Thoughts on 10 Years (sort of) in Gaming

This year, we celebrate LadiesGamers’ 10th anniversary, and this significant milestone allows us to look back. Since I wasn’t gaming, besides the occasional HOG puzzle game, for the better part of the last decade, I’d share some observations I’ve made about gaming since I started gaming again in 2021.

Thoughts on 10 Years (sort of) in Gaming

The Thing with Demos

First, have you noticed how rare a thing is a demo these days?

A long time ago, when all computers came with CD/DVD ROMs, there were PC gaming magazines accompanied by a CD with demos. For many of us, especially in the countries from the former Soviet Bloc, demos and internet cafes were among the few legal and, at the same time, affordable ways to get our hands on new games. The not-so-legal, and sometimes not very affordable way was ordering it from shady resellers, who did not sell official versions of the games but ripped versions. Except for the capital, there wasn’t an official game seller in town most of the time.

And in that vein – consoles were considered to be like mythical beasts. Something you’ve heard about but have yet to see. We did have Tetris; by 1998, Tamagotchi appeared in my country, just a little later than in the rest of the world.

So, yes, demos had a role far more important than letting us see the gameplay of a new game—they allowed us to play a game that we might never see in full, or at least not for a long time. That way, I played and loved Cultures, Zanzarah, The Longest Journey, and many others.

When I started gaming back in 2021, I was surprised to discover that demo versions of the games were no longer the norm. In fact, most of the more extensive and more expensive titles rarely have demos. Some might release a short demo during a sale or fest and then remove it, especially if the game is released in the meantime. This practice is increasingly popular now that Steam offers 2 hours of gameplay before you can refund the game.

Developers must remember that demos are only sometimes solely used to showcase gameplay. There are still gamers out there who do not have the resources or access to a full version of the game and for whom a demo would be a good compromise until things get better.

Visual and Storytelling Feast

It seems that in gaming, we’ve come full circle, from the textual quests in Zork and Star Trek, which were forerunners of modern PC gaming, to the acclaimed 2022 text-based adventure Roadwarden.

Nowadays, there’s hardly a topic or visual style not found in gaming in some form or shape. Once I returned to gaming, I avoided pixel graphics for quite a while. I had grown up with them and didn’t find the appeal of playing modern pixel graphics games without being reminded of a time when nothing else existed.

Nowadays, I play everything as it’s meant to be, with enjoyment. In fact, we are coming to an era beyond that full circle I mentioned above – now we have all these hardware capabilities, constant technological progress- and an abundance of choices in how our games look and behave. We have pixel graphic games and games influenced by anime stop-motion and classic hand-drawn animation; we have fully 3D-realistic games and Minecraft in its own category. We have perfectly perfect games, and we fully realize that they are considered works of art – like Journey, Papers, Please, Toem, Gris, Genesis Noir, and many others.

The fact is, making games is no longer a specialized profession. There are plenty of indie and solo developers with successful debuts as examples. Nowadays, there are enough resources and platforms to create a game – this accessibility allows for more choices for us consumers. It means that with some skill and luck, players can make something they’ve been missing in games and fill a hole in the market. It also allows the introduction of visual styles not strictly traditional for gaming, like the cartoon and comic book style of Some Distant Memory and Universe for Sale or the papercraft and book art styles of A Case of Distrust, Astrologaster, Tukoni, and Flat Kingdom Paper Cut Edition.

Representation and diversity

This topic is always fraught with problems and missteps. Unfortunately, it remains relevant, which means we still lack enough representation and diversity. This year also marks ten years since Gamergate, so articles like this paragraph are inevitable this year.

The first time I was playing games, female characters were far and between, more so if you actually wanted to play as one. Some game genres had more female characters than others. I’ll never forget the first Syberia game because not only was it a beautiful game, but also the main character was Kate Walker, a female character who was intelligent and personable and adequately dressed for the cold climate of Syberia.

Today, female representation in games is not that much of a problem. For games of the RPG genre, it’s seldom where I’ll be forced to play as a male character. Outside of the character creation option, problems remain. Even now, making a female character is more of a business decision than a foregone conclusion, as the recent skirmish between the Persona 3 Reload producer and fans of the game shows.

There were some hopes that a female protagonist would be added to the game, but the developer shot down those hopes, explaining that adding one would cost “two to three times that of Episode Aigis.” All that being said, we still rarely get to see POC female or male playable characters. There’s a massive disproportion between POC players and the POC characters they get to play as. Not to mention how many games we have with playable characters with some kind of disability.

And all that is just about characters. Diversity and representation and, indeed, attitudes towards women and minorities in specific gaming and developers’ communities seem to continue to be problematic. Harassment and bullying in any setting should not be allowed to exist and thrive, and yet, it appears that in gaming communities, it still persists.

At last year’s Game Developers Conference, 91% of 2300 surveyed game developers reported player harassment and toxicity towards developers being a problem for developers, with 42% saying it was a “very serious” issue and 40% having experienced being harassed. Women gamers also continue to experience harassment and toxicity in multiplayer games daily. As much as things have improved, social spaces like Reddit have daily posts from women experiencing some upsetting behavior in multiplayer games.

We should have learned something from GamerGate and the scandals that followed it. Yet, for the last few months, Sweet Baby Inc., a small Montreal-based narrative development studio, has found itself as a target for attacks and harassment, ranging from “leave the industry” to death threads. The complaint? “Wokeification”- alleging that the studio is forcing game developers to change bodies, ethnicities, and sexualities of video game characters to conform to “woke” ideology. The most recent complaint is the race change of the main character in the upcoming South of Midnight, a game I am ridiculously excited for and where it’s evident to anyone who’s seen the trailer, at the very least, how much sense that change makes.

Final Thoughts on 10 Years in Gaming

I admit that sometimes, reading and writing about games and gaming is actually more enjoyable for me than the games themselves. That’s why I am so thankful to be part of LadiesGamers- it allows me to do something I’ve always loved, whether I am gaming or not. I truly believe that how games and gaming communities continue to develop reflects the way our cultures and views about the world and the human condition change. Some games become outdated quickly, and others attain a legendary status, but change is inevitable. Just like our human societies change, so will our ways of entertainment.

I look forward to what the next ten years will bring in gaming.

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