket disappeared. You can probably guess I haven’t gone back to try again. Then I killed a little girl, Leila, because I wasn’t prepared to fight every living breathing thing in the Barrow Downs as she dragged me around looking for her cloak. (At least she did find her cloak. At least she was nice and warm when the skeletons got her.)

Then, THEN—for goodness sake— I couldn’t even figure out the CHICKEN RUN. I finished all the prerequisite quests but failed in the part that really matters. Why? Because it was late, and I was too frustrated to even process information properly.

Yep. I logged out with the chicken run literally right in front of my face, because I was too frustrated to pay attention. “But where’s the race?!” *Puts on dunce cap and goes to sit in a corner.* I’m beginning to wonder if this is a “real life” problem.

If how we behave in video games reflects our reality, I’m going to hit a mid-life crisis real soon. That’s why our discussion last class struck me. If we can theorize that gamers are more inclined to take risks and make waves, what does that say about discouraged gamers? What about those “when I’m good, I’m great, and when I’m bad, I’m terrible” people? There’s no in-between. Which is quite a premature attitude to have. Ironically this attitude appears to be a recent installation in my life, because some years ago when I cared less about pride and more about fun, I completed more games.Therefore, I’m assigning myself an era of reform in gaming. To all who claim that gaming sucks us out of reality, I’d like to be the counterpoint. Perhaps gaming puts the deeper reality we can’t see, touch, or feel right in our faces.