Here are my thoughts and comments related to me my research on videogames and culture.
Bryan-Mitchell Young aka jccalhoun


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So Masters of Doom (I start a lot of posts with so don't i?) is getting a lot of press lately. However, some people are taking issue with some of it. The seemingly ever grumpy and IMHO nearly always off track Wagner James Au has written a review of the book. The review is valuable where Au tries to set straight the chain of events that led id software to create a First-Person Shooter. But from there he goes off on a rant (something I've never ever done!) about basically how FPS games are crap and if only we had all followed in Ultima Underworld's example we would all be happy shiny people.

He uses facts that Doom sold fewer copies and that FPS games don't sell as many copies as say, Harry Potter games, to try to make the point that they aren't really that important. A couple of other blogs have already countered Au in probably better fashion than I. Joho the Blog does a good job of saying most of what I would have said, and Jonathan Peterson's entry is pretty good reading as well.

However, being that I am never one to withhold opinions, let me babble. Au's whole deal about how FPS games don't sell well is interesting. We game studies people (almost said ludologists, but that word is getting a bad name lately...) know that the most popular games sell to casual gamers. Most people who play FPS games are hardcore. There is a distinct subculture built up around these games, there is a community. For people who play these games, they are important, much more important than a Harry Potter game is to most of the people who play them. Now of course I am sure that there are some who cherish and love Harry Potter and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire games just as much as I love Thief or Soldier of Fortune. I'm talking generalities here and i'm sure that a larger percentage of people who bought and played Doom remember it more fondly than a percentage of Harry Potter game consumers (not to pick on Harry. never got around to reading the books so i don't really have an opinion on Harry). So (to use that word again) these games are important on a subcultural basis. (man somebody should do a study of that subculture!) Also I would add that the fact that, as he notes, there are several hundred FPS games out there, Doom started an industry at the very least. And these games wouldn't be continually made if there didn't appear to be an sure bet of a profit being made (again because of the built in audience of the gamer subculture. They are a much safer bet than trying to make a sims knock off)

Also I would add that Ultima Underworld reputation is not as prominent as if should be simply because it is so damn hard to play now on modern hardware. I've tried to get it to work, but no go. I have heard that there is a hack that makes it work for modern windows os's but have yet to try it.

Now in Au's defence, he does make a point about the casual gamers. they don't get the attention or respect from us games studies people that perhaps they should. It seems that there is a wealth of research that could be done on casual gamers. what attracts them? (for the life of me i don't get what is so attractive about the sims) why do they stay casual? what are their gaming habits? (i know people who still play civilisation2 daily and windows solitaire, why?) I have a feeling that part of it is that most of the hardcore games are like sports in that there is a learning curve to them. they take a while to get good and there is a great deal of frustration when the level of play is so far above one's skill level. It drives them off when they can't get into the flow.

Of course I study FPS games, so I am biased. I like them. I love them. I even buy crappy ones. However, Au in this case does seem to be spitting out some grapes here. They must be sour.

One last thing, another book is coming out, and guess who has an article in it? Wagner James Au! It's called Power to the Players. There is a listing of the articles in it but not much else. It sounds interesting though.
posted by Bryan-Mitchell at 12:44 AM

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First-Person Shooters Aren't Like Movies and That is a Good Thing --A paper about why Shooters aren't like films and how comparisons to them do a disservice to what Shooters are.

That paper was presented at the 2002 PCA under the title "More Than Moving Pictures: Developing New Criteria For Designing and Critiquing Computer Games. The presentation version can be found here. The handout I distributed can be found here.

Identification in First-Person Shooters

Flow in Multi-player FPS gaming (.rtf file)

my reviews

here are a couple of reviews I wrote for joystick101.org

Mark J. P. Wolf's The Medium of the Video Game.
Arthur Asa Bergers Video Games: A Popular Culture Phenomenon.