To fully explore the larger media playground, we need to look beyond electronic gaming’s technical aspects and consider the human faces of gaming. The attractions of this interactive playground validate electronic gaming’s status as one of today’s most powerful social media. Electronic games occupy an enormous range of styles, from casual games like Tetris, Angry Birds, Bejeweled, and Fruit Ninja—described by one writer as “stupid games” that are typically “a repetitive, storyless puzzle that could be picked up, with no loss of potency, at any moment, in any situation”—to full-blown, Hollywood-like immersive adventure games like Final Fantasy.14 No matter what the style, digital games are compelling entertainment and mass media because they pose challenges (mental and physical), allow us to engage in situations both realistic and fantastical, and allow us to socialize with others as we play with friends and form communities inside and outside of games. (See “Case Study: Watch Dogs Hacks Our Surveillance Society” on page 85 for more on the narrative power of video games.)

Video Game Genres

Electronic games inhabit so many playing platforms and devices, and cover so many genres, that they are not easy to categorize. The game industry, as represented by the Entertainment Software Association, organizes games by gameplay—the way in which the rules structure how players interact with the game—rather than by any sort of visual or narrative style. There are many hybrid forms, but the major gameplay genres are discussed in the following sections. (See Figure 3.1 for a breakdown of top video game genres.)

Action and Shooter Games

Usually emphasizing combat-type situations, action games ask players to test their reflexes and to punch, slash, shoot, or throw as strategically and accurately as possible so as to strategically make their way through a series of levels. Some action games feature hand-to-hand combat (Street Fighter, Marvel vs. Capcom); others feature more sophisticated weaponry and obstacles, such as bladed spears against groups of enemy combatants (Hidden Blade, Bushido Blade). Shooter games offer a selection of guns and missiles for obliterating opponents.

Most shooter games have a first-person shooter (FPS) perspective, which allows players to feel as though they are actually holding the weapon and to feel physically immersed in the drama. (See Table 3.1 for more on major video game conventions.) Doom, for example, released in 1993, was one of the first major FPS breakthroughs, requiring players to shoot their way through a military base on Mars’s moon, killing the demons from Hell first using a pistol, then moving up to a chainsaw, shotgun, chain gun, rocket launcher, plasma rifle, and finally the coveted BFG 9000, all the while negotiating pits of toxic slime and locating the “exit door” that leads to the next level. Halo, Microsoft’s impressive launch title for the Xbox 360 in 2001, has become the top FPS game of all time. In the Halo series (the fourth sequel was released in 2012), players assume the identity of “Master Chief,” a super-soldier living in the twenty-sixth century and fighting aliens, with the ultimate goal of uncovering secrets about the ring-shaped world, Halo. The weapons allotted to Master Chief all require the player to think strategically about how and when to launch them. Plasma weapons need time to cool between firings; guns need both ammunition and time to reload; fragmentation grenades bounce and detonate immediately; plasma grenades attach to the target before exploding. Players have to negotiate all these (and many more) variables as they move through various futuristic landscapes in order to unlock the secrets of Halo.

Maze games like Pac-Man also fit into the “action” genre, involving maze navigation to avoid or chase adversaries. Finally, platform games gained notoriety through the very successful Super Mario Bros. series. Using quick reflexes and strategic time management, players move Mario and Luigi between various platform levels of the Mushroom Kingdom in order to rescue Princess Toadstool (later called Princess Peach) from Bowser. Action and shooter games are the best-selling game genres, accounting for more than 43 percent of all game units sold.15

Adventure Games

Developed in the 1970s, adventure games involve a type of gameplay that is in many ways the opposite of action games. Typically nonconfrontational in nature, adventure games such as Myst require players to interact with individual characters and the sometimes-hostile environment in order to solve puzzles. In the case of Myst (released in 1991), the player is “the Stranger” who travels to different worlds and finds clues to solve various puzzles that, if solved correctly, lead to the “deserted” island of Myst. The genre peaked in popularity in 1993 and has spawned derivative genres, such as action-adventure (Zelda, Metroid) and survival horror games (Resident Evil), which are inspired by horror fiction.

Role-Playing Games

Role-playing games (RPGs) are typically set in a fantasy or sci-fi world in which each player (there can be multiple players in a game) chooses to play as a character that specializes in a particular skill set (such as magic spells or “finesse”). Players embark on a predetermined adventure and interact with the game’s other inhabitants and each other, making choices throughout the game that bring about various diverse outcomes. Neverwinter Nights (2002), for example, challenges its players to collaboratively collect four Waterdhavian creatures needed to stop the Wailing Death plague, defeat the cult that is spreading the plague, and finally thwart an attack on the city of Neverwinter. The game is derived from Dungeons & Dragons, one of the most popular face-to-face, paper-and-pencil role-playing games. More complex role-playing games, like the Final Fantasy series, involve branching plots and changing character destinies. MMORPGs are obviously a subgenre of this game category. Sandbox (or open-world) RPGs, such as the Grand Theft Auto series and Minecraft, tend to offer the greatest leeway in how players may roam through a game’s environment and create their own narratives. Other subgenres, such as MOBAs (multiplayer online battle arena games, which can combine RPG elements with real-time strategy; see below), make up some of the most successful digital games on the market. A good example is League of Legends, a free-to-play PC game in which players control “champions” who gain levels by winning player-versus-player battles against opposing champions. The game has become immensely popular, with more than 27 million players worldwide each day, and has spawned university leagues and live tournaments in which top players from around the world compete for large cash prizes.16

Strategy and Simulation Games

Strategy video games often involve military battles (real or imaginary) and focus on gameplay that requires careful thinking and skillful planning in order to achieve victory. Unlike FPS games, the perspective in strategy games is omniscient, with the player surveying the entire “world,” or playing field, and making strategic decisions—such as building bases, researching technologies, managing resources, and waging battles—that will make or break this world. No doubt the most popular real-time strategy game (RTS) is Blizzard’s Star Craft, which is played competitively throughout South Korea and televised to large audiences. Taking place during the twenty-sixth century in a distant part of the Milky Way galaxy, Star Craft involves three races (one human) that are at war with one another. To develop better strategic advantages, players download and memorize maps, study up on minute game details (such as race characteristics), and participate in Star Craft-centered advice boards.

Like strategy games, simulation games involve managing resources and planning worlds, but these worlds are typically based in reality. A good example is SimCity, which asks players to build a city given real-world constraints, such as land-use zoning (commercial, industrial, residential); tax rates (to tax or not to tax); and transportation (buses, cars, trams). A player may also face unanticipated natural disasters, such as floods or tornadoes. Another example is The Oregon Trail, an educational simulation game that aims at reproducing the circumstances and drastic choices faced by white settlers traveling the two-thousand-mile journey from Independence, Kansas, to the Willamette Valley in Oregon. Throughout the game, players make choices to help their ox-driven wagon parties survive numerous potential horrors, including measles, dysentery, typhoid, cholera, snakebites, drowning, physical injuries, floods, mountains, heat, and cold, all the while maintaining provisions and predicting weather conditions. First developed by educators in 1971, The Oregon Trail has been played by millions of students.

Casual Games

This category of gaming, which encompasses everything from Minesweeper to Angry Birds to Words with Friends, includes games that have very simple rules and are usually quick to play. The historical starting point of casual games was 1989, when the game Tetris came bundled with every new Game Boy (Nintendo). Tetris requires players to continuously (frantically, for some) rotate colored blocks and fit them into snug spaces before the screen fills up with badly stacked blocks. There is no story to Tetris, and no real challenge other than mastering the rather numbing pattern of rotating and stacking, a process that keeps getting faster as the player achieves higher levels. For many people, the ceaseless puzzle is like a drug: Millions of people have purchased and played Tetris since its release. Today, Tetris has given way to Angry Birds, Candy Crush Saga, and other such games that have exploded in popularity due in large part to the rise in mobile devices.

Sports, Music, and Dance Games

“There is apparently a video game for every sport except for competitive mushroom picking,” commented a Milwaukee Journal editorial in 1981.17 Today, there really does seem to be a game for every sport. Gaming consoles first featured 3-D graphics in the early to mid-1990s with the arrival of Sega Saturn and Sony’s PlayStation in 1994. Today’s game technology, with infrared motion detectors, accelerometers (devices that measure proper acceleration), and tuning fork gyroscopes (devices that determine rotational motion), allows players to control their avatar through physical movements, making the 3-D sports games experience even more realistic. Players in a soccer game, for example, might feel as though they are in the thick of things, kicking, dribbling, shooting, and even getting away with a foul if referees aren’t watching. In sports games, players engage in either competitive gameplay (player versus player) or cooperative gameplay (two or more teammates work together against the artificial intelligence, or AI, opponents within the game).

One of the most consistently best-selling sports games is Madden NFL, which is based on famed NFL football player and former coach John Madden. Among the game’s realistic features are character collisions, with varying speeds and trajectories that differ based on player control; sophisticated playbooks and player statistics; and voice commentary, which allows players to hear the game as if it were a real TV broadcast. With Xbox Kinect functionality, players can even select and alter screen actions with the power of their own voice (they are Madden, screaming from the sidelines).

Other experiential games tie into music and dance categories. Rock Band, developed by Harmonix Systems and published by Mad Catz, allows up to four players to simulate the popular rock band performances of fifty-eight songs—from the Pixies and OK Go to Black Sabbath and the Rolling Stones—as well as more than fourteen hundred additional downloadable songs for $1.99 apiece. Each instrument part (lead guitar, bass, drums, and vocal) can be played at one of four difficulty levels (Easy, Medium, Hard, and Expert), and if players don’t keep up, they “fail” out of the song, and their instruments are muted. The gameplay is derivative of Guitar Hero (vertical scrolling, colored music notes, and karaoke-like vocals), but the experience of Rock Band—with four players; a variety of venues, from clubs to concert halls; and screaming fans (who are also prone to boo)—is far more “real.” Dance-oriented video games, such as Dance Dance Revolution and Just Dance, use motion-detecting technology and challenge players to match their rhythm and dance moves to figures on the screen.

Communities of Play: Inside the Game

Virtual communities often crop up around online video games and fantasy sports leagues. Indeed, players may get to know one another through games without ever meeting in person. They can interact in two basic types of groups. PUGs (short for “pick-up groups”) are temporary teams usually assembled by matchmaking programs integrated into the game. The members of a PUG may range from elite players to noobs (clueless beginners) and may be geographically and generationally diverse. PUGs are notorious for harboring ninjas and trolls—two universally despised player types (not to be confused with ninja or troll avatars). Ninjas are players who snatch loot out of turn and then leave the group; trolls are players who delight in intentionally spoiling the gaming experience for others.

Because of the frustration of dealing with noobs, ninjas, and trolls, most experienced players join organized groups called guilds or clans. These groups can be small and easygoing or large and demanding. Guild members can usually avoid PUGs and team up with guildmates to complete difficult challenges requiring coordinated group activity. As the terms ninja, troll, and noob suggest, online communication is often encoded in gamespeak, a language filled with jargon, abbreviations, and acronyms relevant to gameplay. The typical codes of text messaging (OMG, LOL, ROFL, and so forth) form the bedrock of this language system.

Players communicate in two forms of in-game chat—voice and text. Xbox LIVE, for example, uses three types of voice chat that allow players to socialize and strategize, in groups or one-on-one, even as they are playing the game. Other in-game chat systems are text-based, with chat channels for trading in-game goods or coordinating missions within a guild. These methods of communicating with fellow players who may or may not know one another outside the game create a sense of community around gameplay. Some players have formed lasting friendships or romantic relationships through their video game habit. Avid gamers have even held in-game ceremonies, like weddings or funerals—sometimes for game-only characters, sometimes for real-life events.

Communities of Play: Outside the Game

Communities also form outside games, through Web sites and even face-to-face gatherings dedicated to electronic gaming in its many forms. This phenomenon is similar to the formation of online and in-person groups to discuss other mass media, like movies, TV shows, or books. These communities extend beyond gameplay, enhancing the social experience gained through the games.

Collective Intelligence

Mass media productions are almost always collaborative efforts, as is evident in the credits for movies, television shows, and music recordings. The same goes for digital games. But what is unusual about game developers and the game industry is their interest in listening to gamers and their communities in order to gather new ideas and constructive criticism and to gauge popularity. Gamers, too, collaborate with one another to share shortcuts and “cheats” to solving tasks and quests, and to create their own modifications to games. This sharing of knowledge and ideas is an excellent example of collective intelligence. French professor Pierre Lévy coined the term collective intelligence in 1997 to describe the Internet, “this new dimension of communication,” and its ability to “enable us to share our knowledge and acknowledge it to others.”18 In the world of gaming, where users are active participants (more than in any other medium), the collective intelligence of players informs the entire game environment.

For example, collective intelligence (and action) is necessary to work through levels of many games. In World of Warcraft, collective intelligence is highly recommended. According to the beginner’s guide, “If you want to take on the greatest challenges World of Warcraft has to offer, you will need allies to fight by your side against the tides of darkness.”19 Players form guilds and use their play experience and characters’ skills to complete quests and move to higher levels. Gamers also share ideas through chats and wikis, and those looking for tips and cheats provided by fellow players need only Google what they want. The largest of the sites devoted to sharing collective intelligence is the World of Warcraft wiki (www.wowwiki.com). Similar user-generated sites are dedicated to a range of digital games, including Age of Conan, Assassin’s Creed, Grand Theft Auto, Halo, Mario, Metal Gear, Pokémon, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Spore.

The most advanced form of collective intelligence in gaming is modding, slang for “modifying game software or hardware.” In many mass communication industries, modifying hardware or content would land someone in a copyright lawsuit. In gaming, modding is often encouraged, as it is yet another way players become more deeply invested in a game, and it can improve the game for others. For example, Counter-Strike, a popular first-person shooter game, is a mod of the game Half-Life. Half-Life is a critically acclaimed science-fiction first-person shooter game (a physicist fighting aliens), released by Valve Corporation in 1998 for PCs, and later PlayStation. The developers of Half-Life encouraged mods by including software development tools with it. By 1999, Counter-Strike, in which counterterrorists fight terrorists, emerged as the most popular of many mods, and Valve formed a partnership with the game’s developers. Counter-Strike was released to retailers as a PC game in 2000 and an Xbox game in 2004, eventually selling more copies than Half-Life. Today, many other games, such as The Elder Scrolls, have active modding communities.

Game Sites

Game sites and blogs are among the most popular external communities for gamers. IGN (owned by Ziff Davis), GameSpot (owned by CBS), GameTrailers (MTV Networks/Viacom), and Kotaku (Gawker Media) are four of the leading Web sites for gaming. GameSpot and IGN are apt examples of giant industry sites, each with sixteen to nineteen million unique, mostly male, eighteen- to thirty-four-year-old visitors per month—a desirable demographic to major media corporations. Penny Arcade is perhaps the best known of the independent community-building sites. Founded by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik, the site started out as a Webcomic focused on video game culture. It has since expanded to include forums and a Web series called PA that documents behind-the-scenes work at Penny Arcade. Penny Arcade organizes a live festival to celebrate gamers and gamer culture called the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX), as well as a children’s charity called Child’s Play.

Conventions

In addition to online gaming communities, there are conventions and expos where video game enthusiasts can come together in person to test out new games and other new products, play old games in competition, and meet video game developers. One of the most significant is the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), which draws more than 45,000 industry professionals, investors, developers, and retailers to its annual meeting. E3 is the place where the biggest new game titles and products are unveiled, and it is covered by hundreds of journalists, televised on Spike TV, and streamed to mobile devices and Xbox consoles.

The Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) is a convention created by gamers for gamers, held each year in Seattle and Boston. One of its main attractions is the Omegathon, a three-day elimination game tournament, in which twenty randomly selected attendees compete in games across several genres, culminating in the championship match at the convention’s closing. Other conventions include BlizzCon (operated by Blizzard Entertainment to feature developments to their games, including their top franchises—World of Warcraft, Diablo, and StarCraft) and the Tokyo Game Show, the world’s largest gaming convention, with more than 200,000 attendees annually.