What (Really) Makes a Gamer?

Okay, shorter blog post this time. I’ve had very little time to do much lately, but I really wanted to get a few of my recent thoughts on paper… err…

Just the other day I recalled a time in my life, during high school, when I played a lot of games. I didn’t much care for school, so little time was devoted to homework and studying. I had a job working 30 hours a week, but that still left plenty of evenings open for my digital escapades. On weekends, my friends and I would LAN it up frequently.

But one of my best friends, though equally enthused about games as me, didn’t have the time to devote to them. He played them on weekends with us, but during the week he had too many other responsibilities. After working hard in his advanced classes in school he would study martial arts among other things while helping take care of his younger siblings. On top of all that, he had a network of friends over the Internet who relied on him for support. He just didn’t have the time.

I don’t remember exactly when or exactly why, but I remember telling him once that he was “Not a gamer.” I wasn’t trying to be mean; I just noted that he didn’t really play games. Isn’t a gamer someone who plays a lot of games? It seemed to me like he only played them because his friends did. I remember he sort of laughingly retorted “You take that back!” I forget the rest of the conversation.

But here I am, a recent grad, now struggling myself to find time for games. In the past few weeks I have been juggling school (now that I took it seriously) with my responsibilities to my student organization, looking for a job, preparing for graduation and preparing for moving out, all the while trying to squeeze time in with friends I’ll hardly ever get to see again. Somehow, somehow I managed to play through the last few missions of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and all of Portal 2, but it wasn’t easy to fit in the time when I had papers to write and exams for which to study.

I’m still friends with the man I accused years before of not being a gamer. He, too, is very busy. His life is a balancing act between work and starting University soon and his girlfriend. Though like me, he also manages to find the time, somehow, to get in some gaming. Late at nights he plays Starcraft II and currently has his eyes trained on the Master league, working as often as time permits to get there.

Given this, I could say that what really makes a gamer is not how much time one spends playing games, but the fact that they work it into their lives. However, I don’t even think you need to go far to earn that title. Justin and I don’t fit gaming into our busy lives because we’re bored and it’s kind of fun. We do it because we love it. We love gaming. We love the thrill and we love the satisfaction of painting walls with gray matter or razing structures with legions of troops. We love the community, and we love the camaraderie. That’s why I was wrong so many years ago. That’s why him and I are gamers. 

WoW Gave Me an Epic Work Ethic

Yeah, really. Not kidding.

I’m currently attending Illinois State University working on a degree in Public Relations. The school work by itself takes a decent amount of time, but if my gaming habit weren’t deprived enough of this precious commodity I devote just as much time participating in a student organization dedicated to aspiring spin artists like me, the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA).

I won’t go much into what all I do with it since it has nothing to do with gaming. I didn’t start this blog to tell the world about my life, as if that would be more interesting than anything else the internet could possibly be bringing to your screen at this moment. But for the sake of backstory, I’ll tell you that I’ve been put in charge of a rather work-intensive public relations campaign aimed at building relationships with alumni of our chapter. A lot of the work has been very interesting, but all the cool strategic and tactical stuff finally gave way to the beast of the clerical task of addressing 340 separate envelopes with which to mail our campaign materials.

So think about what that kind of work does to the mental state of a person: Signing envelope after envelope, with nothing but a tasty beverage and some aural comfort to help me cling to my sanity. After addressing 50 envelopes or so I knew I had to find some way to relieve myself from all the stress of this endless grind.

 …grind. Hmm. Endless grind. Where have I experienced that before? Oh, that’s right, during the five years I’ve played the soul-sucking World of Warcraft. The several hours I figured this task would take are nothing compared to the days and days I’d spend throwing myself before my keyboard and mouse, grabbing those precious purple bars to fill the line on the bottom of my screen. And if I tired, all it took to keep me going was a level up-a sudden bright light and the glorious sound of having bumped up your stats and bringing you that much closer to the level cap.

Put in that perspective, it’s amazing anyone could stay amused for long at all. Leveling a character in World of Warcraft is just about the most mind-numbing pastime members of the developed world partake in. You click, and press a few buttons. Your actions must be done slowly, being bound by a global cooldown, and the mobs you hunt down are about as brainless as, well, I won’t get any more political than I did with that link just now.

And yet, we grind away. Millions of us pick up this game and only put it down long enough to run out and buy a new subscription card or the occasional expansion pack. How does a game that incredibly simple keep people like me so hooked?

To try and answer this, I recalled some Skinner, Pavlov and other nuggets of psych I picked up earlier in my college career. I recalled some video somewhere of veterinarians using behaviorism to get an orangutan to lay still for vaccinations. They had it perform simple tasks which were then rewarded with a noise and some tasty soda. His caretakers increased the complexity of the tasks and the effort needed to complete them. Though the reward didn’t increase at all, the fuzzball had no problem doing tasks it didn’t exactly care for. Eventually they got it to stay still during a needle to the arm. Normally they had to fight and restrain him; this time it just took some tasty soda.

That scenario is so familiar it’s embarrassing. Steadily increased workloads for the same rewards? Every level you grind through in WoW takes more experience points than the last one, and at the end of each set of bars comes the same flash of light and pleasant sound, and you’re given stats to your character proportional to the gains you got the level before. If you’re much of an MMO gamer, you’re probably feeling a bit like a monkey right now.

But this susceptibility to simple rewards system does not have to be a bad thing-especially if you have 340 envelopes to fill out. Keeping this in mind, I set up a table for filling out these envelopes designed around the idea of turning myself into a stimulus-response, reward-seeking Pavlovian lab rat.

I had the envelopes yet to be filled out to the left and a stack of completed ones to the right. I had some work space in front of me, and behind that I had my laptop with an Excel sheet open that listed the recipient’s names and emails. While I was filling out each address, I would have the recipient’s name selected on the Excel sheet. After filling out each address, I would triumphantly hit the Down key on my laptop and watch as the little Excel selector box moved down a name, slightly closer to the end of the document. The names were mobs to grind. Finishing a mob earned me experience points. Getting enough experience points meant “Ding!” Job was done.

Strangely enough, this setup worked well. Unlike before, I felt no strain in sitting down and writing name after name, after name, after name. If my wrist hurt and I needed a break, I got a thought: “Just after this one.” I would interlace other little rewards with performance, such as putting on a new song or taking a sip of my version of the chimp’s tasty soda. But even if I, say, decided on blaring some sweet music after 10 names, I would usually fill out two or three more names than planned before letting myself enjoy my reward. I got all my work done long before I had expected to.

Many people complain that putting such incentives in video games is a cheap way to keep people playing. But honestly, should we complain? “Addictiveness” has long been a term of endearment given to games that keep us hooked. It means greater replay value, more bang for your buck, even. I won’t complain that a constantly thrilling experience or a beautifully told storyline aren't a better way to keep a player in a game’s grip; it results in a greater aesthetic experience than a completed experience bar. But to own a game that can keep you playing for hours, weeks and months is worth something.

For this reason, I’m hesitant to complain when other games like shooters and strategies borrow these incentives from their distant MMO cousins. It’s hard to mind Starcraft II’s achievements when my infestor antics award me a sweet new bragging right, even if I don’t actually ever go brag about it. And when you’ve knifed a total of 100 poor bastards, it’s nice to be recognized for it.

There are further uses for such visual feedback outside of the games themselves. Wouldn’t it be cool if your account at your local LAN center had something on the desktop that kept track of your play time and rewarded you every so often with something like game time, future discounts or a free can of your favorite caffeine-infused lifeblood? Or what if factory workers had a monitor at their workstation with an interface to tell them how many parts they had left to crank out before getting a small bonus?

It can be a little degrading to know that your entertainment results from a reptilian response to positive stimulus, but it’s not like such archaic behaviors don’t permeate other parts of our lives. People are prone to paying a higher price for something if a salesman has anchored their minds higher with an unreasonable suggestion. Conversely, the salesman is prone to accepting a lower price if the customer is a pretty girl. And whether or not we buy a game is largely connected to the size of the title’s advertising budget.

But honestly, I don’t even need to think about all that. A few stacks of stamped, addressed envelopes is enough to placate me. 

What does Napoleon have to do with PC Gaming? A look at the significance of the recent changes of the PC gaming world.

            PC gamers have been watching some dramatic changes happen to our platform of choice over the past few years. Digital distribution has grown to the point where virtually any new release can be pushed through the internet tubes into your rig in less time than it takes to buy and install a game from a disk. It has such a hold on the industry that vendor giant GameStop has shrunk PC game inventory at its stores to one minuscule shelf, if the customers of a particular store are lucky. In my last venture to a GameStop, I had to ask for a printed list of stuff kept in the back if I wanted to see what PC games they stocked that weren't WoW: Cataclysm.

            Also piggybacking on the strides of cheap and fast internet has been the rise in MMOs in the past few years. Since WoW started bringing in $15 a month from millions of users at a time, everyone has been trying to grab some of that yummy market share. Think about it: how many major game studios can you name who aren’t developing an MMO title right now?

            And there are plenty more changes to name. Achievements have made their way to our rigs, starting with a few Valve games and creeping all over Steam and even into WoW (can I write even one paragraph about PC gaming without mentioning Warcraft?). Games based on social media have exploded, expanding the casual games market far past the former Cult of Maxis. And now PC gaming is going truly mobile? 

I’m writing to discuss two specific changes to our ever-evolving brotherhood: a sad but inevitable tragedy and its saving grace. But before I even do that, I’d like to refer back to the title of this little story. What does Napoleon have to do with PC gaming? Now I'm sure a few of you have already thought of a way or two. But I've got something more specific in mind.

Let's consider what it takes to be a leader. First and foremost, a leader needs a strong vision in order to achieve anything notable. The leader needs to have ideas as well as the will and means to make them reality. But being a worthwhile leader takes more than the interesting stuff, like making fundamental changes to the policy of one's organization. A leader has got to be able to handle the trivial needs of his or her position.

Now consider Napoleon III. I'm no history buff, but a little bit of research showed me that Napoleon III had the vision I mentioned earlier. Almost immediately after being elected, he dissolved the French National Assembly and turned his presidency into an empire. Following that, he had a strong foreign policy and stuff that I didn't feel like reading about, much less writing about.

The point is, the man had to take care of the little things, too. Yes, there were countries to invade and subjects to rule and stuff, but there were also petty matters, such as law enforcement and water distribution. These all needed taking care of, with solutions such as hiring constables for the law and founding a company called the Compagnie Générale des Eaux to handle the distribution of water.

Creating a video game is a long, expensive process that takes a variety of highly-qualified people working lengthy (and costly) hours to produce the subject of our greatest pastime. Like any development process the company doesn't earn even a morsel of profit until the product ships. This leaves companies with incredibly high costs with an uncertain long-term payoff. Developing PC games is nothing but a high stakes gamble. And investors have had their share of huge disappointments over the past few years, especially in the ever-popular MMO market.

The results of these stakes are nothing the avid blog reader hasn't crossed before. The big-shots want to reduce the risk involved in their big investments, so they force games that use more proven gameplay mechanics so as to guarantee a product with which the consumer will be comfortable. This is great when it ends in an improved variation on a well-loved genre, but is painful when every freaking new release feels the same.

And then gamers have nothing new. Where are we going to go for exciting new content when everything coming out feels like something we've played through time and time again? Is it even worth it to buy new games? Many gamers stick to what's good, like the hordes of people playing World of Warcraft today who recall their glory days in vanilla... suggesting over five years of playing the same game. And then you've got people like me who cling to their childhood favorites.

Look at the last five major titles you've purchased for your computer. How many of them are sequels? Now, don't get me wrong, there are quite a lot of sequels I myself can't wait to play, but it's very rare that anything truly original is released by a big name publisher.

So what must a market do when faced with such stagnation? It must change. Remember Compagnie Générale des Eaux, that company Napoleon created to deal with water distribution in France? By the late 1900s it could only grow so much in its market, so it changed. Through a series of takeovers, the French company started providing energy, transportation and construction services. As the years passed, it diversified into communications and mass media by helping to create Canal+, a French television station. The company had to change, so it did. And you know what? The PC gaming market is changing, as well.

Strangely enough, however, it isn't the big publishers who are finally conceding and publishing something new. Two paragraphs ago, I asked you to think of the last few major titles you've purchased. Mine would include Starcraft 2 and WoW: Cataclysm – nothing new. But I underlined “major titles” for a reason, and if you remove that stipulation it produces a quite different list. Even more recently than I purchased Cataclysm, I purchased Minecraft, DEFCON and Magicka.

Indie games have been taking off rapidly in the past few years. But it's not like indie games are anything new; they are as old as PC gaming itself. In fact, many of the most famous classics that began the use of PCs for gaming had very humble beginnings in studios that very closely resembled what would be labeled an indie game studio today. Some would argue this new surge is a result of easier distribution services, such as Steam or Direct2Drive. But do you remember indie games making the headlines back in 2007? Back then, would you have seen Minecraft appear on the front page besides upcoming AAA releases? Also noteworthy is the fact that Minecraft itself, one of the greatest phenomena of indie PC games, is not available on any of the major online distributors.

Today it's different. Not only has digital distribution grown to a near-standard, but the unwillingness of big business to explore uncharted territories has left open a big hole in the market for fresh concepts. And while the big shots are right in believing that gamers are hesitant to try something unproven, it's a lot easier to take a risk on something new and strange when it's only going to lighten your pocketbook by $10 or $15. And because the projects (and thus, the studios) are much smaller, such a pricing model works just fine for the publishers. Add to this a strong focus on public relations and word-of-mouth marketing and just one bright communications professional can vastly increase indie game sales on a tiny budget.

So there you have it. Although publishers are consolidating and AAA games are becoming more and more scarce, PC gaming is by no means dying. It is merely changing, like the water company Compagnie Générale des Eaux did when its market (quite non-literally) dried up. You need no further proof than the recent massive increase in high-performance hardware sales with matching forecasts. So fear not, gamer. Your hobby is alive and well.

But what of Napoleon? Is that really as close as they're related? Some metaphor about an obscure utilities company? Not at all--the metaphor ends here. In 1998, Compagnie Générale des Eaux sold off its construction and property ventures and renamed itself to Vivendi Universal, and eventually Vivendi SA. It expanded its ownership in electronic media, including electronic entertainment. It bought majorities (and entireties) in various telecom companies and electronic entertainment companies, including Universal Studios Universal Music Group and, last but not least, Blizzard Entertainment. That's right, Blizzard Entertainment. The conglomerate responsible for Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo was originally created by Napoleon III. Not so obscure after all, was it?