As the semester winds to a close, I find myself looking back at our class from a big-picture perspective. What, if anything, will I take away from all of the reading, projects and discussions throughout the semester? What has this class taught me?

It occurred to me this week that one thing in particular that has changed my perspective on gaming is something that I have thus far in life failed to really internalize, and that is: the intentionality of video games. In other words, the most poignant lesson I will take forward with me after this class lies in the fact that every single aspect of every single video game was intentional — there is almost no such thing as a passive feature of a game, because games are 100% coded.

The fact that everything is intentional in video games served, I believe, as the true foundation for this course. Not only does this say a lot about the game world designing process (I distinctly remember the moment when we paused Portal to contemplate the texture of the wall and the lighting in the room, raising the point that someone actively created those aspects of the game), but it also has much to say about many social themes in games.

For example, our discussions of violence and sexism in video games were even more important through the lens of this intentionality; game designers have to answer for the way they depict their characters and world, while authors and filmmakers might get away with these phenomena because they draw upon society in real life. That’s not to say that video game makers don’t use real society as a reference point, but it is slightly different, because video games are typically in made-up worlds that don’t have to adhere to real life. In this sense, it becomes a more pronounced choice on the part of developers to extend societal issues such as violence and sexism into their games.

Additionally, I have developed a refined appreciation for the unique way that video games exist at a crossroads of media. It draws upon traditional forms of narrative for which literature is known, and it has grown over the last few decades from a toy-like phenomenon to a cinematic form of art – complete with creative world design, beautiful musical scores and engrossing story. And, of course, it is interactive, which makes it arguably the most advanced form of media that we have today. And it is only getting more expansive in scope.

So, the intentional nature of game design is probably what I will appreciate most about video games from now on thanks to this class. Also, I believe that this artistic medium is only going to become more and more exciting over the decades to come, as evidenced by the material that we examined in this class. Considering everything, I have no doubt that this is an exciting time for video games.

After doing some research into the matter, it has come to my attention that there is a slew of cheat codes out there that can be used in Civilization IV (as is the case for pretty much all PC games, it seems).

With the stroke of a few keys, these cheat codes allow the player to do almost anything you could think of. You can place a city automatically wherever you want to, you can manipulate population, culture and production, you can weaken enemy units, and you can change the era instantaneously – all actions that effectively bypass the challenges that make victory something that must be achieved through hard work and critical thinking. You can even change desert into grassland and promote your own military units to the point where they are virtually unbeatable.

First of all, I think it would be helpful to define what cheating really is, for the sake of argument: to cheat is, according to the dictionary, to “act dishonestly or unfairly in order to gain an advantage.” With this in mind, it is pretty much indisputable that using these cheat codes in a multiplayer context would indeed be straight-up cheating. The cheat-code phenomenon is, understandably, universally banned in the online gaming community.

Fair enough. But, what if the player is only playing against AI? What if the player has no interest in competing against other people, and instead prefers to use the game in his or her own, personal way? Or, at a the most basic level, can you really cheat yourself in a video game? I think these sorts of questions are important to raise in the context of the video gaming world, and they are where the black-and-white nature of the debate on cheating sort of falls apart.

Thinking about these issues reminds me in particular of the many childhood years I spent playing The Sims. I never really was interested in playing out my Sims’ lives and making families. I was always most interested in endlessly designing and constructing things, because I chose to make it a building game rather than a dollhouse game. I learned the cheat codes for getting instant and infinite money very early in my Sims gaming days – so early that I didn’t even understand that they were “cheat codes,” but just considered them to be as much a part of the game as anything else. I don’t think I was cheating by using these codes, and I won’t ever budge on that, because The Sims was a really important part of my childhood and was simply too fun to have been played the ‘wrong’ way.

I think Civilization is inherently more structured than The Sims has ever been, in the sense that score and competition are much more important in the former than they are in the latter. But still, if the player is not playing directly against other real people, I have trouble considering these cheat codes to really be “cheating.” I don’t think I would use them, because most of the ones I have seen for Civilization IV are ways to get around the gameplay mechanics that make the game fun for me. But, I don’t think there would be anything immoral about using them. I could even envision a situation where using cheat codes as a form of “training wheels” would be appropriate for someone who is just trying to learn how to play. After all, the game is so really complicated, and it was a lot to take in the first few times I played. By using automatic city placement or infinite money, it could definitely be helpful to a novice player if they’re just trying to figure out what’s going on.

So, yes, you can obviously cheat in video games, and Civilization is no exception, but I think cheating in the traditional sense of the word can only really manifest itself when competing against other players – either directly or for high scores. But when the player is alone or playing against AI rivals, I see no reason to consider things like cheat codes to truly be cheating. I think one of the absolute best things about video games is how unlimited they are, and I’m not convinced that cheat codes can bring down something so wonderful.

 

Last week’s in-class discussion was focused on the many conventions and norms associated with mainstream gaming. Many trends emerge when looking across games; for example, sexualization and objectification of women, hypermasculinity in men, and certain racial norms pervade video gaming culture. This is so frequently the case, that it is possible that game developers feel the need to adhere to these norms in order to have a shot at competing with other games. And, more often than not, game franchises prefer to address and/or correct these norms only after they have secured their position on the gaming market. Thus, gaming culture presents a bit of a cycle that is hard to escape unless financial security is guaranteed.

In light of this conversation, I found myself wondering how a game as seemingly innocuous as Civilization IV might or might not fall victim to some of these gaming norms. My first thought is that, No, Civilization is largely immune to these conventions because it is too much of an impersonal strategy game for these considerations to be relevant. Or, at the very least, the game only has certain characteristics such as mostly male leaders because the game adheres to real-life history. Surely the game should be excused from the same criticisms that other games face, because the point of the game is to be somewhat historically accurate – the game makers didn’t make a conscious decision that there should be way more male leaders. Right?

I find myself looking more closely, though, and thinking really critically about certain aspects of the game. Ok, there are very few female leaders. That’s understandable, because that’s how it has typically been throughout history. But, the issue still exists of how the female leaders are depicted. Catherine the Great is a good example, because as far as I can tell her depiction in the game is younger and more attractive than the paintings that exist of her today. Granted, her younger self might very well have been more like this, but the eye-shadow seems like a bit much. Not to mention, her demeanor is sassy and volatile – if she doesn’t like a trade that you’ve proposed, she will literally slap you across the face. Why did the game designers decide that she should behave so irrationally? It might be nothing, but it does seem conventional in the gaming sense to depict the woman this way. Meanwhile, the Americans are ever-so-polite and civil.

Speaking of the Americans, something that struck me in Civilization manifested itself in one of the gameplay scenarios: “Earth 18 Civilizations.” In this gameplay mode, 18 world civilizations all start in their real-world locations on a map modeled after earth. In the Americas, 3 civilizations exist: the Inca, the Aztecs, and the Americans. And by “Americans,” I mean Washington and Roosevelt. I suppose the conventions of the game itself necessitated that the Americans started here, but it felt a little bit incorrect to have the Americans starting at the same time as the other two (and facing no opposition, as if there was nobody there before European Americans arrived…). On top of that, barbarians found cities once in a while, and the pre-assigned names for these cities draw heavily from Native American names (e.g. “Mohawk,” “Cherokee,” “Navajo,” etc.). I should mention here that two of the new civilizations added in expansion packs are the Mayans and the “Native Americans” (a catch-all civilization headed by Sitting Bull, who only represented the Lakota Sioux in real life). Still, the conscious decision on the part of the developers to name barbarian cities after Native American peoples and to imply that the Americans found an uninhabited continent struck me as highly insensitive.

Additionally, as I mentioned in a previous post, the game itself plays from a seemingly Western perspective. In the case of music, the soundtrack is pretty much exclusively European, and the units the player builds are for the most part white (even when playing as Mansa Musa of the Mali Empire or Tokugawa of Japan, your soldier will look like a white American). It is also worth noting that there are no female units in the first game, and that in the expansion pack there is only one – a female spy who wears a skin-tight jumpsuit and looks like Lara Croft from Tomb Raider.

Considering the almost guaranteed success of the game pre-release and the amount of money that went into this game, I think it is remarkable that the game is so clearly geared towards, frankly, white American males. The thing about video games is that literally everything has been included by virtue of a conscious decision, because everything was coded into the game. The scary thing is that I didn’t really think about these things until looking at the game through the scope of our discussion. And I consider myself to be an open-minded, forward-thinking person. I wonder what this might say about the nature of video game norms. In fact, I wonder if this is even an issue that pertains uniquely to video games, or if it is a much bigger-picture, societal issue. I think it’s pretty clear that the latter is the case.

 

 

The short answer: yes, Civilization is definitely educational.

As a longer answer, Civilization is probably the most educational games I have ever played, for a variety of reasons. Especially informative are the gameplay modes that are modeled after earth and mimic the distribution of real civilizations in human history.

First, and most generally, I think Civilization is a fantastic lesson in anthropology, i.e. the study of human societies and cultures and their development. Within this realm, there is a nice variety of material available that is highly informative to the player. Some of these sources are factual and encyclopedia-like, while others are more dependent on hands-on experience.

The primary format of the factual material in the game is the “Civilopedia,” which is a large digital database that simultaneously details the in-game properties of units and buildings and their background histories in the real world historical context. In this sense, it it kind of like a user’s manual, but it is also a supplementary encyclopedia full of historical information should the player’s interest be piqued. And by playing as real historical figures and building real ancient wonders and buildings, interest in the history behind them is, indeed, piqued (at least for me – I have always been fascinated by history). And I think it is important to note that the player’s interest in this history might not be inherent; in other words, they might not necessarily be interested in learning about history or facts associated with civilizations if they have not played the game. In this sense, Civilization is an example of how gaming could be considered a type of ‘catalyst’ that encourages a desire to learn – clear support for the potential of games in education.

Besides the obvious way that the “Civilopedia” encourages learning, perhaps the most effective form of education in this game is derived from the gameplay itself. In fact, I argue that this entire game is a simulation of world history and human geography. By playing this game, one can actually gain an understanding of how (and why) the development of civilization has occurred. There are so many themes to explore – for example, how the placement of Civilizations in relation to each other has affected their histories: Europe’s history is so confusing and chaotic because there were a large number of competing societies in a very small space, while China’s isolated development had much less to do with rival nations. Climatic factors are also explored; Australia was never really developed until recently, because it is very arid and lacks food resources, and the vast majority of people in Canada live so close to the US border because the rest of the country is barren or mountainous.

It’s not just the objective factors that make this game so insightful – there are subjective matters to consider as well. For example, when a close ally is being attacked by a very powerful military machine, the player’s decision is not always straightforward. There are huge losses to consider, but to leave a friend hanging would have its own set of implications. These kinds of decisions, and plenty of others, are one way in which the game teaches the player to think about the behaviors of nations in the real world; international politics are dicy at best, and most issues should be treated with great care.

From big-picture game themes to the details of international relationships, Civilization is undoubtedly a great educational game. I know this, because I can say with certainty that I have learned a lot about “how the world works” by playing this game, as well as how it came to be the way it is. I think anyone who wants a lesson in history, human geography, or climate, or even more areas of interest, this is a great place to start. And it’s addictively fun, as it turns out.

Civilization offers a fascinating opportunity to look at civilized human history from a third-person perspective – almost objectively – through gameplay. The actions of the player and the technologies that are unlocked as the game progresses are only part of that perspective, though; sound represents (at least in my opinion) the most impressive way in which the game captures the essence of world history.

To start, the ambience of the landscape is important for setting the tone of the game. The villages, towns, and eventually cities, all have distinct sounds emanating from them that reflect the time period – livestock, then the clopping of hooves on stone, then cars and sirens, as the eras progress. In the countryside, sounds begin natural with the sounds of wind, waves, and birds to eventually become cattle, harbors, sawmills, and other modern sounds, faithful to the progression of humans and the effect of civilization on the natural world.

Most importantly, though, the background music sets the tone of history throughout the game. Music in this game in phenomenal, and not just because it is pleasant to listen to. The music in Civilization is by no means passive or background; it is as much a part of the game as the visuals. Since music is so emotional and nostalgic, it makes sense that it is such a powerful means by which to capture the essence of all of the stages of human development. Every era has its own amazing soundtrack, adding highly memorable character to each age’s gameplay.

The following music clips effectively capture each era of human civilization:

Representing the Ancient Era, this background music does a good job of portraying the dominance of the natural world in tribal societies. Humans must hunt for their own food, pay attention to weather, and still struggle to survive in spite of their incipient civilizations.

As villages turn into towns and cities, the Classical Era begins in earnest. Civilizations begin to flourish, while technology advances and the beginnings of science and mathematics appear. No longer spending all of their time hunting and surviving, humans are able to settle down and look toward the advancement of society.

Following the blooming of human society, though, is the Medieval Era, which is somewhat more subdued than the previous era. In an age characterized by plague and famine, creative energy is more greatly spent on religious fervor.

Once the Renaissance Era arrives, though, creative and technological momentum returns and the arts take off. Music itself picks up tempo, and civilization begins rapidly advancing once again.

As the Industrial Era rolls around, a new tone of discovery and expansion arrives. As Dvorak’s “New World Symphony,” sampled here, depicts, the beauty and the unknown nature of unexplored regions of the world and the mandate for expansion dominate the new era of human history.

  The Modern Era, which we are living in now, leaves a fragmented world behind and ushers in an age of interconnectedness, global society, and noise. As the music demonstrates, the modern civilization is characterized as hectic, bustling, and fast.

Finally, the Future Era arrives. Of course, it is the only era in the game that has not been experienced already, so the soundtrack is aptly shrouded in mystery. It is unclear whether the music reflects a slowing-down or decline of civilization, or whether it is merely uncertainty, but only time will tell what this era holds for human society.

*It would be remiss of me not to raise the only issue I have with the soundtrack in Civilization IV: while the music is great for capturing the essence of each era throughout the advancement of society, it does so almost exclusively from a white, Western perspective (with the possible exception of the Ancient and Modern/Future eras). In the Medieval Era, the music is even exclusively Christian. However, the course of civilization in areas such as Asia, Africa, and the Americas were markedly different than those in Europe, so it seems a little biased to play Western music so heavily. If I’m not mistaken, though, this error is corrected in later installments of the series.

As the title of this posting implies, the gameplay experience in Civ IV is never the same in any two scenarios. Depending on the generated game in which the player finds himself or herself, there is always a multitude of variables to consider, and the combination of those variables is often difficult to consider big-picture. Indeed, this game is complicated. For some, like me, this challenge just makes it more fun to play, because the feeling that you start every game having mastered the game slightly more is incredibly rewarding. And, this ensures that the game always stays ‘new,’ besides the fact that every game is totally different.

There is a plethora of factors that a player must consider as the game progresses, in order to win. First and foremost, where in the world are we? Exploration of the surrounding land is crucial, because it establishes what climate the civilization is in and, furthermore, what resources are accessible. Also, it is important to find out which rival civilizations are nearby and to understand what characteristics their leaders tend to give their empires. Depending on how aggressive or creative those rivals are, it might be wise to become allies with them (or wipe them off the map as early as possible). Also, how important is it to maintain a large military? Is a neighboring empire threatening enough to require devoting most resources to an army and falling behind in technological progress, or is the player isolated enough to risk neglecting military expenditures? And is there a key resource that the player absolutely needs, to the point that they are willing to fight for it? These are some of the many considerations that take place right off the bat, and there are plenty more. It is the constant reconsideration of any and all of these factors that makes gameplay so involving and high-stakes.

To demonstrate these gameplay nuances, it helps to consider two contrasting situations (drawn from a map based on real-world geography and civilization placement):

The Greek Empire (in blue), led by Alexander, is literally in the middle of the civilized world, surrounded in all directions by rivals. If he has any hope of building an empire, he has no choice but to resort to military campaigns. Technological advances will likely be neglected, at least for a while, and the large number of nearby civilizations ensures a perpetually dicy relationship with pretty much everyone. Sounds like Europe, right?

The Japanese, however (in red, led by Tokugawa), occupy a strategically different position in the world. With China being their only real neighbor, and even them separated by water, the necessity of military advances is not as pressing. Even though Japan is a relatively small island civilization, there are sufficient resources present to essentially close off relationships with the outside world and focus on cultivating a distinct nation, perhaps striving for a ‘cultural victory’ instead, and possibly building up a powerful military over a long period of time. Again, this is reminiscent of the real-world empire in many ways.

Through these examples, it should be evident that there are so many factors to consider in a game that each playthrough could conceivably be an entirely different experience. That is part of the appeal of this game for me: it remains exciting and unique pretty much forever, ensuring endless replayability.

For my semester-long game of choice, I have decided to blog about one of my personal favorite games, Civilization IV. It is an incredibly engrossing game, and while I only obtained this game last summer, I have probably sunk more hours into this game than almost all others I have played. I have also decided that this is a great game to write about,  for several reasons:

 The iconic title theme sends chills down my spine and fills me with a sense of discovery and adventure.

For starters, Civilization is one of the most interesting games I have played in light of many of the aspects of video gaming that we have discussed in our class. The music is amazing, every gameplay experience is unique, and the narrative created with each world and set of characters is thrilling to be part of. I would even argue that this game is historically educational and offers an informative perspective on human geography and anthropology. The replayability is fantastic, because every scenario is totally different, producing a unique world history with every playthrough. And there are SO many ways to play this game that every player can find a different and equally valid path to victory that best suits their play style and personality.

I will flesh out all of these themes, and others, in upcoming blog posts.

After watching Joystick Warriors – a documentary outlining the potential issues and manifestations of America’s excessively violent and graphic videogaming culture – I think I am starting to understand some potential problems associated with these games.

Firstly, I think this documentary did a really good job of explaining exactly what the problem with our violent gaming culture is: it is (arguably) desensitizing us to real-life violence. I hadn’t really thought about it much before, but I don’t see how we can possibly be as alarmed by violence when it is so mainstream in the virtual world.

The argument that the producers took pains to dismantle is the notion that “games are making kids more violent in real life.” This is the trap that many opponents of violent gaming have to deal with from every direction, because it is easy to claim that opponents are arguing this way, and it is easy to dispel. Even I have experience dealing with this question, simply from discussing gaming with my peers. How often, though, do people think about what their reactions might be if they saw real-life violence, as bystanders rather than perpetrators? I don’t really know how my reaction might or might not be dulled by violent gaming – I haven’t really seen violence in real life and don’t often play shooters, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a professional FPS gamer was less affected by such atrocities.

To emphasize that point, I would mention the video that the film showed of Afghani citizens being shot down by a remotely operated drone – one of the first items to be revealed following the WikiLeaks incident. And yet, I had never seen that footage, because apparently America was generally not bothered by it enough to bring it to public attention. It seemed kind of disturbing to me: here exists this footage of killing real human beings, through the eyes of a drone. It looked eerily easy to do, and through the lens of a videogame an identical shot would seem like a natural, inconsequential event. Is this what the future of warfare might look like? Almost like some kind of real-life video game, where people are still killed, but the killers don’t have to feel like they’re actually killing? No “seeing the whites of their eyes” here…

Still, I don’t think it’s possible at this point to generalize about societal effects like this. Video gaming is a relatively new medium in our culture, and it might take some time before real statistical evidence can truly make sense of what is and isn’t plaguing our nation. I’m not convinced that video games are necessarily the cause of our desensitization; surely there are other factors at play here, and I think probably more important ones. I’m certain the fact that we tend not to have wars on our soil plays a factor. I really don’t think the nation’s response to the 9/11 attacks was one of a “desensitized” population, and that was relatively recently. Also, it would be remiss not to point out that, in contrast to the Vietnam War and the draft, our military today is a “volunteer army,” which guarantees that certain classes will tend to be uninvolved in the military and, thus, potentially more ‘out-of-touch’ with real-life violence than others.

So, to address the thematic question: does it matter? I think the correct answer is inevitably Yes, that it does matter that we have an excessively violent gaming culture on our hands. I can’t find any fault with the idea that it desensitizes at least chronic gamers to shooting and killing, but I’m not quite as certain what exactly the negative consequences of this might be that don’t already exist for other reasons. Like I already mentioned, I think there are certain other factors that undoubtedly make Americans out of touch with things like war and crime. Overall, though, I think the jury is still out on violent gaming; it’s just too early.

Seriously, though, I freaking love rocket launchers. What can I say, they’re fun. Does that make me out of touch? And so the debate continues…

Sound in video games is a subject that has always fascinated me, even from the early stages of my gaming experience. Soundtracks and music in particular have always been a crucial factor in my opinions of games, especially at an emotional level. Like visual aesthetics and landscape, I think there is something in music that really moves me in ways that  gameplay, story, or competition never have. When I think back on what I would describe as the most beautiful video game scenes I have ever experienced, in almost all cases there is music involved.

 The Phendrana Drifts landscape from Metroid Prime always resonates with me, due in large part to the music and atmospheric ambience.

I have found that in most games, the potential of music depends greatly on the type of gameplay experience that it accompanies. For example, our playing this week of League of Legends has demonstrated to me that if the play style is focused entirely on in-game tactics and combat, the music almost inevitably takes on a background, ambient role rather than a central one. In other words, the gameplay itself is so engaging and distracting that little attention remains to appreciate things like music and ambient sound. Besides, the sound of combat far outweighs anything else.

At the other end of the spectrum, a game like Rock Band is entirely devoted to sound and music. The gameplay is the sound, so music acts not as a complement to the game, but as its foundation. For me, though, the best sound experiences in gaming are passive, in the sense that there is ambient noise and music that you can totally immerse yourself in, without having the feeling that you have to work to produce the sound. As is the case in Rock Band, the constant reminder that missing any notes ruins the song acts as a stressor that in many ways detracts from the sound experience.

One game that stands out in my mind as one in which sound and music are crucial is The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask. This is probably the game I have have played  that has the most innovative soundscape, both musical and ambient. The theme of this game is the imminent running-out of time, with the omnipresent falling moon looming over the entire game, literally. As the three days progress, the music gets faster and faster, moving over time from a leisurely atmosphere to one of intense stress and chaos as the moon nears its apocalyptic collision with the planet’s surface. With the ever-increasing number of earth-shaking rumbles and the din of falling debris, sound adds a suspenseful dimension to the game that makes it remarkably realistic. Even the individual worlds within the game have their own soundscapes to offer; from the distorted underwater sounds of the ocean, to the dolorous and dissonant canyon, to the dank, drippy swamp ambience, to the cold, lonely mountains, this game has a uniquely characteristic sound environment for every region within the game. All of this, on top of the somber music in-game that casts a depressing (yet remarkably beautiful) pall over the entire experience.

 Technically a musical tribute, but I think it captures the essence of the game well.

Additionally, the game Slender is an exemplar of how important sound can be in a game. With the spooky background music and the crescendo of grinding ambient noise as the game progresses (broken sporadically by the slamming noise associated with encountering your terrifying foe), this game’s effect on the player is built almost entirely around sound. I can evidence this notion by saying that when I tried playing the game without the sound on – because I couldn’t handle the stress of it all – it seemed to lose almost all of the suspenseful intrigue that it previously had. Even though it was less stressful without sound, the gameplay experience was highly diminished nonetheless.

A few more examples of music that I see as definitive in games:

 The hauntingly memorable “dancers on a string” sequence from Bioshock.

 This recurring melody from the Legend of Zelda series is a great example of the combination of music and ambient sound effects (reminiscent of a forest, right?).

 I know this one in particular evokes very strong emotions in a lot of people who grew up with Kingdom Hearts.

I have never had an app game before. I think the reason is that I have always perceived them as excessively distracting, and borderline rude to play when anyone else is around. Also, I know how addicting they can be if people get into them, and I don’t particularly want an addiction.

Now that I have finally tried a few as per our class assignment, I think that I can more fairly knock them. Starting with Candy Crush Saga, the game is certainly entertaining enough, but something inside me feels like it’s dying when I play it. I don’t know the best way to describe it, but in a way I feel like this kind of game is a waste of time where most full-fledged video games are not. As our book put it, this game seems to be “process-oriented,” and more like a “toy to be played with,” whereas I would describe a good video game as more substantial than that.

The Simpsons: Tapped Out is probably a step up from Candy Crush in my book as far as game quality goes, but to be honest it doesn’t do a whole lot for me either. I enjoyed it for some of the same reasons that I enjoy simply watching the TV show, but the way in which it guided your every step and only left the physical screen-tapping to the player took something away from the gaming experience. In other words, it didn’t feel particularly interactive. Also, it unnerved me quite a bit when my phone notified me that “Homer has finished breaking into the neighbors’ house to watch TV.”

Regarding the last app game, SolForge, I actually thought this game had some good things going for it. To start, its strategic nature was appealing, because it actually felt like an accomplishment to win a game in a way that the other two games did not. It was actually a card game, with elements of strategy, chance, and “interesting choices” that gave it much more room for individual style. In fact, it felt distinctly like a fusion of Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh, two strategy franchises that I love.

I guess app games are pretty entertaining, but in general I can’t say I am interested in pursuing them further. I think there is something to be said for having physical consoles that you have to go use if you want to play video games. The idea of having endless gaming at our fingertips strikes me as uncomfortably invasive; not just into the life of the player, but those around them as well.