Last week Mia introduced us to the chapter of gaming! I don’t have much experience with gaming but I find it interesting! I recently started to play fortnite, on playstation. You can either choose to play “save the world” that costs money, or “battle Royale” wich is for free and that’s the one everyone is playing. Every gamer is playing it nowadays and even people like me, people that don’t usually game. I play it almost everyday and I keep getting better and better at it. It is a online game so I play in squad with my friends, in duo with just one, or solo. The game has the traditionally goal “last man standing wins”, its about surviving the longest, collect the best guns and equipment, and eliminate opponents. The graphic is super good, and you can earn different skins and emotes or you can buy them. (I have to admit that I have bought some of it, haha).

Mia showed us some different types of gamers in class last week.

The types were:

“The casual gamer”

– The casual gamer is not actually somebody that plays “casual games”, but rather the attitude towards gaming is casual. Gaming is a light hobby, used to have fun and relax.
The casual gamer does not necessary know much about gaming, and won’t attempt to research anything.

“The social gamer”

– the social gamer is someone who is motivated to game by connecting with other people through the medium of gaming. Their gaming habits are determined by their social circle more than by what is generally popular in society. Most likely, this is people playing games like C.O.D, world of warcraft, League of Legends, Minecraft and now Fortnite.

“The Specialist Gamer”

– We now move away from gaming as purely a hobby and more into a passion. The specialist gamer knows what they like.
What they like may be shooters, RPGs, MOBAs, strategy, platformers, or really any genre. It could be a specific developer or even a specific franchise.  It could even be just one single game.  What sets a specialist apart is the focus on getting the most out of their gaming experience.  They will trade variety over quality.  They are not looking to play every game, they are looking to truly and fully play every part of specific games.

“The expert gamer”

-The expert gamer is not specifically someone who is highly skilled at games.  Instead they are characterised by a wide range of tastes and a desire to enjoy new gaming experiences. They probably enjoy reading about games, researching games, and following the video game industry. Gaming is quite likely a topic of conversation in their group of friends.  Unlike the social gamer, however, their gaming habits expand beyond just what their friends play.  They try a little bit of everything and have their own tastes, rather than going along with the group.  They likely have strong opinions but also educated ones with facts and research to back them up.

What kind of gamer am I?

I will say I’m somewhere inbetween the casual gamer and the social gamer.  I pretty much don’t know much about games, the games I’ve played in the past is barbie games on my computer, children games, The sims 2, 3 and 4. I still play the Sims 4. And now I also like to play fornite with my friends. We sometimes talk about games too. When I hang out with my friends, sometimes some of the boys talk about games and I catch myself listening too it because I find it interesting, and when the boys want to play video games I say “yes” or “I want to watch”  while the other girls are like “no, it is so boring, and I say “c´mon, let them play.” I guess there has always been a part of me that find gaming fun and interesting, but I have never been in a gaming environment.

Hello! It´s been a while since I’ve posted something here, but I will be back on track from now on! Winterbreak was relieving, I spent time with my friends in my hometown Voss, went skiing and just relaxing.

The last blogpost I wrote here was some thoughts about the selfie and the social media, and in this blogpost its the selfie/unselfie that I am really exited to post.

SELFIE

This is a selfie. Or, a type of selfie. I wrote about the selfie in last post, of how manipulated a picture can be. Here I’ve added filter on me, and I’ve smoothed my skin a bit. In real life there I have a round selfie light behind the camera to make the picture better. I’m holding my breath so I can keep my iPhone still and pose better. After I’ve taken this photo my back crouches and my breath is fighting to come out quickly. Its not that I don’t like to take selfies, because I do, but I kind of wish I didn’t.
Well, this selfie does not tell much about me. One could think that, someone that never heard of the “selfie” that it should be something that tells something about a person. But in this case it does not really tell much. It tells that I have blonde hair, that I wear makeup and that taking selfies isn’t something new to me. My selfie does not show that I for example love to watch interesting documentaries about weird explanations about our world and hidden meanings of objects, its a weird hobby I have.

UNSELFIE

This is my unselfie. This is not a picture of me, but a picture that I have taken that represent what I do and how I sometimes spend my days. It shows that I’m a “girly” girl, by that I mean the typical girl who watched drama series, with a pink sparkly MacBook cover, flowers as decorations. But It also shows that I’m playing fortnite on ps4, which is more of a “boy” thing to do. Not that I’m saying that a girl belongs to that and a boy belongs to this, I stand for equailty! But let’s be real, it an unwritten rule or, let’s say a norm, that boys stick to gaming and girls stick do sparkly things. This unselfie shows that I have different hobbies that I like to do.

In my last blog post I talked about understanding what games are and to give a sense of the formal qualities that we can use to decide what constitutes a game. In this week’s lectures we have looked more closely at how we can understand major game features like interactivity, rules, game space, aesthetics and culture. By aesthetics I am referring to all aspects of video games which are experienced by the player. The cultural position of video games is referred to the cultural relationship between video games and other older media.

Rules:
Limitation determine what you and other characters in the game can and cannot do, and which actions or events increase or decrease the players score. The term ´gameplay´ is often used but its difficult to define, I understand it as how it feels to play a game, the feelings influenced by the games audio and the visual aspects. I feel that gameplay is more considered a consequence of the games rules rather than its representation.

Geography and representation:
The world of video games is typically represented to the player by means of graphics and sound. Graphics may me two – or three – dimensional, the sound may be more realistic or that they are more cartoonish.

Number of players:
In terms of design and development single – player games greatly from multi player games. Computer controlled opponents, environment and players actions.

 
Something I find interesting is the aesthetics by playing a game. The feeling that the gamers sit with when they are playing games, how the sound, graphics and the rules is influencing the player. The graphics nowadays is so developed that it looks more or less like real life, this makes the game more fun (in my opinion). Video games is a new worldwide media, which have significant influence on popular culture by its increasing by popularity. Video games/games is something that almost every single person plays, if its on their phone (apps) or on their computer. Everyone I know plays games on their phone, or have done it in before. Video games has become a culture in my opinion, because its something a lot of people does once or twice in their life and its a very popular social platform.

So now in #NetNarr, we have moved from digital art to video games. Personally, I find learning about video games very fascinating. This because I don’t know much about it, and frankly, I didn’t think of myself as a gamer at all. We had to raise our hand, showing which gamer we thought we were and I didn’t even raise mine at all. I actually don’t play any games. This is also why my test score for the DDA came out like this:

And honestly, like I tweeted, I just had to chose some options at some of the questions because I couldn’t say “none of these.”

However, I suddenly realized that when I was a kid, I was a big gamer. When I didn’t have obligations, I played the Sims all the time. And when even younger, I played games online almost every day! All from some kind of makeup/dress up games to Hugo to Runescape. I spent so much time in front of the computer playing these games and I would hang out with my friend every day after school, go to her place and play games together, but on each our computer. Gaming has been a big part of my past which I didn’t even realize before. So maybe I’m not a gamer anymore, but I have been a big one.

What we talked about in lecture today really fascinated me — an aspect of why we play. Games as escape. That when you play a game, you escape the reality you’re in, you can focus on the character in the game, make choices for her/him and kind of forget all the choices and responsibilities you have in your own life. Like getting a small break. And what really fascinated me was when we talked about every entertainment being like this, I thought that that was so true. And instead of playing games, what I do quite a lot when I’m home and don’t have any obligations is watching series. From documentaries to reality TV to Netflix fiction TV shows. When it was mentioned that that would be an escape too, I completely agreed. It gives you a break from all the stuff you have to think about — all the responsibilities as students, the upcoming midterms, the exams, the articles I’m writing, the things I have to prepare for tomorrow, just about anything. I can kind of zone out and just focus on Jess’ life in New Girl.

I think I kind of knew that I used series-watching this way, but I haven’t actively thought about it in that way. I feel like the word escape can have some negative connotations — like you’re running away from your responsibilities and reality. But I (and I may just be trying to justify this for myself) actually think that we need that. At least for me, I feel like it is a way of reloading. I get a healthy break from whatever is on my agenda, I can relax and be entertained. Everyone goes to something to be entertained — games, movies, series, books, the theatre, stand up comedy and so on. We obviously need this form of entertainment as humans. It is where we relax. Everyone has something they turn to which is why I’m guessing we all need that break from our own lives once in a while. And that doesn’t sound unhealthy to me. Whether it is beneficial for us in other ways or not (like having to actively make choices in games or just passively watch New Girl like me), I think it leaves us with something. An impression, a reminder of something — it could be whatever. All in all, this aspect of gaming and entertainment is so interesting to tinker about and I was really intrigued when the theme got up in lecture.