Entry 08: Australian Classification

Is Australia’s ‘Refused Classification (RC)’ category for Video Games treating Adults like kids?
That's a bit of a loaded question isn't it? It's purely subjective and will spark an argument between gamers and 30-50 year old women with nothing better to do because they are ignoring their parental responsibilities and making us front the cost. Gee Burt, I think Jesse might be biased. Ya think, Ernie?

Several decades had gone by since video-games had become mainstream before we obtained an 'R' rated classification for them. For those who don't know video games (allegedly) follow roughly the same guidelines set for films in Australia, which are their to help viewers determine the level of appropriateness for them self or their family with 'R' being the highers (along side 'X') for high impact content. Video games however only obtained the 'R' rating several years ago after constant petitions and one dickhead premier from South Australia who kept voting against it retiring (requiring a unanimous vote to be put through, also this dickhead wanted all R rated films to be coverless, seriously? fight club is just a bar of soap), previously all content that would be classified 'R' would be marked as refused classification or 'RC', which kind of made sense, given there was no adult rating at the time, so it was only the lack of one that was pathetic.

Getting this new rating was not the homestretch. Sure the classification board loosened up, giving us back Mortal Kombat 9, and letting Valve re-apply Left 4 dead 2 uncensored (it's free dlc on steam check it out if you want) which given the first game was almost the same was  without any censorship to begin with was its on controversy, but it didn't stop games being classified as 'RC'. Why is this? Short answer: hypocritical assholes. Longer answer that isn't quite the long answer: contradictory guidelines and statements made in the forms the classification board is supposed to follow; within the guidelines of the classification board includes two lines that roughly go like this "an adult is allowed to view, interact with or consume any media they choose," and "refused classification if considered offensive by a reasonable adult," (when referring to any of the classification points, violence, sexual content, etc.). What is a reasonable adult? I don't know, it's probably somewhere along the lines of the board members themselves, but that's irrelevant, if from the start you say people can do what they want, you CAN'T later use terms like 'reasonable adult' which imply and enact a restriction. It's ridiculous it's pathetic, it's a complete fucking joke. You can't even say it's to protect the children.

We need to protect the children. Says the inept parent who doesn't know how to do her(maybe his) fucking job that she signed the contract two when she got horny without protection. That argument is invalid and pointless, or at least it should be, to some people it caries weight still. However there is still an abundance of products that would be considered inappropriate for a child sold on store shelves everywhere every day, and if anyone who looks young wants to buy anything that's considered adult material they need to have ID on them. Every precaution has been taken to make sure kids don't buy inappropriate material, so why would that be an issue. By effectively banning video games (or any other non dangerous product) they are putting on a shelf that's too high for anyone to reach not just children.

To everyone's joy we were blessed with an adult rating for games, that basically did nothing for anyone over 18 leaving us in the same ditch we were stuck in in the first place. Leaving plenty of games still out of our reach just like the children who could no longer play R rated game (given most would have been MA before hand), so yes, we are being treated like children, and while at 20 I still don't quite feel like an adult, talking down to me and telling me what is an isn't okay for my eyes, leads to anger, and anger leads to hate, and you know the rest.

Entry 07: Game addiction

Game addiction has been an apparent problem brought up by dipshits for years. And while it is true that there have been plenty of examples of people being addicted to video games and the consequences of that, actively blaming games for it is absurd.

Video games are often the target of critique, both by media that feels endangered by its popularity, news which just needs a story to drum up controversy, parents who'd rather blame their lack of responsibility on someone else so they don't have to do their job, sjw's and feminists hoping it's an easy target. This is not new to us, and I believe I have mentioned this before and I will definitely later on. The constant and biased targeting of this medium with generally little to no real evidence, definitely puts most accusation against video-games on questionable grounds. The sheer amount of slandering endured by our medium, has trivialized any remark made against them (for some reason comments made by a famously shit posting cunt Anita Sarkeesian were actually taken on board by dickless Kaplan at Blizzard, but thats for another time). But that's not to say there isn't cases of game addiction, just that the accusations are bullshit.

Dopamine is a chemical released in the brain when we do something considered pleasurable, it's actually what makes us consider it pleasurable. Do that thing to often and you will eventually create a strong association of that action with the pleasure you are feeling, eventually you get addicted to that and can't stop yourself from doing that thing. That is a super simplified explanation to how basic addiction works, drugs for example are a little different, you are often directly addicted to the drug not a dopamine reaction. Anything you enjoy can cause addiction as a result of this, and the addiction itself isn't so much a danger, it's what the addiction can make you do, or not do. Addiction to video games can cause you to ignore you're friends, family, job, exercise and even food, you can end up physically unwell and covered in bed sores, and that's just some examples. But are video games any more dangerous than anything else no? No, games are no more addictive than anything else, and repeated near obsessive use will cause addiction, just like anything else, and the symptoms of addiction such as those mentioned above, aren't necessarily any worse than that of any other addiction.

Is game addiction a problem, yes? Is it any worse than anything else, no not at all. If you are a responsible adult you can avoid it, and if you are actually a decent parent it won't be an issue. So everyone can shut up about it and stop scapegoating on a hobby just because they don't like it.

Entry 06: Violence in video games.

Fuckin' sweet.



















































Since the dawn of time government, news media and parent groups have always found some scapegoat to blame societies flaws on, there was rock music, then television now video games to name just a few. And these games were filled with abhorrent content, such as violence, sex and mushroom stomping racial stereotypes, and everything you could want in a scapegoat strawman.

Because of this video games were attacked as a medium with violence being the main cause of grievance (before the regressive left got to them). "think of the children" they said, "fuck off and raise them yourself" I said, well not really since this fight started back around the time of the arcade release of Mortal Kombat, as the uberviolent fighting game was one of the key prompts for the creation of the ESRB. The ESRB was created after the US government effectively warned the game industry that they would instate a ratings bored if they did not do it themselves, after concerns raised about the violent game from worried parents, how about hey just take responsibility for their children and know what they are doing, christ.
It didn't take much longer for games to be rated in such a way internationally, over here in Australia it's handled by the same board that rates films, that board evenly represents all demographics and holds games to the exact same standards as films (sarcasm is hard to get a cross in text).

Despite placing these rating systems that clearly label the content there is a fair share of controversies, due to fuck wits being surprised that R rated game they bought for their kid being in appropriate. A recent example was a push for target to remove GTA 5 from their shelves by a mothers group, the details make it pathetic, it was due to a some feminist being upset that you can kill prostitutes. The game is a sandbox, you can kill people and there are hookers, hence you can kill hookers, its not a goal its a choice, not to mention that this was upon the games second release after being ported to the newer consoles.

I'm not even going to go into the studies on the effect on violence in videogames, I'm not going to touch the theory that the docile nature of society conflicting with out primal aggression that draws us to violence, I'm just going to say this. IF YOU DON'T WANT YOUR KIDS TO PLAY THIS DON'T FUCKING LET THEM.

Entry 05: Ludo-narrative resonance/dissonance

Ludo-narrative resonance and dissonance refer to when a games gameplay mechanics can assist or conflict with story elements respectively. Both ludo-narrative resonance dissonance have an effect on the immersion of a game, generally the resonance brings you into a game and the dissonance drags you out.

Ludo-narrative resonance as mentioned above is when the mechanics of a game can assist the story. This aside from shooting the bad guys because the character doesn't like them, or anything else that is literally doing what the game is saying should happen, is generally considered the rarer of the two. SPOILER ALERT; As an example in The Last Of Us as the protagonist Joel you kill pretty much everyone who gets in your way and this is directly acknowledge by dialog, and all the melee combat is relentlessly brutal, all of that lends itself to Joel's survival of the fittest mentality and adds evidence to the idea that Joel may not quite be a hero in the story. A simpler less context heavy example is playing Trevor in GTA V, you go around stealing cars and killing everyone in sight, but Trevor is very clearly mentally unstable and its very believable for him to go out and do that, unlike CJ in San Andreas who is rebuilding Grove Street by decapitating and old lady then molotoving her body before parking you car on a prostitute and detonating it with plastic explosive. I wouldn't say that really adds to the story of GTA but it still technically comes under ludo-narrative resonance, but at least it doesn't detract from the story.

When mechanics of play are detrimental to the story it results in ludo-narrative dissonance. This is extremely common, as most games are games first and foremost with gameplay taking priority over story, at least during gameplay at least. There are examples of this all over the place, from average Joe mowing down hundreds upon hundreds of nameless thugs/terrorists/nazi's but the moment you hit a cutscene they have a mental breakdown after shooting one person, or nigh immortal supersoldiers for characters when they are supposedly human, or when they are actually supposed to be unstoppable supersoldiers they have some ridiculous one hit kill weakness (cough cough Halo). This all can bring you out of the game such as the moment you ponder how your heroic adventurer can slaughter hundreds of men or just plain do something ridiculous (you can grapple hook cops off the roof in Batman: Arkham Origins, try it's hilarious), or it can just piss you off, I have thrown a controller or two because some c*** stabbed me in the foot and killed me. Also a punch from, Mei a 5' possibly overweight or overdressed (heatstroke, come on people) scientist, and Soldier 76 a 6'1" super soldier smashing the butt of his rifle hurt the same amount, fuck off, thats about as believable as an 11 year old kid in Africa building a battle robot... wait a minute. Basically this shit just doesn't make sense, but that's okay, it doesn't always need to, unless maybe it's Metal Gear, which takes everything into account, but that still doesn't make sense anyway.

This topic is a bit more cut and dry than the others, it would probably be better if ludo-narrative resonance where the gameplay assists the story was more prominent, but we don't want everything to be pretentious crap where everything has to mean something profound. This may be a bachelor of arts but I ain't some nancy boy hipster prick who thinks I'm better than someone because I can make up some bullshit meaning for why Masterchief has to fight the covenant instead of hug it out, Vietnam's over they can all shut the fuck up now.

Entry 04: Realistic vs Stylised Aesthetics

There are two main schools of thought on the direction of aesthetic design and graphics in video games; realistic graphics or an intentionally stylised design. And just like 3rd person and 1st person, one is not explicitly greater than the other, and just comes down to preference.

Realistic "graphics" refers to an aesthetic style which is intended to be realistic as possible given the current hardware capabilities. Generally this is considered more desirable and impressive by most people. As our technology and artistic skills increase so to does our ability to graphically render more realistic looking video games. An immediate drawback to this is that graphics now take majority of a personal computers grunt, the mere existence of graphics cards prove this, however this also means that as we want to improve graphics we must also improve the hardware and graphical engines that power these games, pushing forward computing technology. Focusing on this style of aesthetics also has other practical applications such as generating photos of you in different countries so you can look important on facebook, when you in fact spent your time modelling your own face and not learning about photoshop, there are also medical applications but who cares about that.

Meanwhile what people refer to as stylised aesthetics or graphics is where the aesthetic style of a game forgoes the attempt at creating the most realist appearance they could in favour of something more artistic. There is a distinct advantage to stylised aesthetics over realistic ones is a timeless appearance. Focusing on designing a game based on a particular art style allows the games appearance to never look dated aside from the resolution (which can be updated most of the time), cell shading (comic book style lighting) with solid lines in games is a good example of this, provided that the models are smooth enough and the game has skilled artists a game will forever look good as a homage to the art of comic books. However a result of this in contrast to a realist style pushing the technology, the technology could stagnate. If the games look 'good' for extended periods of time without further development companies will start to see that they don't need to put money into furthering the technology used, creating a new status quo for how games are made, which even with many different visual styles from many different artists it will eventually hit a wall and just stop dead flat and just like Call of Duty it will all be the same shit.

Ultimately we need both realistic and stylised graphics, both because everyone has a different preference and because we need to continue the technology but still preserve masterful games.

Entry 03: 1st person vs 3rd person

Since the dawn of time Mountain Dew and Rockstar energy drink addicts have been at each others throat arguing which is better, 1st person or 3rd person perspective in shooters. Of course both of these groups tend to be dickheads with no basis to their argument. While each perspective has it's merits neither is decidedly better than the other, simply because each game is different anyway. Now even though I already made any argument redundant I need a higher word count so here we go.

The first person perspective places the players camera within the head (or on the headless shoulders) of their in game avatar, while the third person perspective places the perspective places the camera behind the player. Much like how the terms first and third person are used in writing it implies the difference between 'I' and 'Them' when referring to the protagonist. This places you into the boots of you're character, you are Gordon Freeman, you are Doomguy, you are B.J. Blazkowicz, you are Masterchief. But while this method immerses you into the actions of your character and lets you live a power fantasy it can pull you out of the overall story by making you these voiceless blank slates made for self insertion.

Third person shooters separate you from your roided out death machine of a protagonist, letting you peer safely from over their massive shoulders. If you has some kind of a personality disorder that caused you to believe you really were the character in a first person shooter you no longer have that problem, as third person shooters don't make much of an effort to make you personally feel like you could be the character. Initially that doesn't as enticing until you come to the conclusion that it allows for stronger stories with much more flushed out characters and better scripts, the flat and simple "Sir, finishing this fight" becomes "eat shit and die, motherfucker," okay maybe that wasn't the best example, but the characters are actually characters not just blank slates to allow you to embody. These characters carry can usually carry a stronger story being that they are fully realised, and none of this is even considering gameplay yet.

Finally getting around to the gameplay aspects, the first person shooter as stated before puts you in the boots of the camera. Your camera is further forward and you could almost swear you are holding the gun in your mouth, this immediately has some advantages, your skill based accuracy and rang is generally better, simply because you are closer to where you are actually firing from. The advantage is negligible, especially when I found an exploit in a certain triple a third person shooter that lets bullets clip through cover (don't ask I'm not sharing my secrets), but the difference is noticeable at times, otherwise some third person games wouldn't insert first person as a feature. A distinct characteristic of most first person shooters, is speed, especially on on the pc. First person shooters (competitive anyway) are all about fast reflexes, 90 degree turns finishing with a head shot and teabagging. These quick snapshots would only be possible without the limitations of "realistic movement" and are also more necessary with the smaller cone of vision.

Third person shooters are often coverbased. Coverbased meaning you slam your back into a wall and pray to Lord Gaben you don't flanked while taking potshots and using you're magical camera to look around the corner. Naturally this coverbased gameplay is much slower than the break neck speed of a first person shooter, slugging around cover to cover, playing much more defensively, unless you just run around with a shotgun anyway, speed was also effect by the use of complete and realistic(ish) animations when running around. You also have a wider perspective due to the camera being placed back, yes I know the angle is more or less the same the camera is just moved back, but it still gives you a greater sense of vision and spatial awareness, and even some games allow you to rotate your characters vision with out aiming, again aiding in a much more defensive style of gameplay. But these are more a matter of preference rather than a solid pro or con, same goes for first person shooters.

I reiterate this argument is pointless, but just as people will always bitch about an opposing console they will about this. So I will close this with a few simple statements. You can either be the character or you can follow A character, It's irrelevant as long as you enjoy it. You may consider some features of either perspective as advantages or disadvantages, but still irrelevant, if you are playing competitively then your opponents are playing with the same advantages and/or disadvantages as you, all that matters is which are you better at compared to the average. That is all.

Entry 02: Games after 2000 - Corporate greed and micro-transactions.

Money makes the world go round, well actually a combination of gravity and the atmosphere does but I'm missing my own point here. My point is money is extremely important in our current society for a variety of reason, so naturally money is the main desire of many, many people and thus we all work to obtain it. If you came up with a genius idea to make money quickly and easily with no effort wouldn't you, enter the evil (might be overstating) and greedy(might be understating) concept of the micro-transaction.
Micro-transactions are small purchases that can be made with in a game, usually for in game items as opposed to being a full expansion. Often micro-transactions can include in-game currencies, skins, power-ups and equipment such as armour, weapons and vehicles. Companies often use these to continue funding a game after all or most sales of the game itself have been made with little effort on their part to create new content, with many companies being accused of cutting content originally intended to be apart of the full game so it can be sold later as a micro transaction.
Much of the controversy surrounding micro-transactions comes from the general displeasure of having to pay for content someone should already have access to but that is still relatively harmless regardless of how dishonest it is, however micro-transactivisions can have a great effect on gameplay.
Several multiplayer games have tiered systems of weapons, equipment,etc. that can be exploited by micro-transactions or are even sometimes designed around micro-transactions. The reason this is a problem is that the 'best' players of these games will no longer be the most practised and skilled players but instead it will be some asshole who looks suspiciously like Casper the friendly ghost
who can simply just afford to purchase top tier equipment by throwing his wallet at the screen. This in turn ruins the game for many players, shortening the lifetime of the game and ultimately earning much less money than what they would if purchases were limited to something like skins, very much like what Riot Games has done with League of Legends which is a free game that has earned the millions of dollars.
Micro-transactions are the idea of a money hungry fat cats trying to scrape every bit of cash the can from their consumer and hoping they are dumb enough to fall for it, are you? Well yeah probably, I mean it's still happening. Look just do your best not to fall for this shit and maybe they'll stop, and maybe never download a game on your phone, like ever, just watch Southpark.