Tell me what you think

[benstandby]

This is rather long, so get comfortable. I wrote this for my Applied Anthropology class last spring (this was before the whole Atari name change or absorbtion or whatever, so this is pretty out-dated). All material in it is MY intellectual property. You hear me? MINE!!

Let me know what you guys think.

Cyber-Advocacy
Bringing Shame to a Legacy
Most social scientists regard video games as a scourge that propagates a worldview where life is cheap and expendable. They tend to ask questions like “What kind of effect will this have on children?” out of a total misunderstanding of how widespread this phenomenon has become. I have personally played many online video games with people of all ages, from 7 to 60. Most PC gamers seem to be legal adults, yet video games continue to be seen as an exclusively childish thing to devote one’s time to. Regardless of the stigma associated with adults who play video games, these people exist and are numerous. And they, like many groups in this world, are being taken advantage of.
One very recent example of this kind of exploit can be seen in a game released by publisher Infogrames Interactive (IG) and developer Quicksilver Software (QS). The game is one in a line of Space Strategy Simulators or 4X games (literally: eXpand, eXplore, eXploit, and eXterminate) that held a place at the top of the turn-based strategy genre. Games in this genre are usually overly complex, difficult to play, and almost impossible to master. And unlike games of skill or reflexes, 4X games require patience, planning, and intelligence to play. IG’s newest 4X game Master of Orion 3 (MOO3) was one of the most highly anticipated releases of 2003, and the developers had been working on the project for more than three years prior to the release date. The game was toted as revolutionary, something that would revitalize a genre of game that had been on the verge of implosion in the wake of thousands of beautifully rendered but mindless shoot ‘em up and real-time games. It took the two companies over three years to produce the off-the-shelf version of the game, but when the game was finally released, six months after the advertised date, it was an utter disappointment. The following that Master of Orion and Master of Orion 2 had built was an angry lot, and those who were familiar with the genre but not MOO were just as angry. Many gamers had spent the few months prior to its release making really good friends with the staff at their local game vendors- as the official site actually reported the game as being released long before it was in stores.

[benstandby]

But these strange occurrences weren’t just a fluke. As the game was in the creation process, Infogrames learned that their competitor, Strategy First, was developing a 4X, Turn-based, Space Strategy Simulation game (the same genre as MOO3) at the same time. Infogrames saw possible competition and pushed for an early release, before the developer had finished testing the game. The game came out before it was ready- simultaneously in 21 counties, exactly one month and one day before Strategy First’s Galactic Civilizations. Out of the box, the game was non-functional. The interface was cumbersome, the graphics were less than up-to-date, the multiplayer platform was unpredictable at best, and the manual contained less information about how to play than it did storyline. The strategy guide for the game, however, was sitting on shelves of stores like Fry’s, Target, and Best Buy months before the game was being shipped- taunting 4X gamers and serving as free advertisement. This sold for $29.99, and contained information about game features that were not included in the final release of the game- making it as worthless as the game.
So, wallet in hand, many drooling fans diligently purchased the game in the first month of release, excitedly installed the game, and were horrified with what they had been duped into dropping $50 on. The reviews of the game began to trickle out shortly thereafter, and one Deim_I of Gamers Hell- an online game review periodical- voiced his opinions with no punches pulled, “[W]hat [MoO3] offers in graphics is an insult for every gamer. It not only threatens my eyesight but also dramatically decreases the general feel and playability of the game.” (http://www.gamershell.com/reviews_Ma...n3Review.shtml) He wasn’t alone. Very quickly, websites devoted to this genre of games began to post reviews of the game on their front pages with links to the reviewers’ sites. Countless multi-player bugs, cumbersome and overly complicated interface, and a complete lack of high resolution graphics were proof that the companies involved in the creation of the game cut corners wherever possible. The game actually has a number of flaws that cause it to crash in the middle of tense situations. Games of this genre tend to be so complex that by the time any tense situation occurs, each player has spent hours putting together an empire. And when the game locks up or crashes, all players are dropped- ending the game. As a result, most multiplayer games last 3 hours and end as soon as two empires clash when it is supposed to last days, possibly weeks. Master of Orion 3 is a game that does not function. But it was too late. It appeared that all the hype worked. The fans had all spent their money; Infogrames had made their cash. And millions of gamers, fooled by the prestige carried by the name Master of Orion, had bought the game on faith.

[benstandby]

While in theory it's a great idea to have mundane tasks taken care of in the background, in practice it doesn't work so well, as the AI very often gets things wrong and it's a pain to search for its mistakes and put them right yourself. This is not helped by the fact the game appears overtly complex on the first few sittings, so trying to find your way round it and keeping an eye on the AI at the same time is not everyone's idea of fun.
(http://www.computerandvideogames.com/reviews)
In other words, trying to trick the AI into doing specific tasks and then making sure that your local Viceroys are actually doing what needs to be done is how one plays the game. The goal of this process is so that even as a player’s empire becomes gigantic (hundreds of star systems, each with multiple planets, that each have multiple regions), each turn can be played in a reasonable amount of time. This time constraint is the most important concern when playing multiplayer games of this genre. But instead of cutting the time each turn takes to complete down to a few seconds, the developers have made each turn take longer than turns in typical games of the genre that embrace micro-management.
So now we have a group of gamers who all spent their money on this steaming pile- believing that nobody could really ruin a video game of such a great reputation. And a company that even today, months after the game’s release, has not yet patched- for all intents and purposes- a broken game. A patch is an after-release set of files that is loaded into the game’s folder. They tend to come out shortly after a game’s release and are continually updated as new ideas are implemented and flaws in the game‘s design are discovered and fixed. MOO3 has been out since February this year, and IG has released one patch that fixed only typos in the game’s documentation- ignoring the terminal flaws the game carries. This is where the problem exists. Another multi-million dollar corporation marginalized and ripped off another million or so people, and the gamers involved have no recourse. The disenfranchised need to fight back. But how? Armed with an anthropology degree and a desire to actually find a viable solution to this problem, I plan to take the complaints and suggestions of a disillusioned population to the source of their discontent. Developer and producer are both at fault for what happened, and both stand to loose much in the next few years as gamers choose to buy games from other companies, like Strategy First, and even boycott Infogrames or Quicksilver titles in the future. Whether it’s out of spite for ruining two classic game dynasties or because IG has ruined its own reputation doesn’t matter.

[benstandby]

On the other hand, Strategy First, and other small companies are subject to market manipulation by the bigger dogs on the block like IG, making it more and more difficult for them to compete. This puts gamers themselves in a tough position also. Though they may be able to make their discontentment clear, many have already spent their money and are counting on Quicksilver to release a patch that will eventually make the game playable. And this kind of trickery can be employed by other companies in the future who may look at an industry leader like Infogrames in the hopes of replicating their more profitable endeavors. Gamers have a lot to loose if this becomes common practice. Whether or not the money spent purchasing the game was a waste has yet to be seen- and won’t be until gamers see how well any forthcoming patches do toward making the game enjoyable. But if Infogrames cuts funding to the project, those disenfranchised gamers can kiss any forthcoming patch goodbye- along with the money they spent on the game.

[benstandby]

Making it Happen
In recent years, the explosion of consultant-style employment has provided a job market that is open to new ideas and opinions. This is a powerful way that change can be brought upon an industry that is in dire need of it. Under these auspices, a single advocate can make a significant contribution to a growing problem. This is what I plan to do in regard to this problem.
Taking a step-wise approach, I think that the first major piece would be to form an advocacy group: a not-for-profit consumer development organization that would serve to advance the cause of the gamer by bringing the full force of gamers, their websites, their magazines, and most importantly their money down on the corporations that fund, design, and manufacture the games they play. The objective here would be to hold these corporations accountable for their business practices by compiling a database of those practices, publishing both an online and printed journal, and serving as a place where complaints can be synthesized and presented to corporations, the public, and- if necessary- the authorities.
This would be a formidable task indeed, however. So the first thing that would have to happen is to grease the wheels of the machine we call free market. Grant money and loans would need to be secured before anything major could be done, but while the grant writing (read: waiting) is taking place, gamer’s magazines, websites, and forums could be contacted. These institutions are key to keeping the gaming community cohesive, and relationships with them would be critical to the success of any endeavors in this arena.

[benstandby]

I have broken this step down into three areas. Each would need to be approached in slightly different ways due to the culture of each. The most formal and professional of these institutions would be the gamer’s magazines like PC Gamer, GMR Magazine, and PC Zone. With these kinds of institutions, press releases and letters to the editor would be the most effective way to get information about our organization into their publications and to their readers. Until some measure of success has been achieved, there would be no point in wasting our effort on anything other than letting them know that we exist. Later, these institutions would be a wonderful tool to direct against corporations that exploit the gaming population, but they tend to have a view of the video game scene that is magazine and industry centered. A grassroots style organization like the one I’m proposing would not be considered newsworthy until it has done something.
This is why I would start with the more humble, but pivotal forums and websites. Sites like Civfanatics (www.civfanatics.com), Apolyton (www.Apolyton.net), and Game Rankings (www.gamerankings.com) are the water temples of this industry and its communities. These sites would have to be enticed with some kinds of incentives, but links on their sites to a website that we create for the Video Game Research Institute (or VGRI [the independent research organization/consulting firm that I would create]) would be too important to miss. This would be the most important aspect of the entire networking process. If a sufficient number of these sites are not brought onboard, the program will ultimately fail because it cannot function without the support of gamers themselves. If gamers don’t know we exist, we aren‘t providing a service. And if gamers don’t feel like we provide a good service, we will have no weight in the industry.
The VGRI would need to spend a lot of time of the forums related to these kinds of games. Many fan sites, industry sites, and games’ official sites have on them a forum or Threads. Threads serve as a place for gamers to share their experiences, to complain and praise, and to make contact with other players. These institutions are the place where the experiences of gamers become culturally real. Things don’t exist without labels, and unless one knows that others use the same labels in the same way, one’s experiences are not yet culturally real. Because of this, gamers have threads where cultural production takes place. The careful, holistic study of the culture of this institution (not just of single games, but all games within a genre) would bring a much more sound understanding of what it is that gamers of each genre want. This would be done in two ways; first, through generally searching; and second, posting ethnographic interview questions and monitoring responses. In this way, we combine the full body of knowledge in all attempted versions of a certain style of game into what worked in the eyes of gamers and what didn’t work so that game companies can better understand the culture of their market. We can isolate the different genres based on studies that would provide us with information regarding the compatibility in the eyes of gamers the different styles of games, so that future attempts at broadening the market of a game are focused on games that can attain mass appeal without alienating the original fan base.

[benstandby]

Of course in order to do this, I’d need a staff- preferably tiny, such as a secretary, a Webmaster, and two interns. The webmaster would have to write all the material for the website, update and maintain the website and any databases constructed, maintain the office computers, market our links to other sites, get links added to our own site, maintain relationships with online partners, and provide security from web attack or viruses for all electronic assets. This job would be the most critical of all, as our reputation would be based on our web presence, our reliability, and our professionalism. The organization’s secretary would provide support services by answering phones and doing other office-style duties- including filing most of the official hard-copy reports we would receive from volunteer gamers. These two positions would be paid- assuming I could secure funding.
In addition to these positions, I’d keep on hand a number of interns who would be my research assistants. They would help recruit gamers from a diverse set of age, socio-economic, and ethnic identities into a corps of informants through whom much of the organization’s research would be done. Not only would these interns recruit volunteers, they would do much of the cataloguing of the research into reports that would be used to make cases for or against certain actions by the industry. The VGRI could serve as a hub of information in terms of market research (for a price) and consumer reporting/advocacy for gamers themselves (at no charge)- essentially leveling the playing field.

[benstandby]

The best way to test something like this would be with a trial run effort. We’d choose two games of the same genre in development at the time by two different companies. This would allow us to track the practices of two companies along the way and publish the indiscretions of each. We could track the entire process and synthesize the reviews, previews, and demos (sample versions of the game engine) as they come out to create a more informed consumer when it comes to the decision between the two upon release. After release, the interns and their volunteers could play test both games and write reviews, bug reports, and recommendations. The reports that warn and inform gamers about the games themselves would be published online at our website and in a printed monthly newsletter to keep gamers informed as to the choices they have in any specific market. Our reports that offer recommendations to the industry would be kept confidential and offered to companies through a consulting service we would offer.

[benstandby]

Assessment
This project is obviously not the most world changing, pivotal to humanity kind of advocacy work that can be done, but it is nonetheless an incredibly daunting task. As a result of the uphill battle ahead of the VGRI, we would need to set some kind of benchmark by which we can measure our own success. This also would be broken into steps. Obviously the trial run on the parallel video game developers mentioned in the previous section would make for a very powerful test of how well we are doing. While the organization cannot take credit one way or another for the resulting success- or lack thereof- of either game, it will certainly be able to tell us if we have not been effective. There would be many of these small clues from which the organization could compile a big-picture look at its place within the community.

[benstandby]

The first of these clues would come through the contacts we have with gamers’ websites like Apolyton. If these sites place our links prominently on them, we will have secured a major step toward becoming recognized. These links could be monitored by our Webmaster to count the traffic that flows from each site. The more traffic, the better we are doing. On the threads, the VGRI would be able to know rather quickly if its efforts are amounting to anything. If there are many responses to the ethnographic interview questions, it will at least tell us that people will know who we are- as each post can contain a tasteful plug of the organization. In addition to that, much of the contents of any discussion that occurs as a result of the VGRI’s posts would be not only a powerful tool for gaining insight into the cultures of specific games, but also a good indication of whether or not the gamers are on board with the organization’s mission.

[benstandby]

The volunteer gamers recruited by the organization’s interns would be another vantage point from which we could see ourselves. These gamers are the ones who are the most likely to post in forums and to complain to companies about their practices on their own, and so they become powerful when united in a common goal. These volunteers could bring rapid change through email campaigns to players they know all over the globe. These volunteers would be asked to submit brief reports quarterly which would be in the form of worksheets emailed or sent to them hard-copy. These worksheets would ask self-assessment and “policy/procedure-assessment” style questions with the intention of hearing directly from the front lines how effective our efforts have been.

[benstandby]

The VGRI seal of approval would be a program that upon implementation, absolutely creates the kind of feedback needed to truly assess the organization’s power in the industry as a force for equity and accountability. It would be a set of criteria that any game must meet in terms of both quality and honesty in how a game is designed and marketed. This seal would be totally voluntary for companies to seek out and obtain the rights to display for a game’s box, but if enough gamers were on board the mission of the organization would buy only games that are approved by a private, reputable organization as up to a certain quality, functionality (as in, “does it work?”), and that they are indeed what they are advertised as, the industry would feel the weight of VGRI. On the other hand, if we haven’t made any impact at all, we’ll know it within a year when nobody cares about our little seal and people are still getting gouged at the checkout stand.
In a perfect world, this project would have an immediate effect on the way video games are designed, marketed, and maintained. Gamers would be affected in ways that are not entirely predictable even in this perfect world of post-VGRI. Games would be produced over longer intervals perhaps- affecting their price, but games would always work on release

[benstandby]

Of the various stakeholders, the most affected would obviously be the big industry players: production companies like Infogrames, Sierra, and Activision. These companies would have to be far more careful what they do in the game creation process. If they cut corners, manipulate the consumer, or push a game for early release that isn’t ready, they will be affected by not having an industry-wide symbol of quality on their box: The VGRI Seal of Approval. Corporations would send the organization copies of its games prior to release for beta testing in order to get the right to print the seal on their box. If the game is shoddily constructed, it gets no such seal.

[benstandby]

This brings to mind two of the most important long-term ethical concerns: conflict of interest, and industrial espionage. In terms of conflict of interest, I’d need to be concerned with not giving the authorization to use the organization’s seal on a game just because the company hired our firm as consultants on the project. In other words, if a company makes a game that does not fit our standards of quality, they do not deserve the VGRI seal and they should be rated accordingly in our journal (on and offline) and in our database. This also goes the other direction, however. When a company hires the VGRI to consult on a game project, the organization will assign an intern (or a consultant once the organization becomes large enough) who has an obligation to her or his employer to help make a game fit the standards of quality that the organization has established. Controlling an unparalleled amount of data on specific game genres, specific markets, and practices of other companies, the VGRI would have to be extremely careful regarding the access it gives its clients to the kind of data it has collected. Only public information can be shared with companies that compete in at least one genre. This would require studying up to an extent where the entire video game industry would be charted- almost like a genealogy chart. This way we could make sure that consultants are not in the employ of two or more competitors in any market at the same time. Contracts would also have to be checked by an IRB to make sure that there are no conflicts of interest or opportunities for industrial espionage.

[benstandby]

This organization should have the capability to bring accountability to an area of the global market that is larger than any one government can control. The only way to do this is through good solid anthropology. The VGRI is actually a pretty cool idea now that I look back on it, and I actually think I may carry it out. I know it’s not the most important cause in the world, but I remember how emphatically I was told once, “Ask yourself ‘Where can I be most Effective?’” I think this project could be applied to other industries if it was effective in this one, and that would be a tremendous step toward corporate accountability in this global environment that is larger than any one government.