Chicken Soup for the Symposium – Enter Player One

I’m out of the hospital and back in the hood, firing on all cylinders. And by “hood” I mean my lovely, suburban home, and by “firing on all cylinders” I mean mashing keys in a drug-addeled haze (legally perscribed muscle relaxants and pain killers, I’m not that much of a hooligan). Been absent for the past 3-4 weeks, trapped in a hospital bed, but a strange combination of late night TV, prescription pain killers and George Michael have gotten me into the writing spirit. So first up on the plate, the latest symposium.

What caught my eyes and ears during the proceedings was a discussion about video games and wether it counted as hypertext. I would like to throw my two cents into this discussion. I agree with Mr. Heatwole (@TheHeatwole) to a certain extent. As a self-proclaimed geek and gamer, it is my belief that videogames can be hypertextual depending on the game itself. But it seems to me that there is a trend in videogames throughout their brief but rich existence in which games are becoming more and more like a hypertext. In the initial advent of the modern description of a video game, games were very linear. There was a final goal, be it clear all the asteroids or find the princess, and a linear path towards that goal, shoot them or reach the end without dying. Nowadays, games have evolved beyond this simple concept. They are designed for a variety of reasons and in a variety of different ways.

Just have a look at some of the games that adorn the virtual shelves of steam, or the hundreds of proposed and finished games that fill kickstarted.com. These games, from the indie developer to the mainstream gaming giants, are unique (even Call of Duty, which may be a little hard to believe) and give more control and ideas to the player. I would like to focus on two videogames in particular. Both have become huge titles with plenty of fans and sales. The first is the Mass Effect Series.

Source: Bioware

The Mass Effect series has garnered a reputation for it’s choice systems. Throughout the game, you are for asked hundreds of questions and given plenty of decisions to make. Your answers are based on the moral implications, some good answers, some evil answers, and some neutral answers. With each question, and each decision, the story changes. Characters live and die, missions change, the locations differ, all based on the actions you take and the path you create for yourself. No two playthroughs are the same.

The other game I wanted to talk about is an indie game that has become a worldwide monolith. Minecraft.

Minecraft Screenshot

Source: Mojang

Minecraft has one simple concept, “Wake up on an island, punch trees”. With that, you’re on your own. Well, that’s not entirely true. There is a huge community of players, modders, information, help, video tutorials, let’s plays, mini-games, everything. But in the sense of the game, there is no tutorial, no pre-determined path, every world is different every time. And from that first world creation, how you  play the game is entirely up to you. You can build your own dream house or fight creatures in the darkness. Collect ores and gems or farm wheat and melons. And there is no conclusion, just an open sandbox to do what you want.

Videogames are becoming more and more hyper textual as the industry evolves and changes. The rise of the indie game, and the vast technological improvements have meant that more choice and more control have been given to the player. 

I would like to leave you with a link to an article by Matt Machmuller and Matthew Moffitt. The article, found here, is about the theories created by fans about their favourite videogames. In my opinion, this shows one of the great things about games. The communities behind them, the details involved, and the network of the fandoms who are filled with the creative combined imagination of the group. 

Evan, signing out

The Viral Life

I have been raking my brain for what to post as my very first post. I’ve procrastinating on what to upload, not knowing how to break the wall and start the flow. My collection of drafts and ideas is starting to overflow, and self-doubt growing. I had no idea what I could do, what would be the best way to begin. A gripping topic, a catchy title, a powerful opener. Nothing I could come up with had the right feel to set the mood for this blog

Then this image popped up on my news feed:

Source: TMZ

That, my friends, is a photo of Justin Bieber spitting off of a balcony, and onto his fans. Allegedly.

Whilst this kind of “news” does not normally catch my attention, it was when Bieber’s team of publicists tried to stop this image going viral that things became interesting. Some of you may recall an image of Beyonce from the Superbowl. Not many people cared too much, that is, until her publicity team tried to stop people photoshopping and sharing the image. Then all hell broke loose. The number of searches for the image skyrocketed. By trying to stop the image going viral, they made the image viral. A similar event happened to a photo of Barack Obama holding a rifle. 

This same spread seems to be occurring for Justin Bieber and this now infamous photo. So, it got me thinking about the community of the internet, as well as the raging debate on intellectual property. This, coupled with the recent discussion on copyright and publishing, brings up the notion of the viral spread. 

If, like me, you live on the internet, you would know about memes. Memes are various images and macros that spread across the internet, usually representing an action or idea. There is a huge variety of them out there, from Scumbag Steve to Grumpy Cat, Overly Attached Girlfriend to My Little Pony Fandom (known as Bronies), and all of them started as a single image (or video).

(For more on memes, I recommend http://knowyourmeme.com)

There is no science to what becomes a meme. Anything posted at the right time in the right place has a chance of going global. Anyone or anything can become famous in a matter of days. You can come to represent an idea or a platform for jokes, even if the image has little to do with the original content and meaning. The internet works in mysterious ways.

At this time I would like to bring your attention to a particular person.

Laina's Facebook Profile Picture

Source: Facebook

That is Laina, also known as Overly Attached Girlfriend.

After her song parody of Justin Bieber’s song Boyfriend (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yh0AhrY9GjA&list=TLcBc7SPUcT6A) went viral, Laina used it’s popularity to build her internet profile. She developed a website, expanded her Youtube account, got in contact with other youtube personalities. Soon her popularity expanded, with a loyal following of over 700,000 subscribers on Youtube and 190,000 Twitter followers (as of August 1st, 2013). Laina then used this popularity to start her Dare to Share Campaign, a campaign designed to raise money for certain charities. 

An Apology

Hi guys, sorry I haven’t been up and running as I would have liked, there has been a few technical issues and little problems. If you are reading this, it means that the problem is fixed and I am back to posting. Due to the problems, I have a backlog of posts sitting on my hard drive. Hopefully, I shall post these up soon, so expect a bit of disjoint and unorganised posting for the next couple of weeks. I shall try and release these posts every couple of days in an attempt at organisation, so expect a bit of confusion in the time frame of blogs. Just pretend I’m a Time Lord posting from inside the Time Vortex. So, without further ado, let the craziness commence!