Reading: The Video Game

Everyone's heard the complaint at least once in their time as a gamer. Most of us have undoubtedly said it at one point while playing an RPG, and if you've ever played Metal Gear Solid these words are practically a mantra.

"How long am I going to have to sit and read/listen to this? Let me get back to the game, already! I want to save the princess/disarm the nuke/make a sandwich!"

The majority of gamers don't play games to read; they play to act out an adventure in a fantasy land or a warzone or the sports field. Reading is for school - it isn't fun, and time they spend talking about how terrible wars are is time they could be spending shooting a man in the face.

Not so much the case in Japan. Unlike us, the Japanese appreciate story in their games. A lot. In fact, there is an entire genre which consists of nothing but one, neverending cutscene.

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the world of Visual Novels.

Ah, Wikipedia. Is there anything you can't give me a sample image for?

Visual Novels can cover a wide variety of genres, from high-fantasy to steampunk to sci-fi to gothic horror. They can take ten minutes to play through, or several hours to see absolutely everything. They can tell stories of epic warfare, heartbreaking romance or mind-twisting mystery.

Separating them from plain books is a variety of added functionality - books, for example, don't usually have pictures that change along with the plot. They definitely don't have soundtracks to go with them, producing a variety of excellent songs as a result. There's also the added ability in certain VNs to make choices that will alter the plot entirely, effectively meaning you can play one of three or four different stories (or 'routes', as they're typically known). Imagine it as one of the old Choose Your Own Adventure books from an era bygone, except on a dozen different illegal drugs.

But there's one thing that all VNs have in common. You will have to read. Lots and lots of text. There will be no chance to use your itchy trigger finger, and you can't rack up a high score.

Unsurprisingly, Western audiences generally haven't been very receptive to the concept of games that don't involve instant action and gratuitous violence. They don't care about taking time for characterisation, they want to go out there and hurt things or score more points than the other guy. It's for this reason that several people don't even quantify VNs as games, because games require interaction beyond pressing a button to continue onto the next block of text.

And in my opinion, that's a real shame.

Recent Western RPGs like Mass Effect and Dragon Age have shown that it's possible to get a player interested in the game's own little universe. The amount of potential background reading the game gives you is astonishing, and that's before covering the novelisations that have been released for both of these games. Even the Halo games have a series of books looking into the history of the game.

So why, then, do games that thrive off this same level of atmosphere lurk in obscurity?

Most of the problem probably revolves around the typical language barrier issues. If there's a lot of text there's obviously a lot of translation work to do, so unless a company expected to make a huge profit by selling it to the West (which, quite frankly, they don't) they won't bother giving us an English version. Fortunately, there are a variety of fan translations for popular VNs available for free download, so anyone interested enough can buy the original and enjoy it in their native language.

This is also a good explanation as to why there are almost no Visual Novels released originally in English - there just isn't a market for them any more. The days of living out a story without absolute real-time interaction and blistering thrill being played out in front of you are in their twilight. The genre originally began in the West, with the first text adventures on archaic old computers, but only Japan has held to it with such strength.

However, in response, the genre has evolved, and what we're receiving instead is a newer genre of interactive fiction that goes a step further in allowing the player to believe they're literally living out the story. Without a doubt, the best example of this genre is the PS3 game Heavy Rain, a game that has received all sorts of critical praise for revolutionising the concept of games as an experience rather than just a hobby. There's a feeling of genuine connection with your player characters in Heavy Rain compared to other games of the era - a feeling of being part of the game's universe, rather than simply playing a game in your living room.

That's the feeling that VNs have been working towards for decades. Heavy Rain may just be a sign that developers have finally cracked how to take an old system and turn it into something new and refreshing - something that won't make you irritated by watching two characters talk to each other for five minutes in the middle of the next action sequence. I, for one, am eager to see where the genre can go after this, because things will only get even better from here.

Quite an advance from walls of text, huh?

Raging Like A Level 80 Warrior

Video games are, by definition, a hobby. Unless you're a genuine pro gamer who actually makes money when they sit in front of a computer, then there's nothing really on the line when you play beyond base pride and some in-game statistics.

But in spite of that, everyone's had to deal with at least one gamer who lets their emotions get the better of them. Ever got a poorly written message from a player you just beat insulting you in language that shouldn't be repeated in public? Thought so.

The perfect way to wind down after a game of Modern Warfare 2.

In the fighting game community, behaviour like that is called 'salty'. I can think of two big examples of it that I've witnessed in the last two weeks playing SSFIV to set the scene for this. The first involved a Guile player, a relatively good one, playing a Gief/T.Hawk player infamous for spamming 360 throws all the time. The Guile tried to play clever, but his play was almost too intelligent and as a result he got caught in one mindless throw after another. Eventually he just decided enough was enough, unplugged his controller mid-match, walked out of the room and refused to play the rest of his games.

The second incident, embarrassingly, stars myself. Playing in a match that didn't really matter against a player who I could probably beat easily if I went all out, I let ego drive me into playing random characters against him. Luck did not favour my randomisations, however, and in the end I lost two sets to one. My opponent promptly proceeded to rub this victory in my face, and when everything came together I basically snapped and yanked both controller leads out of the Xbox. In doing so I shuffled the actual console along and managed to wreck the disc inside. It was a heat-of-the-moment thing that I spent the rest of the day regretting, but the people running the tournament turned down my refund and gave me the benefit of the doubt.

Why did we get angry in both cases? Because we expected to win, and we didn't. If we'd been up against players who were quite clearly better, we'd have taken our losses with a handshake and a few notes on what to do next time. But because we'd gone into the game thinking 'this will be easy, I'm better than this guy', the result basically made us feel rather stupid about ourselves, and it was an emotion we had to deal with somehow.

So the question is 'why do people get so salty about video games?'. If you asked a non-gamer, they'd think that we were being immature or simply sore losers. They'd say gaming was a terrible hobby that inspired people to get angry at each other.

The fact is, video gaming gets a bad reputation in terms of making its players angry. Not because it doesn't have its fair share of ragequitters, no - but because every sport has players who get mad when things don't go their way. The only difference is that due to the online nature of modern gaming, it's easier to get mad because of the anonymity the internet provides.

 

Zidane ragequits at the World Cup.

Having spent years playing chess at a decent level, I have more examples to give here. The first is an old story about a chess grandmaster, who after finding out he'd lost out on first place in a tournament declared 'That I should lose to this idiot!' On a smaller scale, there's the parable of a club player who lost a tournament game by accidentally giving away his queen, and got his payback by breaking into the venue that night and cutting all of the queens in half.

And that's before going into other sports where rage gets thrown around without anything resembling restraint. Top tennis player Serena Williams is well known for handing out death threats when she's losing; Russian figure skater Evgeni Plushenko had a tantrum on the podium when he took home a silver medal at the 2010 Olympics; and Cuban martial artist Angel Matos dealt with being disqualified at the Beijing Olympics by kicking the referee in the face. Compared to these, walking out of the game when you're losing seems outright gentlemanly.

People getting angry over losing isn't a phenomenon unique to video games. It's an emotion that many of us feel, when we think we've been cheated or lost to someone we think ourselves to be better than. Some people get angry at themselves, some lash out at the people around them, some just pick up their things and walk away from it all, but it's almost always a matter of the player not doing as well as they think they should have.

And ego is a part of human nature, so like it or not ragequitters are going to be around for a long, long time. Of course, laughter is the best medicine, so rather than getting angry at them we should just make the most of it and laugh at their expense.

What Are You Fighting For?

I play games for a different reason than you play games.

When you put the idea in blunt wording like that it seems ridiculous, doesn't it? But it's a clear truth that different people want different things out of their games. There are people who'll play a game once quickly and say that they've found everything, and there are completionists who won't be satisfied with a game until they've finished every last mission and found every drop of additional content.

And, of course, gained every single achievement. Achievements are serious business to these people, after all.

There have been dozens of studies to quantify players like this over the years, so I'm going to use my experience to try and produce my own. For easy reference, I'll list the 4 archetypes under the 4 Gamerzones of Xbox 360 - Recreation, Family, Pro, and Underground.

Recreation: I just wanna pass a little time, y'know?
Recreation, in short, is the starting zone. It's the level that everyone enters the gaming world in when they load up Mario Bros. or play a game of Wii Sports. There's no real goal behind playing, and there's no desire to examine the world intently if you aren't enjoying it. The first, and only, objective of the Recreation gamer is fun.

Recreation gamers like games that are open because it offers them dozens of different ways to entertain themselves. If something appeals to them, they'll try it - otherwise, they'll just pretend it isn't there, even if going through the task is necessary for 100% completion.

If, on the other hand, you give the recreation gamer a game with a very particular objective - say, Street Fighter IV - they'll play it only if they find it enjoyable. Otherwise, you might as well be drawing blood from a stone. They either like it, or they don't. The difference here is that they're more likely to play this sort of game obsessively, because they enjoy every part of the package.

Multiplayer games are a mixed bag. On one hand, they'll play it if the game is fun; but they won't play obsessively and try to become a top player. Too much effort, and it's a game, not a lifestyle!

Some players, after playing for long enough, will branch out of Recreation and into one of the other three zones. Others will stay Recreation gamers forever, becoming the much dreaded 'Casual' gamers.

Every 'pro' gamer's worst nightmare.

Family: "It's so much fun hanging out with you guys!"
The Family gamer is the player who doesn't take interest in the game so much as the people he's playing it with. He'll be the player who starts off parties and dominates voice chat, who passes you friend requests and wants to play multiplayer games all the time. He doesn't care about results - he just wants to enjoy the feeling of camaraderie games produce.

He prefers team games above all else - games where communication is vital to survive, and so he has a perfect channel to be social. Expect to see this sort of player pining for games like Left 4 Dead, Animal Crossing, and Farmville, or sending you endless posse invites in Red Dead Redemption.

Single player games? Nope, sorry, never heard of them, not interested. Playing games by yourself is lonely.

Pro: "Hey, check out this sweet overkill I scored."
This is where we step into the realm of the 'serious' player. Pro players will play single player games as a contest between themselves and the machine, refusing to call the game 'won' unless they've achieved absolutely everything possible. They experiment, trying to find new and interesting ways to cheat the engine into breaking its own rules. They want to beat the game, not just in terms of saving the world or rescuing the princess, but doing so while taking no hits and only ever using that lousy wooden sword the old man in the first town gave you.

In multiplayer games, they're the type who will study every little nuance of gameplay for an advantage. They don't play to have fun, and they won't respond to your voice chat requests. The instant you walk into a game lobby with them, you're nothing other than an opponent who they're intent on beating to a bloody pulp. And more often than not, they will.

In the unlikely event that you do win, there are two forms of response from the Pro gamer. If you won using the same tactic over an over again, they will call you a scrub and say that you aren't 'playing the game properly'. If, on the other hand, you beat them fairly, they will either suck it up and study your play or call you a cheater. Unsurprisingly, the latter is much more common.

Which leaves us with...
The Underground: "Oh man, imagine the look on his face right now."

If you're an Underground player, you're very interested in your opponent. Not for the intent of beating him, but for finding out the best way to work a response out of them. Maybe they get annoyed when you stand next to their spawn point and kill them as they come back from the grave. Maybe they get frustrated if you abuse the noobtube in Modern Warfare. Maybe they get irritated when you keep abusing Shoryukens in Street Fighter because they expect you to play 'smart' and do something else.

Whatever it is, if it annoys them, the Underground player is satisfied.

In terms of results, the Underground player can look very much like a Recreation player, but the difference is that the naivety of the Recreation player is a deliberate ruse. The Underground player is usually very aware that he plays like a scrub, and that's just the way he likes it.

We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We thrive on your ragequit.

In short, for lack of a better term, the Underground player is a troll. He's the player who will revel in the sound of his opponents tearing their hair out over the microphone. If you catch on to his tricks and are about to win, expect him to pull the plug and invalidate the match just so he can have the last laugh.

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As a warning, take these classifications with a pinch of salt. For one, I'm no expert psychologist, and people aren't likely to fit cleanly into one archetype. You can be a Family gamer playing one game, but a Pro gamer in another. Just use this article as a chance to consider and appreciate the variety of characters you'll find on the internet.

Except for Underground players. They're annoying, but a necessary evil.