Researching subjects for Context (28/11/2013)

* Today we were expected to have chosen our idea by the end of the session, therefore I went back over my ideas from last week and started to produce a power point presentation in preparation to present my subject before Christmas.

* Looking back at my subjects, I decided to try and combine some so that I covered things I am interested in and to add to the overall possibilities of subjects to write about.

These combined subjects include the following.

• Character development and identity through play as seen in video games and the 'Dungeons and Dragons' pen and paper game. My main focus however, would be on how players relate to one another through the character types we prefer to play as e.g. I like to play as skilled based characters who are heroic, good guys, whereas I know others prefer knowledge or power based characters who, as a result may be more chaotic. And, even if the characters we play as aren't human they may still border within the uncanny valley where they are still human enough to be likeable.

I also thought of a couple of other ideas including...

• The idea of good and evil and how it is presented in video games. How only certain characters could be the different roles and how characters were clearly 'black or white' in the past. Today however, new titles push forward the concept of the 'grey' area including 'The Walking Dead' and 'The Last of Us' with decisions that are human, questionable and yet ones we make as the player and subsequently  have to live by. This topic could then merge into the concept of nature over nurture. I might include the online theory that Mario is in fact the villain and not Bowser and other such examples. I may even wish to include Snake and Liquid from the 'Metal Gear Solid' series who are meant to be cloned twins, one of which has the positive genes and the other  negative, thus I could talk about how this effects them. 

• Somewhat relating to the above, I could discus the gradual progression of story telling in games from 'go save X at Y' to full on scripted stories with budgets sometimes as large as movies as with the case of 'Grand Theft Auto V' (as seen in the example in my Harvard Referencing). In this way I would be showing how the industry has grown and taken bigger steps to tell both the larger in scale stories ('Mass Effect', 'Dragon Age' etc) and produce the most artistic and thought provoking ones as seen in 'Journey' and 'Flower'. Likewise, detailing the games that take risks and decide to tell more mature stories as in 'Persona 4' and 'Catherine'. This topic could then include the above topic on good and evil and therefore, show that characterisation has progressed and became more fleshed out, complicated and interesting.

* With so many subjects to choose from which grab my interest, I have decided to think more about them over the weekend in order to decide which one to work on.

Harvard Referencing:

• Tasarra, T, N (2013) The Most Expensive Video Games. Available at: http://www.forevergeek.com/2013/10/the-most-expensive-video-games/ (Accessed: 28/11/2013).