Game Theory out

 

We are in a time of great renewal, just as the seasons pass with the turning of the sun- shedding life and be born anew- does life move in seasons of growth, thriving, death and rebirth. Within the world of online internet content generation- lacking the precedent of other life paths- no one could know what a full cycle looked like, but now we can pretty safely nail it down to about 15 years. 15 years encompasses a full and successful career doing little else put creative pushing oneself to try and make consistently engaging content before they just can't do it anymore, either they drop off to low stakes hobbyists permanently or for large periods, or give up before ever reaching that point. Thus is the volatility of creative pursuits. And all this was initiated by the departure of a true legend of video internet creation who dared to look askew at the world of video games and see something rare- a genuinely non-condescending avenue for edutainment.

Many factors went into the creation 'Game Theory', many of which are largely beside the point for this blog, but most relevant today was the desire to drag opportunities to teach out of the video games that we play. Personally I've always found the idea of learning whilst gaming to be fun- which is part of the reason why I'm always down to try out the next Assassin's Creed game whenever they drop, regardless of the plateau of quality they bashed their head against years ago, simply for the hazy familiarity the instil on the time periods they cover. I can honestly say that Assassin's Creed introduced me to the basic concept of what the renaissance was far better than anyone else had at that point in my life. (Teachers really struggle coherently explaining that time period to children for some reason.) As such the very thesis of Game Theory really did connect with me on even a subconscious level- even back before I was engaged enough to really comprehend what they were going for.

Through topics as simple as ascertaining the approximate speed of Sonic the Hedgehog by measuring the real-life scale of in-game objects and using mathematical formulas to generate a hypothesis, to the absolute insanity of pixel measurements in pursuit of discovering Mario's height which both blew my mind and destroyed the benefit of the doubt in video game design philosophy from thereon in. (Do you think video game artists really scale everything perfectly to the pixel? They just wanna make things look cool man, you can't hold that to surgical precision!) Matpat introduced the scientific process to the creation of a theory to a whole generation without them even realising it. And considering the amount of people who recycle the phrase "That's just a theory" in reference to unsubstantiated hypothesis'- I suspect they still don't know that he did that. But hey, at least he tried!

Another important aspect of what Game Theory stood for was media interpretation- which I think holds such a significant place in the toolset of media consumption that it should probably be taught in schools! (Actually, I was taught this in school- but only to a primary school level; we really need more advanced classes to better instil this idea in us.) Matpat wasn't just like some out there who seek to discover the truth behind a narrative, reaching the creator's intent, he would also introduce us to the idea of glancing beyond that and developing independent ideas from evidence to conjure ideas far beyond what the creator intended. 'Mario is Evil', 'Mario is communist', (unrelated videos) 'Peach is dead'. Looking at and intelligently interpreting media like this are important steps to Media Literacy and honestly- I think there needs to be more a space for it in today's world.

The ability to watch and actually acknowledge the media that you're consuming is frighteningly rare in the modern day as the complacency of being spoon-fed information becomes more appealing to a the coming generation. Look no further than the recent Hazbin Hotel series, a emotionally intelligent jaunt into the concepts of redemption and confrontational morality under the guise of Demons trying to get accepted into hell. And a certain class of people out there just couldn't understand it. The amount of people utterly perplexed at the fact that Adam, the first man and head of the Angel exterminators, is an arsehole without grasping the rather obvious commentary that is on grandfathered prosperity and binary judgement just isn't paying attention. And I feel it is the good work of people like Matpat, who encouraged the exploration of media, that taught that valuable skill to a generation of snot-nosed Ipad kids like myself. (Minus the Ipad- couldn't afford one of those.)  

Of course, with sheer machine-gun volume of content being produced by The Game Theory team they couldn't be experts on every topic they chose. I remember personally being deeply disgruntled by his one 'debate' themed show during which a conversation on the quality of Dark Souls' game design was spurred on by the argument that Dark Soul's design philosophy was too obscure to be considered good on the grounds of a mandatory key for the main quest which could only be earned by crouching in a bird's nest for 5 minutes in order to be flown back to the starting game area in order to grind through a remixed iteration of the Undead Asylum- an unreasonably complex and not-at-all sign posted route that one could only really discover from reading a guide. Which would be a fair point- were that key at all mandatory. Which it isn't. That entire area is a hidden optional. I personally never knew it existed for my first three complete playthroughs of the game. Which kind of rendered the entire crux of that side of the debate moot.

But even then, that wasn't really the point of the video- it was to inspire critical thinking and to that end- it was a successful video. It got me critically thinking about how wrong the accusing side was on a fundamental level! The same could be said for some of the more modern Game Theory videos headed by the replacement staff which are similarly broached on topics the video writer clearly is not versed in and thus common details get messed up- such as Grand Theft Auto. When you get stuck in the nitty gritty of exact details- you miss the forest for the tree and lose the point. And Game Theory has always been a concept of positivity for video games, the way we see video games, and the way that video games can interact with the world and learning. And, of course, Matpat raised an obscene amount for charity along the way too.

And yes, I did say 'replacements'; because in typical 'retirement' fashion, Matpat is handing off his many channels to the next generation of Game Theory. Several people who he has worked with over the years and honed into representatives of the various niches of the brand, Style, Food, Films and Gaming- to create a sustainable flow of content for the foreseeable future. It will no doubt be a stretch, getting the audience to be totally on board with no longer seeing the classic host- but it's a risk worth taking a stretch more interesting than closing up shop with him as he moves into a state of semi-retirement. (I think he intends to still work on videos behind the scenes- the passing of the torch is largely symbolic for the moment.) Were it that we could have such a legacy to rest our heads on and pass towards the next generation. Good for Game Theory and all they've achieved, I hope they can keep up some sliver of that acclaim in the tough years to come.

Glitch tactics in games

This looks important.

I am a very traditional kind of gamer in that I accept the challenge that I am presented with and attempt to complete it to the best of my ability. For this reason, I have butt my head with countless Dark Souls bosses, Arkham series challenge maps, and awful Assassin's Creed fighting mechanics, with nary a complaint. Okay, I complain but I still end up getting it done because I don't have a choice. But what if I did? What if there are some scenarios in which you can reach your objective by partaking in an activity that the developers never intended for? What if you intentionally utilize glitches in order to get ahead? Would you partake in such activities or actively try to avoid it?

Now, for the most part I am someone who will butt his head against that wall until it gives in. Most of the time I will continue to do so even if I'm introduced to a cheaty way around the problem. (And especially if the game offers me a chance to skip to the next checkpoint. What- don't you think I'm good enough, game? Who died and made you the boss of me?) Perhaps that stubbornness is down to that sadomasochism I talk about every now and then, but either way I will put myself through hell before I give in to the easy path. (Maybe I'd make a good Jedi. Nah, the colour red is too cool.) Although, it is a struggle for me to commit to such, and I believe that struggle is due to the basic tenets of game theory. Not the YouTube show, although I do love MatPat. (I'm literally watching their stream as I write this.)

I'm referring to the 'game theory' which details that those who play a game will choose the easiest path to victory if presented with options. Typically this is used to describe situations in which a badly optimized item upsets the balance of the game to a point where most players would rather focus on using it exclusively. (Funnily enough, this is something that I have no issue with.) But I feel that the same applies for glitches that allow players to 'cheat' their way through difficult or uninteresting sections of the game. (So I guess that makes me a bit of a hypocrite.) The real question comes down to whether or not you consider that approach 'cheating' or if you think of it as a way of playing the game that the developers didn't consider. And, of course, whether or not you even care.

From my point of view, I see the process of exploting glitches to be an example of cheating myself from the game that I paid for. For example, in 'The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion' there was a famous glitch in which players could pull of some sort of weird mixture of tactics to duplicate items. (Of course this was designed by poor console folk without access to the debug menu.) This required messing with some exploits and shooting an arrow into the sun or something, I never performed it myself, and then it would rain items upon the player. I always thought that this seemed like a weird way to play the game as it robs all the items of their value if you can obtain them without putting in any effort. I come from a belief that satisfaction is bred by the effort that is put into the task, so by performing such glitches I am actively depriving myself of satisfying game time, so why would I partake? But, as with any issue, there are other perspectives.

When it comes to the speedrunning community, glitches are their lord and savior. That's because the ultimate goal of speedrunning to to whittle down a game to it's most clinical and mechanical form in order to optimize your route through it. Doesn't that take away a great deal of the fun, immersion and charm of said game? Arguably. But these are the kinds of people who derive a different type of enjoyment from their games and that is one that can be dependant on the discovery and exploitation of glitches.

When trying to push yourself through a game in as little time as possible, it practically behooves you to find a way around the strict narrative path you've been set on and around developer planned road blocks. Glitches are the methods in which these runners pull this off. (as well as strategic language choice. Some dubs are faster than others.) Sometimes they can shave off a whole few seconds from their time (which is an eternity in speedrunning terms.) and sometimes they can confuse the game's memory management system in order to glitch out the map and complete 'A Link to the Past' in 5 minutes. (That is real and it's wild.) The community around speedrunning is so dependant on glitches that there are sometimes bounties placed upon problem games. The most legendary must be the 'Wind Waker' barrier skip in which people had tried for years to discover a way past an early game barrier that locks off the final section of the game. People went nuts trying to force their way through this wall, which would shave hours off of any speedrun attempt, but it was to little avail. The last I heard about it was in 2017 when there was a rumor about someone who pulled it off. But such claims have been made before and proven to be false, so there was a lot of floating skepticism. Whether or not it's true, it just goes to show you how important glitches are to some people.

Finally I would like to address something that isn't a glitch, but has a similar affect on the playing experience. (It's my blog and I'll cheat if I want to. Speaking of...) Let's talk about cheating. Since time immemorial developers have been putting in little bits of code that allow them to speed through the game, it's kind of a necessary step in the design process. However, sometimes they decide to leave in there shortcuts as cheat codes for their players to discover. In the early days these codes were urban myth shared around the schoolyard but nowadays things have gotten so open that some companies just go ahead and sell those cheats. (Although those that do should rot in hell for doing so.)

Cheats allow for the players to break the rules set by the developers and take a game at their own pace, often with invincibility, unlimited lives and a level select. Personally, I never really got behind the idea of cheats, except for the fun ones. (The Saints Row 3 cheat to turn everyone in the area into zombies is literally the only feasible reason to play that game.) Just like with glitches, I see cheats as way to willingly short yourself out of the experience and ruin the pacing of the game. That being said, some people lack the necessities to get through some games, be it for lack of time, patience or stubbornness; does that mean they shouldn't be allowed to see the later stages of the game. Yes, would be the traditional answer, but cheats open up that accessibility and make games more playable for those who struggle, so I can marginally abide by them in that sense.

Glitches are one of those things that everyone has an opinion on, you either love it or hate it. As one who errs to the latter, I will admit that I hold no ill will against those who partake, just that I feel the art sometimes suffers in my eyes with these displays. Once someone starts to peel apart the walls and show the inner workings, it's hard to put yourself back into the world of the game with the utmost immersion. It's like seeing the band playing the most ephemeral suite of all time, you don't want to believe that humans made this, even if that's an obvious truth, you just want to bask in the glory of what it is. I'll save my adulation for the team in the credits, thank you very much. I'm sure that there is an argument for the otherside but I lack anyone to ask so you're stuck with me and my close mindedness. (Just like always!)

YouTube versus gaming?

Symbiosis in peril?

After watching a video by the YouTuber MatPat entitled "Game Theory: Is YouTube ruining gaming?", I found myself invested in the topic. (Feel free to look it up to see what I'm talking about.) Therefore I have decided to cover something a little bit different today, still related to the world of gaming but a little bit more meta: I wanted to write about the influence of Media on the gaming industry. Or more specifically, the relationship between YouTube and the games industry, and whether that relationship is in peril.

For some people, like me, I'd imagine that your introduction into the gaming world might have been through a family member or friend. Playing Mario with your father or hitting up the arcade to play 'Time Crisis'/'House of the Dead' with your friends, or having your grandfather leave you with Metal Gear Solid for an afternoon at age 5. (Can't imagine who that last one might refer to.) Children of the today, however, might have a different inlet into gaming, through watching a stranger play games on the Internet. (I'm starting to sound like a clueless BBC reporter.)

Gaming has been huge part of me all my life, or since I was 5 but let's not split hairs. In the world I grew up in, there was not as many ready available tailor-made sources of information to sort through. Yes, the Internet did exist but it was no nearly as omniscient as it is today. (If it was, I wouldn't have had to spend three years trying to find the lyrics to 'Gangsta's Paradise'.) And when you had a hobby as niche as a predilection towards gaming, you were really out of luck. Luckily, where new media hadn't yet caught up, print had our back, and people like me would turn to gaming magazine to get our news about the unreachable world of gaming. It was how we learnt about the games of the future, the impending rise of VR, the space-age 2k TV's that would be hitting shelves next year, et cetera. It was how us gamers discovered out new obsessions for the coming year.

Now, during this time I wasn't a fan of fantasy; that's a whole other story in and of itself, but that particular detail is necessary to establish right away. When reading a copy of The Official Xbox Magazine, (Guess what my console was!) I came across a several page spread dedicated to a brand new huge fantasy RPG. A little-known game called: 'Skyrim'. I read all around that article and avoided it like the plague; fantasy games were, afterall, just not my cup of tea. Of course a kid that was as introverted as I was, has little to fill his spare time with, so eventually I read through every other article 5 times and was left with this spread. Long story short, I was now excited for a game I never would have been usually, but I had a problem. I had never played a fantasy game before, I had no idea what they looked like or felt like, and no idea how I could rectify that. How could I be excited for a game based on wind and promises? Luckily, another OXM magazine came with an interesting article concerning the burgeoning world of YouTube and online Media: "How to make a Let's play." It was how I learnt of the term and the world of strangers playing the games they love online for others to see.

That was my introduction to the power that YouTube and enthusiast media can hold. Through YouTube, I devoured hours of content dedicated to Oblivion, and then a 200 episode, interactive let's play of Morrowind. I became hooked to the passionate personalities who played and presented a game that they genuinely held affection for. This wasn't some tired presenter on one of those awkward gaming TV shows, (Which always held the worst time-slots, by the by.) trying to sell us on games through synthetic line reads and thinly veiled ads. On YouTube, we had access to videos created by the greatest salesmen that any company could hope to have represent them: Fans of the product. There is no equivalent or substitute for genuine passion, enthusiasm and positive word of mouth; and with the rise of the Internet, positive word of mouth could reach anyone around the entire globe. What I have described for you so far is my personal experience of the birth between the close relationship of gaming companies and YouTube.

I have bought both Morrowind and Oblivion twice since then. Skyrim thrice. Mine is not the only story of the power of passionate fans. One term that MatPat used to describe this phenomenon is 'Earned Media', referring an incredibly desirable effect when people are so enamoured by your product that they do the marketing for you; like I described, it is genuine, it is honest and it is convincing. YouTube has been rife with that kind of marketing ever since it's rise to prominence in the early 2010's. Look online and you'll find dozens of YouTube channels dedicated to this type of game or that genre of game, or channels dedicated to the entirety of gaming itself. And, of course, channels who specialize in video game analysis.

This rise of 'Earned Media' reached a point wherein it began to shape much of the gaming world around it. MatPat mentioned the 'PewDiePie' effect, coined when Felix Kjellberg played a lesser known game on his channel; Surgeon Simulator and thus drove huge sales to the game, making it a thunderous success. From my experience, I still remember the effect that YouTube had on Metal Gear Survive. Now of course Konami had a lot of bad press on them before they announced Metal Gear Survive: Their firing of Hideo Kojima, removing of his credit from all his box art, accusations of mistreatment of staff and Metal Gear Pachinko. Never shall we forget Metal Gear Pachinko. But the absolute, unreserved disgust that fans threw at Metal Gear Survive was largely driven by the online community of dedicated Metal Gear fans who saw the cheap cash grab from a mile away. Everything that Konami went through in regards to public relations; the controversy, the ridicule and the abject failure-of-a-game that was Metal Gear Survive, all of that was magnified by the public spotlight thrust on them by the YouTuber gaming community. The kind of coverage that a gaming magazine or show just wouldn't be capable of, for fear of withdrawn advertisers.

It's undeniable, then, that YouTube had become a formidable force in the gaming community. Sure forums existed, both private and public, and Discords have become a thing in recent years; but YouTube is where the PR battleground is held, and if you win there then you've gone a long way for your product. Therefore it was no surprise when companies started picking up YouTubers as spokespeople for their video games. It isn't uncommon now for publishers to ship early copies of upcoming games to YouTubers as well as reviewers. At this point, securing the respect of the Youtuber is much more important then securing high review scores, as a good, personality-lead campaign can drive more sales than a passionless number on a review website. Companies who play the YouTube game well reap the benefits in their reputation; just look at CD Projeckt Red. Now, I'm not going to downplay the quality of their products nor the way the they load the consumer with goodies and benefits merely for the act of buying their game. But I believe the real genius in CDPR's public relation strategy is in their candidness with their audience; a candidness shared by no other popular games company in the world. And how does CDPR communicate that candidness? Through secret messages embedded in one second frames of their YouTube videos. CDPR know that their most staunch supporters are on YouTube and so they speak directly to them; as a result, Cyberpunk 2077 is the single most anticipated game of next year. That's the power of 'Earned Media' for you.

Now, if you've watched MatPat's video on "YouTube is ruining gaming!", Mr Patrick points to this as the way things are, whilst providing foreboding thoughts on the way things may, and have, become. This is because of the symbiotic relationship between YouTubers and game company marketers. Yes, Games companies benefit when YouTubers cover their product favourably but that YouTuber benefits also as their views generate them a profit through the magic of ad revenue. The problem is that YouTube has recently been making it harder and harder to make a living on YouTube by instituting, frankly draconic, restrictions on uploaded content. No depictions of simulated violence, there goes all violent games; No excessive use of profanity, there goes Cyberpunk 2077 and it's ilk; No suggestive images, bye bye Japanese anime games. Breaking any of these rules can cripple earnings off a video, seriously hurting the viability of YouTubers covering these types of games. So what happens to all that 'Earned Media'? It is being actively hampered by the policies of YouTube. Full time YouTubers won't want to risk their livelihoods just to cover something that they love. As a consequence, game coverage suffers and companies who have grown to rely on the 'Earned Media' that YouTube provided, will feel the brunt in the coming years.

The unpredictable element is the effect that this will have on the gaming industry going forward. Matpat believes, whether is seriousness or jest, that this will have an effect on the fundamental development on gaming going forward. And perhaps he is right. YouTube is the most viewed video sharing platform on the Internet and if publishers need to twist their developers work in order to fully take advantage of the platform YouTube provides, then why wouldn't they? Now us consumers have to wonder if this will have an effect on out favourite franchises going forwards. The upcoming 'DOOM Eternal 'will be released in a time when YouTube's new policies are in full swing, whereas the 2016 'DOOM' revival came in the golden age where YouTube was a lot more accepting. 2016's DOOM benefited tremendously from the huge coverage that big YouTubers like Markiplier afforded Id software's game. Will DOOM Eternal suffer without that widespread coverage? I would imagine that Markiplier would likely still cover the game, but what about all those smaller channels who can't afford to take the risk? Will this make DOOM Eternal a failure? Mortal Kombat 11 suffered drastically in sales this year despite critical acclaim, likely due to the fact that most people were discouraged from showing off the game due to it's violent content. Those that did faced the crippling wrath of YouTube in a way that will likely teach them to ignore future Mortal Kombat titles.

So the question arises: Is YouTube ruining gaming? From examples and figures and everything we can see so far the answer appears to be yes. So much of the gaming industry has become dependant on the world of YouTube to further it's brand and now YouTube is threatening that dependence, is it so hard to imagine that companies won't bend over backward to play their tune. A pessimist may assume that this means the end of all rated 18 games or rather their slinking back into the obscurity they came from in the 90's. I'm usually more of a 'wait-and-see' kind of guy but it seems that we have already started to see what is happening and it isn't promising. With the reveal of the next gen, likely at E3 2020, we will see the direction of gaming and then we will know what kind of world gaming pride has wrought.