How The Battle Royale Gaming Experience Created a New Social Environment During the COVID-19 Pandemic

In the midst of my senior year of high school, the world shut down. As I recall, NBA star Rudy Gobert started the domino effect that lead to the COVID-19 national shutdowns. Quickly, my high school years came to an end (although I am not complaining). Like many people around the world, my friends and I suddenly had a LOT of free time on our hands. Being stuck indoors, there weren’t a lot of things for us to do together besides play video games. Not just any video games though, battle royale video games. More specifically, Fortnite and Call of Duty Warzone.

For those who haven’t played these games, the basic premise is simple: you and a large group of other players are dropped onto a map and must fight to be the last person or team standing. Along the way, you can scavenge for weapons and supplies, build structures, and strategize with your teammates. It’s a fast-paced, adrenaline-fueled experience that can be both thrilling and frustrating.

One of the things I love about these games is the sheer variety of experiences you can have. Sometimes, you’ll drop into a match and be immediately taken out by another player before you even have a chance to loot a single weapon. Other times, you’ll find yourself in a heated battle with multiple players, each one trying to outsmart the others. And then there are those rare moments where you’ll make it to the final circle, heart racing as you try to outlast the remaining players and secure the victory.

Even with the variety of good experiences, there’s nothing quite as frustrating as spending 20 minutes looting and scavenging, only to be taken out by a camper hiding in a corner. Or worse yet, being killed by a player who seems to have an unfair advantage, whether it’s due to hacks or simply being better than you.

Fortnite Gameplay Shot

But despite the frustrations, my friends and I kept coming back to these games. There’s something addictive about the rush of adrenaline you get when you’re in the thick of battle with your friends, knowing that your survival depends on your skills and a bit of luck. But there was more than just the adrenaline that made it fun.

What made playing these games with my friends so fun wasn’t necessarily the games themselves but the new social environment that was cultivated through gaming during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since we were all stuck at home, gaming was one of the few ways we could really connect with each other. What once was lunchtime banter soon turned into roast sessions over the mic on Play Station party. And battle royale games, like Fortnite, required constant communication between you and your friends to win. So naturally, my friends and I would talk and game for hours and consistently look forward to doing it all again the next day.

Because of the pandemic, battle royale games inadvertently became a new form of interactive social media. Everyone was always online playing. Even when my friends weren’t on, I would join a random squad in Warzone or Fortnite, only to end up chatting and joking with new people for hours. The games were just a new medium for social interaction with friends and random people from around the world.

Call of Duty Warzone Gamplay Shot

Since then, the new battle royale video games have not had the same pull as they once did. People are always complaining how they miss the old Warzone and Fornite and how they feel like the new battle royale games lack the “fun” and “thrilling” aspect of the old games. Personally, I think people miss the social interaction these battle royale games once had during the pandemic. Not the content.

With life back in motion, people don’t have the time to play games as frequently as they did during the pandemic. As well, people are back out socializing in person! So it makes sense why the thrilling interactive aspect of these battle royale games have died down quiet a bit.

While at times I miss the gaming and social culture of battle royale games during the pandemic, I certainly do not miss the pandemic itself.

-Diego

My Hidden Secret

“I’m not a gamer”…

I can’t tell you how many times I have said these words. I don’t play video games (unless you count the one time my boyfriend forced me to play on his xbox and I got killed in poison rain in the first couple minutes). I also don’t regularly play games on my phone. I usually rediscover a game hidden away in the last swipe of some random folder when the plane I’m on doesn’t have a tv or if I have gone through all of my dowloaded Netflix shows on a long car ride. You can ask my team and they will confirm that “I’m not a gamer”.

On long bus drives to various tournaments you will find me reading a book, scrolling socials, watching a movie, attempting to do homework, or completely passed out against the window with my fuzzy sock covered feet sticking out into the aisle to be bumped into whenever someone needs to use the restroom. Like I’ve said… “I’m not a gamer”.

However, I recently learned that is not at all true.

I’ve been lying to myself and others for the longest time.

The truth is…

I might be the biggest gamer of them all.

I play a game constantly: soccer. I’m addicted to gaming, so much that I have let a game determine my entire life. It started when I was young and put into sports as a way of meeting other young women and gaining some life skills. This can be seen in all games as they are social and teach various lessons. Then I got good and I loved being good. I wanted to get better. I worked at it and “leveled up” year after year. When I started I had no intentions of making it my life, but before I knew it I was emailing college coaches, attending showcases and visiting schools. At this point I had reached the ultimate level of the game, or so I thought. After committing to Vanderbilt I realized that I had not reached my full potential and had many more quests to complete in order to continue leveling up. It was not easy, but that’s what made it great. Each challenge presented an opportunity to win, to go to the next challenge and to conquer it. Gaming continues to be never-ending and that’s what makes it so great. It’s never truly complete and theres always more to be done and levels to conquer. We saw this with arcade games as new records were set just to later be broken. This same idea applies to sports as a new challenge and new best is set (whether that is personal best or sport-wide best). It’s competitive and thats why we love it.

I continue to be a gamer. I wake up at 6 am, travel across the country, sacrifice my free time, and put myself out there everyday to play a game. It has taught me how to be a teammate, a leader, curious, determined, resilient, and confident. I have found myself through a game and continue to learn new lessons with each new challenge it presents.

I have built my life around a game and seen the impact it has had on my life. Who’s to say any other game can’t do the same? The next time someone asks if I’m a gamer, I am going to proudly say, “Absolutely”.

— Alex Wagner —

Fire Emblem Three Houses: Successes and Blunders

Fire Emblem: Three Houses weaves a complex narrative that requires multiple playthroughs to understand the full motives behind every character’s decision. What really makes this my favorite Nintendo Switch game are the lovable characters and their intriguing and complex interactions with each other.

These characters create a vehicle that the Fire Emblem writers use to provide tangible details to a complex political atmosphere, as well as highlight some of the struggles of classism. Characters from all different backgrounds interact and befriend each other as you lead them through their time at Garreg Mach Monastery. These interactions show the player the effects of a hierarchical society, through the interactions of students within this melting pot. The feudalistic setting creates a very intricate political web that the students at the monastery often have a difficult time navigating. An excellent example is when you discover that one of your student’s fathers was responsible for killing the father of a different student in a territorial battle. The game turns this into a teachable moment, by letting us see how the characters are unique from their parents and aren’t doomed to the same fate. Tensions between the lower class and nobility is an unavoidable theme, considering the variety of backgrounds between the 33 recruitable characters in the game. Many cutscenes between nobles and commoners are centered around the upper class learning the error of their ways, and seeing commoners as equals, rather than people who need the guidance of nobility.

Despite all the things I love about Three Houses, the game comes up quite short in the ways it represents women and the LBGT+ community. Many of the male and female characters fall into very strict, traditional gender roles. These roles are reinforced through reoccurring instances of men insisting that women’s goal should be marriage and a family or that men should strive for the glories of war or power. Women also suffer greatly in their physical representation in Three Houses. Generally, the female characters are incredibly oversexualized. The game even provides revealing/inappropriate photos of female characters as a ‘reward’ for choosing them as your S Tier relationship. On another level, many of the characters that are romantic options for the player are underage for the first half of the game. Others, despite being older, are deliberately designed to look young.  The oversexualization and infantilization of women was a huge disappointment for me throughout the game. Finally, the LGBT+ representation in Three Houses is… abysmal. Out of the 33 characters, there are 5 gay female characters, and only 1 gay male character. If you want additional options for same-sex romantic relationships, you can purchase the DLC, although making marginalized groups pay for representation isn’t the best approach to inclusion.

Overall, I really love Fire Emblem: Three Houses, and it will always have a special place in my heart. If the writers would exert the same thought power that they applied to class representation to representation of women and the LGBT+ community, I would be even happier.

A Farewell to Flash – The Games That Shaped a Generation

In the olden days of 1996, Adobe released Flash Player, a software intended for web graphics and animations, but in 2000, it got its own programming language. With this, developers were able to use Flash as a game development software and post their projects on sites such as Newgrounds, Addicting Games, Kongregate, Miniclip, Armor Games, and tons more. It was a metaphorical wild west of game development, and I’ll be honest, a lot of these games were…

• 

  “Frodo Vs Stick” (2003)

• 

  “Star Wars Dressup Yoda” (2007)

• 

  “Donkey Kong 64 000” (2012)

…let’s just say of varying quality.

For real, though, I’d wager a fair amount of these games were made over a day or two, but honestly, that didn’t matter. To a kid who didn’t own a console or have a particularly powerful computer, flash games were a godsend. All you had to do was click a button, and boom – literally thousands of games at your fingertips. Accessibility was key here, and back in the 2009 to 2012 era, flash games reigned supreme.

Fancy Pants, Doodle God, Red Remover, There is Only One Level, Fireboy and Watergirl, and like eighty different games where you rode a dirt bike – all of these were outwardly very simple and ran on one mechanic, yet they did that one thing very well.

Holding in the mouse raises the helicopter and releasing lowers it. You move from left to right. In other words, it’s Flappy Bird, only it came out nearly a decade earlier.

Fancy Pants was probably the best platformer that released in 2006. I’m still stunned by many of the creations made in Line Rider, and you can’t tell me the Age of War 2 soundtrack doesn’t get you hype.

Even going beyond the internet, many of these flash games grew to be so popular that they received commercial releases, such as VVVVVV and Super Meat Boy.

But why mention this now?

Well, to top off the fun-fun-fun year that has been 2020, Adobe is ending support for Flash. This isn’t a new reveal, having been announced back in 2017. You see, the number of players on Flash game websites has been declining and fewer and fewer games have been made in Flash since 2012. The rise of the iPhone did contribute to the decline of Flash, but ultimately, the internet just became a different place that had to support a wide variety of different devices. Flash isn’t needed anymore.

So, when I first heard Flash was losing its support, at first I thought, “Well, this is it. Set the countdown for doomsday, everyone,” and dreaded the end of 2020. I was afraid that games I played ever since I was a kid would completely disappear. But then I found this video, and suffice it to say, I think we’ll be fine. The massive archival project Flashpoint has already amassed over 59,000 Flash games that you can play whenever, and that’s pretty rad.

Yeah, it doesn’t have the same level of convenience, but I’m more than satisfied just knowing they’re not being abandoned. I’ll miss ya, Flash. Thanks for 24 good years.

“It was a magical time of experimentation and a lot of goofing off with friends found over the Internet. The moment was especially ideal for newcomers and outsiders, who now had a low barrier to entry and no industry gatekeeping. The joy of that era embodies what Newgrounds seeks to achieve to this very day; a place where people with no experience can learn, create and share wonderful things together.”

Tom Fulp, Founder of Newgrounds

An Overpriced Anniversary: Super Mario 3D All Stars

The first video game console I ever owned was a Gameboy Advance: a Nintendo product. As I grew older, I acquired many different pieces of equipment to play video games on, such as an Xbox 360 and two different gaming laptops. Even with this variation, it seems as if I have always owned and used at least one Nintendo product, whether it was the Gameboy, a Wii or, as it is now, a Nintendo Switch. To say Nintendo has been a large part of my life would be an understatement, and although I have owned countless Nintendo consoles, there is a main reason I keep coming back to buy more from this company: Mario.

One of the first two games I ever owned was Super Mario World: Super Mario Adventures 2, and this marked my first foray into the world of Mario platformers. The controls were tight, the atmosphere of the game was cute and energetic, and beating levels actually made me feel like I was accomplishing something, that I was getting better at a task. From that point on, I owned many different Mario titles, including Super Mario Galaxy, arguably the best and most inventive platforming game ever made. The important thing about Mario is that he will always be the hero. Growing up as a “video gamer”, it was comforting to know that when I got home from whatever type of day I was having, Mario would be there ready to win with me in some way. To this day, Mario still helps distract me, and I honestly cannot see a point in the future where that will change.

Taken From Wired.com

Just as I have a tenured history with the beloved plumber, Mario has an even longer history with Nintendo, this year being the 35th anniversary of the first Super Mario Bros. game on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). In his lifespan, Mario has appeared in over 200 different games, either as the main character or as one of many, such as in the game Super Smash Bros. Even though the sales numbers show the logistic importance of the character for Nintendo, Mario has become his own individual entity as billions of people around the world could probably name him if shown his picture. From his iconic triple jump “wahoo!” in Super Mario 64 to his unmistakable hat, Mario is an extremely distinct character in a world filled with hundreds of thousands of video game protagonists.

Taken from Nintendo.com

There is a real sense of magic surrounding Mario, partly steeped in the fact that he has evolved in tandem with the video game industry. As game companies moved from 2D to 3D graphics, Mario also took that leap. Mario is a video game behemoth, and Nintendo has full control over all of his marketing and selling power. With this in mind, it is no surprise that on September 18^th, Nintendo released “Super Mario 3D All-Stars”, a collection of the first three AAA 3D Mario titles ever to be released (Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine and Super Mario Galaxy). I, along with countless other Mario fans, had heard rumors of this product for a couple of months through different online forums and websites like reddit. There were an unbelievable amount of theories surrounding the release and what would be included, but no one predicted what Nintendo actually did with this hot commodity. In fact, the actual release of Super Mario 3D All Stars came with tons of criticism, most of which I agree with. The main points I have seen across all the complaints can be narrowed down to two main issues: the game has a limited release time and Nintendo only offered these three games for the deal.

Taken from medium.com

Super Mario 3D All-Stars was released on September 18, but it has an end date of March 31, 2021 for when people can buy the collection. As a superfan who was going to buy the collection no matter what, this time constraint was not an issue, but I see that for many others, this could prove a serious problem as the question of affordability can come into play. Although all games in Super Mario 3D All-Stars are remastered for the Switch, this does not take away from the fact that these games are all recycled. For many, this will be the second or even third time they have purchased the game. If you were budgeting how much you spend on games and Nintendo says you only have X amount of time to buy their game, it puts an awful pressure on people to buy the game because they will not be able to get it ever again. It takes advantage of people’s love for Mario, their desire not to miss out on any of his games.

Taken from nintendo.com

The issue tied to which games were included in the collection also shows a predatory pricing scheme by Nintendo. The biggest game missing from the collection was Super Mario Galaxy 2. Almost every post or YouTube video I watched on the topic reflected anger towards Nintendo for not adding it. Now you may be asking, “you are getting three games for $60, why would Nintendo have to add another game for this collection to be worth it?” There are two answers to why Nintendo should have done better. First, Nintendo’s contemporaries have released similar and cheaper remastered collections with the same amount or even more content (e.g., Crash Bandicoot N.sane Trilogy is $40). Second, if Super Mario Galaxy 2 was not released with the original collection for the switch then Nintendo must have plans to sell the game as its own purchase either as DLC or even as a re-release of an individual title. They obviously have the technology to remaster the second Mario Galaxy, but the fact that they did not include it shows that the monetary incentive of their 35^th anniversary was more compelling to them than the true catering to their fans.

So, as a superfan, it’s definitely difficult to come to terms with the actions of Nintendo. Being connected and loyal to a specific character should not be a chore in money management. Rather, it should be something to look forward to with no strings attached. In all honesty, I feel disappointed and betrayed by Nintendo, and I know I am not alone. I, along with all of the other Mario fans, have supported and endorsed Nintendo’s past plans for releasing Mario content; their actions force us to question why they took a perfect opportunity to give some cheaper fan service to their customers and instead charged it for premium? Anniversaries of important figures, even fictional, to different communities are supposed to spread the love and message of the original creation or entity. This business decision by Nintendo is a failure to their loyal and devoted fans.

Taken from nintendeal.com

Nintendo is not EA, but in this scenario, they seem to be acting like them. EA is known for microtransactions, and although these actions by Nintendo are not as blatantly “money hungry” as EA, their real intentions are clear. The question, then, is will Nintendo continue to make decisions like this because they can, or will they try harder in the future to make their fans happy?

-Joseph Finkelstein

Augmented Empathy: VR/AR’s Impact on Gamers

Game psychologists are looking to a relatively new gaming medium to explore the effects of in-game experiences on the real lives of gamers: virtual and augmented reality. According to the Virtual Reality Society, virtual reality gaming is “where a person can experience being in a three-dimensional environment and interact with that environment during a game.” In contrast, augmented reality gaming is “the integration of game visual and audio content with the user’s environment in real time. … While virtual reality games require specialized VR headsets, only some augmented reality systems use them.”

What these two forms of new gaming have in common is the integration of the gamer into immersive storytelling. Rather than watching the effects of gameplay choices play out on a flat screen using a controller, the gamer becomes the controller and experiences the impact of their in-game decisions in real time.

In the case of augmented reality, gamers can even experience the impacts of their decisions on their real environment through a camera. This leads to a sensation gamers call TINAG, or “This Is Not A Game,” in which one of the main goals of the game is to deny and disguise the fact that it is even a game at all (Virtual Reality Society).

Because of the real-world, real-time feel, gamers often feel there are higher stakes to their in-game decisions. Game psychologists argue that “VR experiences can impact the empathy of their users and immediately translate to positive real world behavior.” One example of this comes from a study done on VR gamers who were instructed to cut down a virtual tree. After cutting down this tree in the game, the gamers used an average of 20% less paper in real life.

Another study suggests that the more a gamer immerses in the environment of the game, the more likely they are for in-game choices to affect their empathy outside of the game. For example, when a gamer picks and customizes an avatar, they often bring traits from their real life into their game life. This causes them to identify more strongly with their in-game persona and blur the line that separates gaming from real life.

AR and VR games are the final frontier in eliminating that line completely. When your in-game character is no longer distinguishable from your true self, your choices in and outside of gameplay affect one another inherently.

The implications of this empathy-building through gaming are massive. Some game psychologists argue that it is the moral responsibility of AR/VR game developers to consider the empathic development of their gamers when creating storylines, often with a focus on empathy for other persons, animal rights, and the environment.

Whether or not you believe the onus of creating a more empathetic generation falls on game developers, the impact of these AR/VR games on the emotional development of gamers is undeniable and will likely only grow as the technology flourishes.

Kathleen Shea

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563214003999
https://www.vrs.org.uk/virtual-reality-games/what-is-vr-gaming.html
https://venturebeat.com/2018/09/24/augmented-reality-can-foster-empathy-and-games-can-take-advantage/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563217305381

I Really Hope Mobile Gaming is Not the Future

I usually have a short attention span with games. Unless something really snags my attention early on, I leave it after a few hours of playing. Because of that, console or computer games can be a big commitment for me. I do my research, I watch game play videos, I read reviews, all to make sure that I wont be sinking $30-$60 on a product that I’m going to put down a few days after buying it. the hectic schedule of college doesn’t make this process easier, but it’s my tried and true way of finding games that I enjoy.

Copyright Clash of Clans

Enter my issue with mobile gaming. I loved it when it started. I could drop a small fee of often $.99 or a bit more and have access to some classic concepts and games like Angry Birds or a pocket-sized Civilization game. It was easy to get a quick gaming fix between classes or while “on the go.” I also didn’t feel such a threat of not falling in love with a game either, as the costs are so small that it really doesn’t matter, and it’s pretty easy for me to rationalize spending a buck on even five hours of entertainment.

This all changed with the invention of “free” games like Clash of Clans, Mobile Strike, and Game of War that seem to dominate in grossed money and advertisements. I got in to some of these games pretty enthusiastically. It didn’t cost anything to try, and I loved some of the strategic concepts and settings of the games. I mean just look at this ridiculous commercial for Game of War. The budget for something like this from a mobile game is absurd.

 

All these games have the same problems though. They’re just barely fun enough to keep people interested, and they all involve waiting as the main way of playing the game. Upgrading buildings and units eventually takes weeks! However, players can pay real money in order to speed up this process, often separating the players in to two groups: one’s who don’t care enough to pay, and those who do. What’s even more troubling is that they seem to play in to people’s addictive personalities. Playing these games feels like a trip to a slot machine in some ways, with the frequent level ups, random rewards, and “check-ins” that reward you simply for playing the game repetitively.

I’m pretty good about not falling for these tricks, despite my personality type very much being the one that these sorts of games are meant to entice. It’s really concerning to see the top grossing app list dominated by these games, because we know that many people can rationalize paying $.99….but then do it a LOT more than once. With all this money being made, I can’t really blame the developers, but couldn’t these games at least be a little more…fun? Have a little more staying power? I’ve noticed myself literally spending a few weeks on one of these games before bouncing to another setting, another iteration of the same concept. It’s frustrating. There’s still a lot of great games being made for our phones and tablets, but I wonder how much creativity and brain power is going towards perpetuating these cheap imitations that capitalize on people’s impulsive behaviors. I hesitate to say that I want a game genre to die out, but I really think a lot of the potential for mobile gaming is being wasted on some of these base attempts to recreate an online gambling culture.

What do you think about “free” mobile gaming? Please leave a comment!

Where will gaming go next?

By Carly Vaughn

In what has to be the best idea ever, Nashville has a new classic-gaming-themed bar/restaurant called Two Bits. It’s right on Demonbreun Hill and I had no idea it was there until this weekend. As a concept, it’s one I’ve seen before. There’s a bar called Penn Social in Washington DC with a similar kind of idea, but that one is mostly focused on board games or games like shuffleboard or cornhole.

Two Bits has some really great classic arcade games, most notably Donkey Kong Jr. which I failed at miserably. There’s also a Ms. Pacman and a Space Invaders machine, along with some newer games like Mortal Kombat II (which I was great at). All of these games are free to play, so I got to try my hand at Donkey Kong Jr. over and over without having to feed in any quarters. But the best part were the old gaming systems they had hooked up to TVs hung over the booths in the back. They had an old N64 with Super Smash Brothers and it was amazing to play with friends like I had when I was younger.

Not only was this a really fun place to hang out and eat fried pickles, I think it speaks to the fact that gaming, even arcade gaming, is not an exclusive culture anymore. It’s being coopted by everyone from t-shirt designers to bars, and I wonder if the widening of the barrier to entry is kind of scary to anyone really engrossed in gaming culture. If developments like this mean that anyone has access to a game like Donkey Kong Jr., does that make its mastery less impressive? If bars let anyone play games like Super Mario Bros on NES, does that cheapen their cultural value?

We were talking about how there are no really literary gaming novels out there yet last class. But I think that’s going to change soon. As gaming becomes more mainstream and accessible, someone will write that Great American Gaming Novel we’re all waiting for. Until then, head over to Two Bits and enjoy the fruits that are already being harvested from gaming’s increased popularity.

Where My “Nerd Girls” At?

Professor Clayton asked a question on Thursday that has stuck with me. Are those of us who were excited about Nashville Comic Con, who are into gaming and sci-fi and fantasy, outliers in the Vanderbilt community?

I’d like to say no, outright. But in my last writing workshop we were critiquing a story that made me think of this class, and how I might answer this question, especially in regards to gender. There have already been some posts on female inclusion into the male dominated world of gaming, but I’d like to throw my opinion into the ring as well.

The story was based around the Slender Man stabbing story in Wisconsin, and two high school aged couples that talk about video games, violence, and love. The majority of women in the class, the author included, spent a lot of time distancing themselves from the idea of gaming by saying things like “I really know nothing about it,” or “The only games I play are on the Wii.” There’s obviously nothing wrong with playing Wii, but it seemed like perhaps these women sensed a stigma around being both female and interested in gaming, a big part of “nerd culture”. The author’s female character that was into gaming was characterized as weak and subservient to her boyfriend, a kind of wimpy, clingy mess, who was only interested in gaming because her boyfriend was. I thought to myself: Is this really how other women perceive female gamers? That we’re only into gaming because we want to meet guys, or impress guys, or otherwise connect ourselves with men? Is this how men see us?

I think that female gamers and Doctor Who watchers and comic book readers are not outliers in the Vanderbilt community. There are probably hundreds of women on campus that enjoy gaming and reading fantasy and watching sci-fi. But I think there is still a stigma in being a “nerd” girl, mostly because the interest in gaming and “nerd culture” is still rooted in masculinity, and women who claim interest are sometimes pegged as imposters. There’s even memes about it!

So, no, I don’t think we are outliers, but I do think that there are many more women who would enjoy gaming if they felt safe to express that interest without being labeled as “fake geek girls”.