If you are really crap at video games, or perhaps just incredibly lazy, then I've got some good news. From the LA Times comes the news that professional video gaming is soon to make an appearance on cable television. Don't get too excited by the prospect of something on cable more interesting than Dora the Explorer or Pimp my Ride or the MTV-Nick Jnr crossover show Pimp my Dora. Actually, scratch that last one. That might have been a dream I had. Note to self; must cut back on the Mexican takeaway.
Seriously, video gaming on cable TV isn't exactly a ringing endorsement. Anyone who has ever channel surfed a cable TV network knows you can click through a lot of channels without catching a single decent wave. If you like televised tractor pulling, or a knitting channel then you'll be well catered for, but otherwise there's not really a great deal to get excited about. Which come to think about it, probably makes cable TV the perfect home for professional video gaming.
Major League Gaming, the outfit responsible, already broadcast this stuff on the web, but MLG head honcho, Matthew Bromberg sees this next step - a deal to screen seven one-hour episodes later this year, as a "sign that video gaming has arrived to a mass market".
SPSN - people watching people watching people.
Now perhaps it's just me, but I seriously don't see the appeal of watching someone else play Halo 2 on the Xbox, or Super Smash Bros on the Gamecube. (If you're wondering; those are the Professional Gaming League's games of choice). Now call me old fashioned, but I like my gaming a little less passive. Sure we've all watched a friend, a brother or our partner play video games, but only because we knew we'd be wrestling the controller off them if they refused to give it up after their time was up. Sure, we've all watched our brothers in arms continue the good fight after we've taken a bullet during online co-op play, but admit it. Your enforced time in spectator mode is only good for toilet and drink breaks and once that's sorted, you just wish your buddies would 'die already' so you could get back in the game.
Apparently Major League Gaming plan to mix things up a little with player profiles and sports style commentary. I'm not convinced the player profiles will be very compelling. I'm guessing that if you've played enough Halo 2 to be one of the best players in the world, then there's a good chance there's not a whole lot else going on in your life. As for the commentary, just how exciting can it get, when the most drama you can hope for is a player with hand cramps or a controller coming unplugged?
If you think your wife, Mum, or significant other is giving you a hard time about wasting your life away playing video games, just wait until they realise you have finally become so lazy that you've decided just to watch someone else play instead. The LA Times article calls televised video gaming an 'extreme' sport. Please! Four blokes on bean bags in front of a telly? Who are they kidding? Give them a wireless controller, and shoot them out of a cannon and then we'll talk about it.
What Women Want
The University of Evansville, in the great Hoosier state of Indiana, recently ran an on-line piece about the impact women are having on the video gaming landscape, both as consumers and in the industry itself. The article is clear about what women don't want when it comes to gaming. Not surprisingly, and rightly so, women are not keen on games depicting violence against women. Nor, if the article is to be believed, do they want so called 'pink' games marketed exclusively for girls.
Now this has got The Wrap thinking about what women really want from video games. Truth is, women don't really want to play games at all. It's a 'Men are from Mars, Women from Venus' kind of thing. You see, men are interested in the doing, the action, the getting in and solving the puzzle, killing the enemy and getting on with the job. Not women. Women would rather play the game for five minutes and talk about it for fifty, and not even necessarily in that order. For women, it's all about expressing how they feel. They want reflection and discussion, Women don’t want to spend hours exploring the dark lonely tombs with Lara, when they could instead spend time analysing her motivations for being in the tomb, empathise with how she must feel, alone in the dark, share their own most private fears and talk and talk and talk. Clearly, what we need is a video game club for women. A club where talking about the experience is even more important than playing it.
“I gain strength from the courage and raw honesty shown every day on the PALGN forums.” Ooopla, June 2005.
Now according to a PALGN Survey, undertaken last year, almost 24% of PALGN readers are female. I did ask Brendan the editor for more detailed information but he didn't get back to me. Possibly because I asked for a list of names, photographs and marital status. Regardless, I'll brace for an avalanche of angry feedback from female gamers who would love to analyse, reflect, discuss and dissect this week's Wrap. While I'm waiting, I'll just duck out and trademark the name Ooopla's Video Game Club.
Colour Blind
A chap called Eric Lowe writing for his online student newspaper at the University of Louisiana, is concerned about racism and stereotyping in video games. According to Eric, far too many video game protagonists are white, and like all good scholarly articles he's got the research to back up his assertions. He claims over 50 percent of player controlled characters are white males and 40 per cent of game characters are black; but complains that most of those characters are athletes.
Now I'm a staunch opponent of racism, and Eric's heart seems to be in the right place. But Eric's arguments are all a little flawed. He accuses game developers of thinking that black people must predominantly play sports games because game rosters are packed with African American athletes. Actually Eric, your beef isn't with the game developer. The video game rosters are predominantly African American in certain sports games because in those sports, black athletes dominate the game in real life. Take the NBA. Want to play as a Scotsman in a basketball video game? You'll find it slim pickings. Prior to the 2002 draft, a Scottish player had never made it to the NBA. Robert Archibald, born in Renfrewshire, Scotland, was selected by the Memphis Grizzlies in the 2002 NBA Draft and played just two NBA seasons. Now, I was born in Scotland, and am an (average) basketball player myself, so I'd be keen to play an NBA basketball game that featured a few Scottish players. But if there are none going around we can hardly blame the game developers. To accuse them, as Eric does, of 'silent racism', seems just a little daft. Similarly, if I've wanted to play an NBA team featuring an Australian player over the years, the choices have been few, but that's because the game rosters are based on actual NBA rosters.
One of these things is not like the other, I’m thinking it’s the guy with the fangs.
When video games are tasked with recreating the world we live in as realistically as possible, then it is reasonable to expect the game to mirror its real life counterpart. Eric is critical of the general public for seeing African Americans as athletes. Clearly seeing any race in a one dimensional light is wrong. But blaming the games industry for 'feeding on our stereotypes' seems a little rich. In the past few weeks I've played just a handful of games, but have encountered enough ethnically diverse characters in just Tomb Raider Legends and SOCOM 3 alone, to shoot a TV commercial for Benetton. Sure, I was trying to kill a few of them (but in my defence, only when they shot first), but I was also working hand in hand with characters from around the globe.
Eric, if you want more white basketball players in the NBA, can I suggest that next time you fire-up NBA Live, you play as the '70's All Star Team.
A Safe Bet
Still in the US, The Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier in Waterloo Iowa, reports on the popularity of sports video games with professional athletes and their tendency to wager big money on the outcomes. This is a surprise? If Tom Wolfe's most recent novel on college life in the US is any indication, these same athletes were spending 90% of their time playing video games even while they were in school. What did we expect they were doing during their spare time between games? Writing poetry, studying Latin or taking the Bar exam perhaps.
The Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier says NFL players are 'throwing down $200 on a game of Madden NFL'. Please. $200 is nothing to these guys. Last month the Chicago Sun Times reported that average NFL salary is $1.25 million and the average Major League Baseball salary is $2.9 million. If you're pulling in that kind of money you can afford to wager $200 big ones on a video game, even after you've put aside money for drugs, hookers and anger-management classes. Professional athletes love to gamble. It's their competitive nature that drives them to wager. Better they bet on the video game, than the actual game they are playing in.
The article asserts that the key to the heightened interest in video gaming by professional athletes is the much greater realism offered by today's games. Certainly sports games have come a long way. Take the first licensed basketball game for instance. Released in 1983, Dr. J and Larry Bird Go One on One was a simple game with crude graphics. The only real difference between the two players being the player number and the colour of the player’s pixels; white for Larry and brown for Julius Irving. It is unlikely NBA players played it on the road. Not unless they wanted to lug an Apple II on board the team bus, although it was later ported to the Atari 7800 in 1986, and the follow up title, Jordan vs. Bird was released on the NES and Sega Genesis in 1988.
Hey Chuck, is it just me or are these Madden graphics so good that compared to them we look like sketchy illustrations?
What's most interesting is the suggestion in the Courier article that some athletes are using sports video games as a substitute for watching video tapes of opponents in previous games. The implication being that video games AI is so good that it can actually equate to the mind of a 146 kilogram NFL Offensive Lineman. Even setting the bar that low, I'm not sure I've ever encountered AI that sharp. Of course, even once video game AI becomes that accomplished, it can only ever replicate the way a player or team has played in the past, not how a player may choose to play in the future.
Of course that might be just enough reason for athletes to continue playing video games. When the day comes that Madden's AI starts accurately nailing NFL players gameplay, NFL players would be wise to take notice and make some changes to their own game.
Catch you next week on The Wrap.
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