Rob Parker

First Person Podcast Episode 11

Procedurally Generated Feels: No Man's Sky

Alexandra Orlando, Rob Parker, Shawn Dorey, Justin Carptenter 1 Comment

In this first episode of the term, we discuss the highly controversial game No Man’s Sky. We go in depth with the early and more recent marketing of the game and how Hello Game’s relationship with Sony helped and hindered the development process of the game. We also talk about our personal experiences with the game, how the procedurality is executed in comparison to similar games. We close out the episode with a discussion about how games scholars and media archeologists might want to approach a game like this. Continue Reading →

First Person Podcast Episode 8

How do you know when you’re satisfied?

Emma Vossen, Rob Parker, Shawn Dorey

In Episode 8 of the First Person Podcast we discuss Campo Santo’s debut game Firewatch. In this short episode Rob, Shawn, and Emma cover a ton of topics including: genres of horror, the cost vs time investment debate, what realistic depictions of romance in games look like, the game’s multiple endings, what games made us cry the most, and how Firewatch is like a short story in all the best ways possible. This episode is full of spoilers and we don’t recommend it if you are planning on playing Firewatch and haven’t got around to it yet. We do recommend that you go play Firewatch and experience its bomb voice acting first hand before you get back over here and listen to us because this game is definitely worth both your time and money. Continue Reading →

Offworld Trading Company

Growing Up with Strategy Games

Rob Parker

I write this, Mr. Johnson, because your work resonates with me. I respect you and I think when you write, you aim for the same targets I do. On paper, Offworld Trading Company is exactly the type of game that sparked my interest in strategy games in the first place. It’s receiving some very positive press and has already sold over 100,000 copies. That’s great. I hope it does well for you. I won’t be buying it, though. It has to do with your company’s co-founder and president Brad Wardell. Wardell’s decision to associate with a group of people that have had demonstrable and undeniably negative effects on the gaming industry is something I have a lot of trouble with. While that group may adopt the language of platform holders to hold their harassment at arm’s length by calling it the work of “third-party trolls,” they still provided the platform for those abuses to be carried out and are unable (but more often unwilling) to take responsibility for that. Continue Reading →

Nintendon’t

First Person Podcast Episode 7

Emma Vossen, Chris Lawrence, Alexandra Orlando, & Rob Parker

Instead of examining a specific game on Episode 7 of the First Person Podcast we turn a eye, an upraised eyebrow, and a single tear towards Nintendo and its recent decisions. Four disapointed Nintendo fans look at the many controversies and rumours currently surrounding both Nintendo as a company as well as their current and upcoming games. In this episode we cover the Fire Emblem localization, Nintendo’s lack of reaction to GamerGate, Nintendo firing Alison Rapp, the launch and staying power of Miitomo, and the rumours about implementing a choice between male and female link in the new Zelda game. Beyond this will also discuss larger issues of localization, how sexuality is depicted in games, and wonder how many different varieties of “hard core” gamers we’ve encountered. Continue Reading →

Dark Souls Roundtable

Design, Difficulty, & Death w Prof. Jonathan Boulter

Jason Hawreliak, Michael Hancock, and Rob Parker with Jonathan Boulter 1 Comment

In this FPS podcast we’re talking about the game everyone hates to love, Dark Souls. FPS’ Jason Hawreliak, Michael Hancock and Rob Parker were joined by UWO professor Jonathan Boulter via Skype. They discuss difficulty, Heidegger, spatiality, narrative and aesthetics. SPOILERS AHEAD. Continue Reading →

The Art of Papers, Please

Juul's The Art of Failure Meets Lucas Pope's Papers, Please

Rob Parker 12 Comments

There’s a certain dehumanizing impulse that comes with mastering game systems. It is articulated through the dissonance between Nathan Drake as-he-appears-in-cutscenes and the Nathan Drake whose actions correspond to a controller’s thumbsticks. It is the reason why genetic algorithms have been used to plan the “perfect” build order in Starcraft 2. Processes are fertile ground for privileging economy of action and thought. This is so ingrained in contemporary game design that player progress is often measured by the increasing complexity of game mechanics: by adding new abilities, introducing more difficult foes, more challenging environments, etc. Continue Reading →

Voluntary Constraints

How Players Can Impose an Ethical Critique

Rob Parker 5 Comments

Developers and publishers may seek to define what constitutes gaming capital through engagement with the player community, but it is the players that typically have the final word on what gaming capital is and how best to accrue it. As such, the production of more paratexts through player-authored walkthroughs, popular YouTube channels or mod communities has a sympathetic relationship with the exchange of gaming capital. Consalvo concludes the book by re-articulating the shaky definition of “cheating” in games and how that relates to “cheating” outside of games, where players that would never cheat outside of digital worlds think nothing of tapping out IDDQD for god mode in Doom. She uses this fracture to suggest that “we need a better understanding of how ethics might be expressed in gameplay situations, and how we can study the ethical frameworks that games offer to players.” (187). I’d like to extend some of Consalvo’s work on paratexts and gaming capital into the realm of voluntary or non-coded constraints that players impose upon themselves. Continue Reading →