Relationships and marriage in games – why do we care?

Some of the first games I used to play regularly were text based browser roleplaying games. The very first one was based in the realm of the Roman Empire and I started of as just some small town librarian that knew nothing of the world. As my journey progressed I met so many people n made so many new friends. As the virtual life went on and all the characters started aging, everyone began to settle down, get married, some of them had children. It made perfect sense since that type of story played out not only between some random rendered characters but between real people who poured their souls into their writing. Fun fact – some of them ended in actual real life marriages. When I moved up from browser based to actual video games world became so much more complex. All the genres representing such different forms of gameplay. I was fascinated. First game I played on a PC was The Sims. That one naturally follows a similiar routine of life progress. Be young, make friends, fall in love, marry, have kids. As I started playing RPG games, shooters etc what shocked me quite a bit was that no matter the type of game, the love, romance and relationships always stay there.

Almost each and every game has some sort of romance plot. I know that sort of subjects make the character you play more personal to you, it makes you more involved in the story and so on but the funny part is when the relationship is not just part of the story, but when you can actively pursue it. What exactly do I mean? GTA IV for example has an obvious love connection between our protagonist and one of the females but it is just a narrative that is told to us by the game makers. Then for example we have Fable, which actually allows you to choose your own spouse, court them, marry them and then have kids. What is the point of that? What is the point of romance options in games like Mass Effect or Dragon’s Age? Are they just there so people can see some sexy stuff happening between Shepard and his/her crew mates or do they actually serve a purpose?

First of all I have to bitch about it just a bit since the relationship part of games seems completely underdeveloped. Yeah, they introduce it as a possibility but they do not really give it much time in many cases, making any connections you are supposed to create meaningless. What the hell is the point of dancing like a chicken to impress your future wife? Seriously Peter Molyneux, why? Same thing for example in Skyrim. Yeah, to marry someone you put on a talisman and just hit on any random person. Anyone will agree to marry you if you finished a specific unlock quest line. What is marriage for? To get a home cooked meal once in a while if you come home.

If we move past those relationship and further examine the ones like Mass Effect, we could say a bit more. In that series as well as in Dragon Age (Huge Bioware fangirl here) to actually romance someone we have to talk to them, get to know them, show them support etc. I find that it actually makes us attach more value to the choices we make in the game. It is an amazing tool for making players feel like their decisions matter so much more than they actually do. You get to know other character’s history by talking them, by choosing to pursue them romantically you grow attached and then you end up making choices to please that specific character. It is quite manipulative I would say.

I guess it is quite obvious that marriage or love in games is very practical for as I already said making the player care more, but as a sociologist I usually tend to think how does it influence more than just the gaming experience. Does the bond we develop changes something about our perception of the world? I believe it would be a hell to prove anything of such sort but just for the sake of a mental exercise I think it is valuable to consider that for a moment. Surely one scary thing about it is that some people could actually take those relationship as a substitute for their real lives. Someone would most likely say that they would have to be seriously mental to do that but the fact remains that when we play games we sort of identify with the protagonist. If we are not successful, not popular we tend to overcompensate in any way we can and just knowing there is someone who loves us in a virtual space is so attractive. A second idea, maybe less far fetched is that some of those games flatten the perception of what a relationship is. In Sims we can get married with a person after knowing them for one in-game day where in Fable we attract them by farting. Those are extreme examples but they show a general misrepresentation of serious subjects in video gaming. I do not expect every game to be a love simulator but they could show some respect or not take it up in such a way at all.

This rant might seem a bit incoherent I guess but for me it is something I do not fully comprehend. There is quite a lot research on the person to person relationship online but I haven’t seen all that much on the human n computer. The power of love in WoW is quite easy to explain but how can we really explain the same thing when we know the other being isn’t even real? Do we still feel attraction just because it is set up in a familiar, love inciting way or do we project ourselves into the universe which might have much bigger repercussions that what we discuss? What do you think?

Awww Pokemon <3

Pokemon forever ❤ Just look at my Gravatar 😛

The Geek Princess

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Trope vs women or how good ideas can go wrong

Gender in video games has been my subject for a second year in a row now. As a sociology student I get to write a lot about it, do some small research and review articles and as a female gamer I am sort of naturally attracted towards it. I guess by now everyone heard the same old story about how much women are objectified by the industry, how misrepresented amongst the vast amount of virtual characters that are in existence. Nothing that hasn’t been already said millions of times. I usually follow some of it, just to be on time and then move along since most of the works in that domain are still based on old, biased papers from late 90’s and it is just so repetitive and boring. Recently though, I stumbled upon a Kickstarter project that took place over the last summer.

“The tropes vs women in video games” was supposed to be a small video cycle that would confront different stereotypical representations of gender in video games. Honestly, the contents of the package isn’t really that much interesting but everything that happened around it is. Let me explain. First of all, the kickstarter author asked for 6000 $ for her project but in just a month she gathered almost 159 000 $. The response was amazing and it strongly piqued my interest as it might mean so many various things.

Maybe it was donations from women who actually feel oppressed and want their voice heard? Maybe it was men who out of pure curiosity want to see some of the usual gaming myths busted? Maybe it is men who feel they owe respect to their female partners and they try to encourage more girls to become gamers?

There is so many possible answers worth exploring! Since Kickstarter provides names, or at least nicknames, of all the supporters we could try to use that data and check at least the gender distribution of all the participants, we could also perform an analysis of over 800 comments posted on the site. Finally something else could be done! We could actually try to check who cares about that subject and how big of a need exists out there for further research of it.

Second part of the kickstarter process showed everything we fear when using the internet. What followed the project was an extreme lash out of the internet public towards Aneta Sarkeesian. It got nasty. She received rape threats, death threats, some of her public profiles got hacked, including wikipedia, and photoshopped porn pictures of her were posted everywhere.Someone went as far as creating a game titles “Beat up Aneta Sarkeesian” and uploading it to Newgrounds, where it was playable for a day. The outcry mostly accused Sarkeesian of scamming people out of money using her gender as a fake excuse for following a bogus cause. All that brought to attention another problem that women have to face and which is usually skipped over. The video game industry itself is not a really equal place and it highly favors all male players. I’m far from saying how evil it is and how feminists should barge in and change it for the better but the fact remains that being a gamer girl, even though supposedly desired, is really hard. The main thing is, that no matter what we do in this world it always ties back to our sex.

If you win a game, someone probably let you cause you are a girl.

If you lose a game, that is because you are a girl.

If you make a campaign about gender representation you probably do it because you are a girl.

No one takes into consideration the potential time you spend practicing, the fact you might be off of your game or maybe the fact that you have a scientific interest in a specific field that you want to pursue.

Nope.

It’s all because you are a girl.

I do not want to sound like a feminist but I do tend to get carried away sometimes. The example of Aneeta Sarkeesian is so fascinating because it brings up so many points of gender discussion in video games. It provokes to think about what is good in the research, but also what is dark in people who spend their time on the internet and feel free to trash anyone. It brings issues of online anonymity, psychology of the mass and it just makes you think, doesn’t it?

The blog manifesto

Hello world!

It is quite a cliche start, I’ll admit that but nonetheless it seems appropriate. Today, I’ve decided to follow up on something I wanted to do for quite a while now, committing to a personal blog on a subject of my choice.Video games seemed like the only appropriate subject I could chose. I thought about having a blog related to my studies and science, thought about a blog on my life, thought about a thousand of things but in the end the only thing I could truly commit to is writing about games. Might sound silly to some, but they are an important part of my life for years now and as this blog further develops you might all understand why. In creating this here place I set some goals for myself. They might seem small, might seem easy but I guarantee you, they are not.

I want to take up my passion for writing since I abandoned it a while ago due to lack of time.

I want to commit to a project that will require my time and effort.

I want to create something new that might interest not only myself but also others.

I want to enjoy video games and share my emotions related to them with the world.

Hopefully, you will all be here along for the ride.

Paulina “Milly” Rajkowska