thefearwasreal (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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fandomhigh2013-03-29 03:38 am
thefearwasreal) wrote in fandomhigh2013-03-29 03:38 am
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Pop Culture: Everything I Ever Needed To Know I Learnt From... [Thurs, 1st Period]
Oz's class was back in a normal classroom today. "Morning, kids, and I hope you all had a good day yesterday, I had to dose some people with memory drugs because loose lips sink black ops programs." He was joking. Maybe. Let's just assume he was for everyone's peace of mind.
"Now last week you all had a chance to play some of the most popular video games of the last few decades, and hopefully some of you must have started noticing certain trends. Namely, with a few notable exceptions, when it comes to best-selling games, they tend to follow a formula. Kill the bad guys, kill ALL the bad guys, rescue the girl, get the girl, oogle the girl's pixels. Because the girl's pixels will be sexy pixels, because you can't have a power fantasy for hetero teenage boys without a female object of desire, kill more bad guys, give the bad guys new pixels and you have a sequel. Make changes for genre, and you'll notice that game genres are defined by gameplay rather than thematic elements like books and movies, partially because different people like playing different ways, but also because you need more than one story theme to have different genres, and bam you have next year's chart topper."
"So, why do we have so many repetitive games, many with only reskinned models too hide the fact you've already played it before, with so many hypermasculine men and hyperfeminine women? Well, as with so many market driven products, industry and perceived audience."
"Basically you've got an industry overwhelmingly made up of straight men making games for a target audience that is not only young, straight and male, but all too often also vocally, aggressively misogynistic and homophobic. This audience is seen as wanting a power-trip, with wanting to commit violence and be rewarded with sex. Sure you've got companies that try to break this mould, target other audiences, and make a fair chunk of change doing so, but for the most part you've got games made by people with dicks for people who are dicks."
"And that's a shame, because you have a medium which is capable of doing things with story that no other media can, and it's basically being used for breasts and explosions, two things of which I heartily approve of, but not when they're the only ones on offer."
"So here's what we're gonna do, you're gonna find a partner, and the two of you are going to come up with an idea for a game that's not just about killing bad guys and getting the girl, you're going to come up with a lead character, a goal for them, and figure out the story of how they achieve it. Now you can build on existing idea, but you've got to put your own mark on it, and I don't mean a game play mechanic, unless of course, that somehow impacts the story. At the end of the class, present your ideas to everyone else."
"Now last week you all had a chance to play some of the most popular video games of the last few decades, and hopefully some of you must have started noticing certain trends. Namely, with a few notable exceptions, when it comes to best-selling games, they tend to follow a formula. Kill the bad guys, kill ALL the bad guys, rescue the girl, get the girl, oogle the girl's pixels. Because the girl's pixels will be sexy pixels, because you can't have a power fantasy for hetero teenage boys without a female object of desire, kill more bad guys, give the bad guys new pixels and you have a sequel. Make changes for genre, and you'll notice that game genres are defined by gameplay rather than thematic elements like books and movies, partially because different people like playing different ways, but also because you need more than one story theme to have different genres, and bam you have next year's chart topper."
"So, why do we have so many repetitive games, many with only reskinned models too hide the fact you've already played it before, with so many hypermasculine men and hyperfeminine women? Well, as with so many market driven products, industry and perceived audience."
"Basically you've got an industry overwhelmingly made up of straight men making games for a target audience that is not only young, straight and male, but all too often also vocally, aggressively misogynistic and homophobic. This audience is seen as wanting a power-trip, with wanting to commit violence and be rewarded with sex. Sure you've got companies that try to break this mould, target other audiences, and make a fair chunk of change doing so, but for the most part you've got games made by people with dicks for people who are dicks."
"And that's a shame, because you have a medium which is capable of doing things with story that no other media can, and it's basically being used for breasts and explosions, two things of which I heartily approve of, but not when they're the only ones on offer."
"So here's what we're gonna do, you're gonna find a partner, and the two of you are going to come up with an idea for a game that's not just about killing bad guys and getting the girl, you're going to come up with a lead character, a goal for them, and figure out the story of how they achieve it. Now you can build on existing idea, but you've got to put your own mark on it, and I don't mean a game play mechanic, unless of course, that somehow impacts the story. At the end of the class, present your ideas to everyone else."
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