From: Bogost, I. (2006). Comparative Video Game Criticism. Games and Culture, 1(1), 41-46.
Instead of focusing on how games work, I suggest that we turn to what they do—how they inform, change, or otherwise participate in human activity…Such a comparative video game criticism would focus principally on the expressive capacity of games and true to its grounding in the humanities, would seek to understand how video games reveal what it means to be human.
My work adheres to this somewhat, with its background informed by lit studies, but in order for me to understand how people work with games, it is important to know how games work because in my studies, “being human” quite literally has an impact on how the game functions, or specifically, on how end-game raiding populations function. This is the tricky part, the part at which any notion of the magic circle must be tossed aside: the involvement of human players is part of the game mechanic. The people we bring along with us, or have access to, determined by their play experience, their skill level, their work schedule, their computer hardware and their level of dedication all factor into the game’s difficulty.
Comparative video game criticism would not turn its back on functionalist approaches but rather would recognize the utility of functionalist approaches to games as a useful lever for further comparative criticism. Functionalist questions about video games—what they are or how they function—are not invalid or even uninteresting. But equally or dare I say, more important questions exist: What do video games do, what happens when players interact with them, and how do they relate to, participate in, extend, and revise the cultural expression at work in other cultural artifacts?
Revising cultural artifacts: Why do we invent monsters? Particularly, humanoid monsters such as trolls and ogres, minotaur and medusa? We can assume that it is a method of demonizing our enemies or othering outsiders. Monstrosity is associated with evil or savagery (ie. “Savage Species”). Monsters are homeless, loveless, childless, possessing very little character. At least, that’s how they were in Mordor, though not always, as are special cases such as this passage spoken by an Orc in Lord of the Rings:
Not our orders!’ said one of the earlier voices. ‘We have come all the way from the Mines to kill and avenge our folk. I wish to kill, and then go back north. (p. 467)
As monsters have developed, they have become playable, or some of them at least. Most commonly, the orcs, trolls and goblins, which have a history of representation in gaming from Dungeons and Dragons to Warhammer, to Warcraft. However, in the faction driven games, those races are segregated. The metaphor of the monstrous other borders on the literal with the oft recognized super-imposition of real world minority trappings on monsters. This revision is no less damning than the older, obscured or metaphorical othering of monsters; instead, it works to uncover such othering. The metaphor is still easy to criticize since Humans are White and all other races separated from them; the other races are demi-human, and live in their own cities with their own cultures. Furthermore, the factionally opposed races are therefore opposed to white-humanity instead of being othered, but at least allied with it. In subsequent fantasy worlds, perhaps we will see either an erasure of humans (with European representation being equally monstrous), or a breakdown of segregation with player races starting in a homeland of the player’s choosing, and with cities, armies and factions determined only by players, and not by designers.
Another point to consider is the ubiquity of some monstrous races as playable, particularly Orcs, Trolls and Goblins, while other iconic iconic monsters are excluded, such as Kobolds, Medusas or Illithids. Some games have a plethora of playable monsters such as those found in Everquest, Everquest 2, or World of Warcraft, but many games stick with humans, elves and dwarves. So, some games have a high playable monster concentration, while others are dominated by humans and elves (and usually have dwarves). Those with monstrous playable characters have ubiquitous Orcs or Ogres, Trolls and Goblins; however, there is some variation between games as to what those monsters should look like. So, why are some monsters constant while other, imaginative monsters are left out? Here are some reasons I have in mind:
A) Technical limitations: This is the weakest argument since there are plenty of monstrous races that can still be skinned with armour because the are humanoid. Still, some races might require too much customization or cause problems due to extra apendages etc. on their character models.
B) Consistency and convention: Through remediation between video games, table top games, movies and print, players have come to understand what an Orc or Ogre is, and how it might be played, and the desire to play an ogre has been built up.
C) They haven’t been developed for play: Sort of an extension of point B. As they deviate from the playing-as-human model, monstrous characters need to be treated with greater care in order to make them significantly different from existing characters, but also maintain balance. This seems obvious or an under statement, but just look at monster creation in Savage Species (a DnD 3.5 edition rule book) and on fan sites that try to develop monster characters.
As explained in Gee 2008, the game world must be designed for characters to succeed in (not the player, but the character). So, in making playable monsters, we have to develop worlds that monsters can succeed in, and not just worlds for them to die in. So the human story in this is that as we learn to include monsters, to make them playable, we understand how the world needs to operate in order for them to succeed in it. And the artsy lit extension is: Post Mordor games are a metaphor for identifying those we have othered, and engage us in the process of determining how the world needs to be designed in order for them to succeed, (meh. could use some work).
Citations
Gee, J. P. (2008). Video Games and Embodiment. Games and Culture, 3(4), 253-263.
Tolkien, J.R.R. (1968). The Lord of the Rings. London: Harper Collins.
