Inclusive Video Games

As a male, I don't think I've ever had to worry about inclusion in gaming. When I was a kid there was no online gaming so if I was playing with a friend, that friend was there in the room with me. Now, when I was in elementary school most of my friends were male. Whether I was playing games with Marc or Nathan or Jason, it was just the boys. Then when the Nintendo 64 was released in 1996, and especially when GoldenEye was released in 1997, suddenly our gaming sessions became much more of a big deal because you could connect up to 4 controllers instead of the standard 2. As I was in high school, my circle of friends was becoming larger than just those that lived in the same neighborhood as me and girlfriends started becoming a regular mix into the gaming group. This was perfectly OK.

Whether we were playing GoldenEye or Mario Kart or Super Smash Bros., we never excluded anyone simply because of their gender or for any other reason. My first semester in college I lived in the dorms at Shasta College and we would regularly gather in the Commons to play WCW/nWo Revenge and there was always a mix of male and female ready to mix it up. Later, when I bought my first Xbox and started playing Halo, we were also an inclusive group. This continued when I moved to Denver and met many new groups of friends. Whether it was the karaoke crowd meeting at Burtt's house to play Halo or Mortal Kombat, or work friends meeting at Tim's house to play Soul Caliber 2, there was always a mix of male and female in the room and playing the games. Again, these were always couch multiplayer sessions and everyone was in the room together which I think usually inspires people to be polite.

For me, inclusion has always been about being allowed to be a part of something. In my circles of friends, no one has ever been excluded from participating and I hope that no one has ever felt excluded based on actions or words from other people in the group. However, after discussing video games in our unit in class and reading the article on Medium, I have to think that inclusion means so much more. Inclusion can also mean being able to relate and connect to characters in games because they look like you. Most video game protagonists have been white males and women in particular have been objectified in video games or treated like trophies. In the original Mortal Kombat arcade game released in 1992, there was only one female character, Sonya Blade. You could also argue that there was only one Asian playable character in Liu Kang. Granted there were two ninja characters in Scorpion and Sub-Zero, but both characters were portrayed by Daniel Pesina who is an American-born martial artist of Mexican decent. While other female characters were added in later releases, the objectification of their bodies was prominently on display in the rebooted Mortal Kombat (2011) with their body proportions and skimpy costumes. This has seemingly been addressed with the last two releases, Mortal Kombat X (2015) and Mortal Kombat 11 (2019).

Inclusion can also mean healthy and friendly in-game chat experiences. I think with the growing popularity of online gaming, unhealthy in-game chats have become alarmingly normal particularly towards female gamers. I do not personally game online. It has never been something I have been interested in and as I am a casual gamer, I likely do not possess the skill level that many online gamers have from hours and hours of practice. I am also not a huge fan of First Person Shooters which make up a large portion of online games. That said, I have not witnessed nor had to experience some of the toxic comments that are regularly directed at female gamers. I'm not sure how or when I became aware that this was happening but it has definitely been reinforced by some of the material we have discussed in class. I personally think it's disgusting that a person would say some of these things to another person. I would like to reiterate a comment I made in a discussion post. I think the more we interact with people online, the more it dehumanizes the people we interact with. People see them not as an individual but as a profile or an avatar. In much the same manner as cyber bullying, they fail to make the connection that the things they are saying are not in a vacuum and that they are being directed at another person. As there are currently not a lot of consequences for this type of behavior, there is no incentive for them to stop which emboldens them further. In some cases I think it almost becomes a challenge to see how much they can get away with.

In 2017, only 21% of game developers were female but 42% of gamers were female. In 2019 females made up 46% of gamers. This means that the number of women making games is disproportionate to the number of women playing games. I think we need to do a better job at closing that gap. As we are seeing more and more female protagonists in games with Horizon: Zero Dawn, Tomb Raider, and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy released over the last few years, and The Last of Us Part 2 releasing later this month, I would hope that this would inspire more women to not only play games but also to be a part of the industry making those games.

Digital Divide

I think the Digital Divide is a real thing and as the gap between the "haves" and the "have nots" grows larger than it has ever been, this is an issue that really needs to be solved in short order. As we continue to see growth in the income inequality in the United States, there is a true need for internet for everybody. In school districts such as Coachella Valley, having access to the internet means having access to resources such as research and books that they might not otherwise have access to. Superintendent Darryl Adams states that over 95% of the students live below the poverty line and many cannot afford internet at home. This begins a domino effect that sets the students up for failure. The school may not be able to attract teachers, and due to low test scores the school may not have access to state funds meaning that their materials and resources (e.g. textbooks) cannot be kept up to date, meaning that the students are not receiving the level of education that a wealthier school district receives.

It is also important to note that Adams states a majority of the student body is Hispanic, so there is no way we can talk about the Digital Divide without also addressing the issues of race inequality in the United States. Given the current tension in our country surrounding race relations, I don't want to pile on, but some white Americans that I know have stated that all Americans are on a level playing field regardless of race or where you were born. Educational studies and stories like the one about Coachella Valley clearly show that is not the case. Simply because these students happened to be born in a rural and poorer area of the country should not mean that they have any less opportunity as anyone else, but the facts show that they DO have fewer opportunities. Adams' innovation of mobile Wi-Fi hotspots using busses does seems to be working to close the gap, however, as the graduation rate in Coachella Valley is up 8%.

Why should we care about the Digital Divide? Well, there is a strong link between digital access and income and race inequality in our country. This alone should be motivation enough for Americans to want to close the digital gap. The American Dream is the ideal that equality of opportunity is available to any American, allowing the highest aspirations and goals to be achieved. Greater opportunity should not be afforded to you simply because you were privileged enough to have been born in a particular county or a particular color or race. So if we have any hope of maintaining the ideal of the American Dream, we need to close the Digital Divide. Otherwise it is just words without meaning.

Future of the Music Industry

As a musician, the future of the music industry is one that is very important to me. I was a working musician in Denver, Colorado for close to a decade and I have returned to school to study recording arts. My goal is to work in a studio as a recording engineer and possibly open my own studio or production company specializing in smaller projects. This would also give me an opportunity (hopefully) to work with my former bandmates on songs that we've been working on separately and together since Ashfield disbanded in 2014. That said, will there even be a market for this when I graduate?

When Napster launched in 1999, I think it was a monumental moment in music as it was really the first sign that the future of music was digital distribution. The failure of Napster was that it allowed users to share copyrighted material with other users with no compensation for the artist. In essence, they were stealing. Obviously this led to multiple lawsuits from artists such as Metallica and Dr. Dre, but the seeds had been planted. Now the largest retailer of music is Apple (a computer company) through it's iTunes platform and many consumers get their music through streaming platforms such as Spotify who as of April, 2020 has 286 million active users.

The music industry is often broken down into 3 separate industries; the recorded music industry, the music licensing industry, and the live music industry. The move to digital really only affects one of these, the recorded music industry, which deals in recording and distributing music to consumers. Before Napster, distribution meant dubbing a recording onto a physical medium (LP, cassette, CD, etc.) and shipping it to a brick and mortar retail store where it was then sold to a music consumer. The issue here was that music companies were only interested in distributing those recordings that were going to turn a profit, so the selection of music if you were to go in to your local Best Buy or Wal-Mart was limited. While Napster was breaking copyright law, they did introduce a revolutionary system where more and more niche music was available to the consumer. You didn't need to hunt for that new Social Distortion record, you could just search on Napster and download it from someone who had already bought it.

As digital distribution became more common through online retailers such as Apple and Amazon, consumers were presented with another novel idea. They were now able to purchase music on a song by song basis rather than purchasing an entire album. While music companies were initially resistant to this, I think they've come around to the idea that if a consumer really likes the new Alkaline Trio single, they will more likely pay $1.29 to download that song rather than pay $9.99 for the entire album just to get access to the one song they really like. This also allows bands to release songs as singles ahead of full albums as promotional material. A Day to Remember has taken advantage of this by releasing 3 singles ahead of their full-length album, You're Welcome, set to release later this year.

So how do we tie this all to the future? Well, according to the IFPI Global Music Report, while physical revenue declined by 10.1% and download revenue declined by 21.2%, streaming revenue was up 34% which offsets the declines. So by this trend it is clear that streaming revenue is the future of the recorded music industry. But we still haven't talked about the other 2 industries in the music business. Obviously with the COVID-19 pandemic, the live music industry has taken a massive hit. I truly believe though that when venues are allowed to open again and bands are able to tour, the live music industry is going to explode like we have not seen. People are dying to get out and be with people and listen to live music, at least I am. Also, I think we've seen a way for more artists to get more music out to their fans with the rise in "bedroom concerts" live streamed on platforms like YouTube. I hope that trend continues even after we get to start going to live concerts again. One thing about the bedroom concerts is that the sound quality isn't always great. I think this is an opportunity to combine the live music aspect with professional live audio to create an immersive experience for fans from the comfort of their living rooms. The music licensing industry has likely taken a hit as well as movie production has been put on hold so music is not being licensed for films. But again, when films are able to resume production, I think the music licensing industry will return to normal.

So to summarize, I believe the future of the recorded music industry is streaming music. As we discussed in class, the royalties being paid to the artists from platforms such as Spotify are literally in the fractions of cents, but my hope is that the Music Modernization Act will help to make that more fair. I also hope that artists will build on the "bedroom concert" idea by incorporating more professional sounding audio to the live streams to create a more immersive experience for the consumer. And finally, my biggest hope as a musician and a recording arts student is that I get to be a part of it.

Kickstart Research and APA

Feltham, J. (2020, January 29). Getting to Grips: The Future of VR Gaming is In Physics and Interaction. Retrieved June 8, 2020, from https://uploadvr.com/physics-future-of-vr-gaming/

This article is a good commentary on the future of VR gaming, in my opinion. The author explores how real-world physics is being integrated into new VR games. One specific example is The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners, where the act of thrusting a blade into the head of a zombie must be performed by the player rather than relying on a button press or flicking of a directional stick. I think this level of involvement by the player truly sets up the future of game play and immersion into the digital world.

Gera, E. (2019, May 2). Not Quite Film, or Games … Is Interactive Mixed Reality the Future of Storytelling? Retrieved June 8, 2020, from https://www.theguardian.com/games/2019/may/02/vr-mixed-reality-storytelling-sundance-festival-new-frontier-narratives

This article looks at how narrative forms for films and games is changing with the introduction of VR and interactive storytelling. It explores the levels of immersion that can be created in interactive storytelling. One particularly compelling quote from the article is that immersive storytelling, "touches the divide between the digital and real."

Kickstart Start: VR Gaming

In reviewing the chapters of the textbook, there are multiple chapters covering video games, virtual reality, and esports. This is an area that I am very interested in as I have been an avid gamer for quite some time. I'm guessing I'm probably a little older than most of the students in the class and while home video game consoles are pretty ingrained into our culture today, I am old enough to say I got to see where it started. Now, I'm not speaking of the old Atari 2600 consoles or anything released prior to the video game crash of 1983. I'm talking about the introduction of the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985 and how home consoles have become a normal part of many living rooms in the 3+ decades since.

Nintendo's president, Hiroshi Yamauchi said in 1986, "Atari collapsed because they gave too much freedom to third-party developers and the market was swamped with rubbish games." Nintendo would counter this issue by making fewer higher-quality games and by 1988 they were the undisputed leader in the video game industry. Over the decades that followed we have seen console competition from companies like Sega, Sony, and Microsoft (whose Xbox has been their only major success in manufacturing hardware, interestingly enough) and the video game industry has grown to financial heights projected to reach $230 billion by 2022 in the U.S. alone.

As a gamer, I have owned the original NES, Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, GameCube, PlayStation, Xbox, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation 4, and have recently purchased both the NES Classic and Super Nintendo Classic consoles. Needless to say, I've dropped my fair share of money into games. But each time a new console is released, we're entertained for a bit before inevitably looking forward to what is coming next. The PlayStation 4, for example, was an 8th generation console released in 2013, and while that system was groundbreaking at the time, it was announced in 2019 that the PlayStation 5 is expected to launch in late 2020 marking the sunset on the previous generation's console.

Graphically there's only so much that can be done from each generation to the next. The same goes for gameplay. If you look at the Madden NFL football games released yearly by Electronic Arts, you eventually begin to realize that you're paying $60 each year for what amounts to a roster update. As EA is the only company officially licensed by the NFL to use player likenesses in their games, it makes sense that there is a sense of complacency due to the lack of competition unlike 1995 to 2005 when 989 Sports' NFL GameDay and Visual Concepts' NFL 2K series were directly competing with Madden. That's where I believe that VR gaming is the next step for gaming.

While virtual reality is not exactly a new concept to gaming with Sega announcing a home version of the Sega VR headset in 1991 (which was cancelled) and Nintendo releasing the Virtual Boy in 1996, the early attempts were met with indifference from consumers and investors. However, in the latter half of the 2010's this technology picked up again with 230 companies developing VR-related products by 2016. I would like to research this technology and see what the future may hold for VR gaming.

MP3 Player: History in Pictures

Saehan MPMan F10 (1998)

https://www.theregister.com/2008/03/10/ft_first_mp3_player/

Diamond Rio PMP300 (1998)

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/10/diamond-rio-pmp300-mp3-player-today/

Apple iPod (2001)

https://www.macworld.com/article/1163181/the-birth-of-the-ipod.html

Microsoft Zune (2006)

http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1898610_1898625_1898633,00.html

Apple iPod Touch (7th Generation) (2019)

https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/05/31/compared-the-2019-ipod-touch-blows-away-the-2015-version-in-real-world-tests

About Me

Hello. My name is Corey Wheeler. I was born on July 5, and yes, I am a Cancer for those of you interested in astrology. I was born in Concord, CA and lived in Pittsburg, CA for a time before my parents relocated to Redding, CA when my sister was born. Redding was a nice place to grow up. It was a small town, but not so far removed that we couldn't drive back to the Bay Area to visit my grandparents. My friends and I played in the creek, skipped rocks, climbed trees (and fell out of them from time to time). We rode our bikes to the bus stop and played basketball in each other's driveways. I was a good student, regularly being named to the Honor Roll. My parents also insisted that I had a well-rounded extracurricular career. I started by playing soccer and baseball at age 6, but also started piano lessons at age 7. I also picked up the drums for the first time in the 5th grade.

Music has been my passion for quite some time. I moved to Denver, CO and formed a band called Ashfield. We were active in the local scene for nearly 10 years. The band ended as most things do, but in my time with Ashfield I was able to see the inner workings of several recording studios up close. I was always interested in recording arts, but it was always something I thought I would start doing as a musician and figure out as I went along. I never realized that it was something I could go to school for. So, I decided to return to Redding to finish the music degree I had started before I moved, and then go on to study recording arts at Chico State.

Today I enjoy playing the piano (I'm actually working on the 1st movement of Moon Light Sonata as we speak). I've recently started recording these performances and posting them on my YouTube channel. I currently don't have a place to set up my drums, so that's kind of sad. I'm also active on Facebook, Instagram, and I am a brand new Twitter user. I've even got a Snapchat for kicks and giggles. I'm an avid baseball fan, in fact you may notice that a majority of my previous blogs are covering the San Francisco Giants (I miss baseball). I am a certified scuba diver since 2012, though I sadly have not been in the water in 5 years. I enjoy biking, more trail than mountain, and participated in the Bigfoot Mountain Bike Challenge for 3 years beginning in 2017. I'm also an avid concert-goer though that has obviously taken a hit due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The last concert I was supposed to see was Atreyu at the Senator Theatre in Chico, CA in November, 2019, but I ended up not attending because I couldn't get anyone to go with me. That's me in a nutshell I suppose. Thanks for reading.