technoculture203-09

I'm sure many of you will have seen advertising on the web for a free online game called Evony. The premise of the game is to build a medieval empire, or so I've read... I've never played the game myself.

For those that don't know the ads, I have selected a few. They appear in chronological order, documenting the shift from reasonable and relatively representative, to pure lowest common denominator.





There is no lover to save in the game, so this statement is essentially a lie. In my opinion, the ads get more misleading from this point on...





I don't think I have to point out what's wrong with this final ad. Of course, I'm not the only one with objections to this sort of advertising practice. The company behind Evony is now taking legal action against those who have been particularly vocal with their complaints, accusing sites such as The Guardian Online and Bruce On Games of defamation.

I will be very interested in where this leads, as it seems to me that for the most part the defendants have demonstrated more honesty than the plaintiff.


(Thanks to Coding Horror for images and info)

Gaming culture is largely masculine oriented, and has changed very little despite the increase in female players. Interestingly, we can also see gender stereotyping in the games which are designed specifically for women, “girl games” may be based around the same stereotypes of women which are considered undesirable in mainstream games.

With more casual online games (associated with escapism), such as WoW, Second Life etc, there are gender issues, such as the hypersexualization of avatars or role playing. In other games where the competitive aspect of game playing is prioritized (where competitiveness is certainly not only a male trait!), we can observe a different dynamic, which is created through the use of voice chat software. This is an interesting element of gaming which works against masculine gaming culture, where “no girls on the internet” does not apply in confrontation with a real voice. The artificiality of the game environment is highlighted, and hypersexualized avatars are not so relevant, with a switch in focus to the social relation of the team. We may as well complain of phallic chess pieces, when this is not of concern to this type of gamer.

It is not useful to highlight “gender differences”, as the number of women playing video games is increasing, and the game industry may well adapt and focus on creating games that avoid sexist stereotypes. Gaming culture and industry must change, as we can still see advertising that presupposes a male buyer. However, for what ideas of progression we might have, the problem still exists where the current games offered may not encourage female players, and subsequently there will be less female game designers, and the cycle of a masculine gaming culture will continue.

I was interested to discover that studies had revealed lack of social interaction as the largest factor deterring females from “action” games. In response to this, I have decided to post about a small, free game built around the theme of social interaction, though it is by no means an “action” game.

Click here to play the new version of Tanaka's Friendly Adventure online

Click here to download the original version of Tanaka's Friendly Adventure (Windows only)



All interaction in this game is handled with the arrow keys. Using these, the player moves the central character Tanaka, choosing from one of four directions to pursue in a seemingly endless grid of identical intersections. At each intersection a new friend appears to join Tanaka. This repeats until enough friends have been collected for Tanaka's party.

To me it seems that the theme of social interaction is distanced from the actions actually performed in the game, but I suppose it could be argued that one can make friends just by walking around. Walking as the only gameplay makes for a boring game, but this is redeemed through “party mode” in which the cute characters encountered throughout the game are displayed along with amusing descriptions.



The game uses a retro aesthetic, featuring basic chiptune-style music, only a few colours and a very limited supply of pixels. This style exists not out of any necessity but rather to draw reference to a simpler time in the history of video games.

If you'd rather not play the game at all, you can watch a rather low-quality video of the game in action. Or, if you're the sort of person who would be obsessed with collecting every friend, a fan-made map of the game has been created to assist you.

I would like to hear about whether this appeals to people or not. Comments, though I don't expect to see many, will probably influence my future blog posts.

So after reading the ... reading (and thoroughly enjoying it I might add) I decided to venture forth and find out out how many people I know play the apparently popular World of Warcraft game. I even decided to be professional and ask (over text. Go technology!!!) an even six girls and six guys, all aged 19-20.

What I found was that out of the guys, only one admitted playing WoW on a regular basis, two have played WoW at some point and the other three have never played it and have no intention of doing so in the near future. I myself have never played it and I am not particularly bothered about it.

For the girls it was split even: three play WoW on a regular basis, while the remaining three have either never heard of it or are not interested in playing it.

So in this utterly amateur case the girls out play the boys in gaming. Why was that? I asked myself. Was it a random occurance or the beginning of a trend? I honestly had no idea and after a full day at uni I was in no position to think deeply about the issue. So I asked them. Only two responded (cheap nerdy so-called 'friends') and their responses were similar: They both enjoyed playing WoW on a purely escapist level (as in real-life is a tad depressing for these bonnie lasses). One also played it to have some type of social interaction with real people while sitting at home in the dark staring at a screen for hours on end while the other said that she did also enjoy "kicking other peoples asses". Neither of these girls have a problem with violence or gore in video games and they also do not have an opinion on the hyper-sexualised images of men or women (and their sub-human counterparts) other than the fact that its "just fantasy".

So are girls becoming more like boys in terms or video game preference and experience? Hard to say but if they are, I say about time. Being the youngest and only boy in the family with an Xbox and two controllers and two sisters is rather tedious.