In the realm of video games, most avid gamers point to the Role-Playing genre as the most artistic and creative domain in the medium. Not the case nowadays, according to Department Chair of Theatre Professor Abbott, admitting his developing taste for the Shooter genre.
“Currently, shooters portray the newest ideas in theoretical innovation,” Abbott said.
Games such as the Fallout series and Gears of War contain role-playing elements integrated into the familiar genre that add depth to storyline progress and character development.
“We’re blurring the lines between genres,” said Abbott, referring to how such integration of various game play elements span across genres quite often in the modern gaming scene.
These are the types of ideas held by Abbott, a leading figure in the study of intellectual aspects of video gaming in the 21st century today.
Professor Abbott teaches “From Dungeons to Azeroth,” a Freshman Tutorial detailing the history of the genre of Role Playing Games. In the class he also explains the power behind the development of video games that is unique to the medium. The Associate Professor also manages his own blog for intellectual responses to video games, The Brainy Gamer, which receives around 10,000 hits a week on average.
The tutorial serves two purposes: to focus on the development of the Wabash man as a student, fulfilling the common goal presented by the entire group of tutorials dedicated to the incoming Wabash class and to focus on the historical overview of the Role-Playing genre as a whole.
However, the class begins the year with material dating back to before the existence of video games, studying such notable writers as J.R.R. Tolkien and Joseph Campbell. By studying mythology and heroic archetypes, the class attempts to capture the paradigm of video game depth, the narrative. Abbott describes this as “fitting into the epic tradition.”
“The RPG is a very complex system,” Abbott said. “You develop strategies for analyzing how this complex system is built through studying these basic elements.”
The students in his tutorial have already learned a plethora of knowledge on the depth of video games.
“I have realized that an RPG provides its players with communication to fiction and literature as well as books or journals do,” said freshman Kristijonas Paltanavicius.
Others have commented on how the class has changed their views of video games. Wabash freshman William Peacock was previously just concerned with the immediate fun factor of a game.
“I think now that I realize just how intellectually thorough developers must be when they design a game,” Peacock said.
The development of video games has not been unlike the early development of the cinema. Abbott said the language of any new form of media must be discovered over time. As seen in the early silent films, narrative was not an option first available in the gaming world. As technology develops, a wide variety of avenues open up to the medium, and the telling of a story becomes much more accessible.
However, Professor Abbott revealed that video gaming has begun to gain many advantages over the limitations of cinema, thanks to the advent of new technologies. One major factor is that video games can afford to be “more ambitious in both design and display.” While most games utilize cinematic-esque “cut-scenes,” others, such as the Half-Life series, present the storyline through first-hand experiences and actions governed by the player. Due to the lack of restriction on complicated themes within the medium, developers have conveyed cultural models of human behavior uncommon to the public eye.
“Video games are significantly more likely to present strong images of non-mainstream characters than film,” said Abbott. “You can be a spiky-haired youngster with sexual ambiguities and still serve as the hero.”
Video games have had more power than any other medium in affecting the player on a personal level. Abbott said interactivity is the key. Abbott mentioned how a player must decide how to deal with the budding moral dilemmas appearing in recent titles. Whether a choice made by a player helped them win the game or not, “those choices have actual consequences.” How much those consequences lie with the character and the player depends on the psychological complexity involved in the decision.
In games such as Mass Effect and last year’s overall game of the year BioShock, players choose the fates of others’ lives, counterbalanced by giving more power-ups to the player who makes the more immoral choice. This inverse relationship between character development and player morality remains a highly-conversed topic on many internet forums today.
The Brainy Gamer is one such forum. Its purpose is “to create a community of serious gamers to gather and talk about games.” The blog site consists of a variety of articles written by Abbott that elicit intelligent discussions from multiple people and sources online.
“I’m interested in how games convey meaning to the gaming culture as a whole,” Abbott said. “By doing that I’m modeling what we do here [at Wabash].”
More as a learning tool than a chat room, the blog provides different insights as why gamers play games, whether for the simple thrill of total completion, or for the experience and full accomplishment.
“The language that we use to describe the experiences we have in playing games is evolving,” Abbott said. “Pay attention to what you’re doing. Games are so rich today; you should explore them.”