…On the Tenth Day of Blogmas

Hello readers and welcome to the Tenth Day of Blogmas as we join in with this fabulous Christmas sing-a-long, all brought to you by the fantastic mind of Athena from AmbiGaming

So! What are we singing about today? Well…

On the 10th day of Christmas, the gamers said to me: What are three things you want gamers to know about games for the new year?

Lets sing!

On the 1st day of Christmas, the gamers said to me: What are 12 favorite gaming memories?

On the 2nd day of Christmas, the gamers said to me: Tell us 11 games you love!

On the 3rd day of Christmas, the gamers said to me: What are 10 reasons you’d play a game

On the 4th day of Christmas, the gamers said to me: Give us 9 games on your to-play list

On the 5th day of Christmas, the gamers said to me: 8 characters you love!

On the 6th day of Christmas, the gamers said to me: Share seven of your favorite posts

On the 7th day of Christmas, the gamers said to me: Tell us your six gaming/blogging resolutions

On the 8th day of Christmas, the gamers said to me: What are five games you’ve played more than once?

On the 9th day of Christmas, the gamers said to me: Share four dramatic/memorable game moments

On the 10th day of Christmas, the gamers said to me: What are three things you want gamers to know about games for the new year?

Ok, so this is an interesting one. It was slightly difficult to write this without getting ranty, but hopefully it all makes sense:

JRPGs have awesome female characters

I read a lot of articles about women in video games and I sometimes feel that many great examples are overlooked in the discussions. This was particularly highlighted by a list in the Guardian from 2016 called Beyond Lara Croft: 30 truly interesting female game characters. Whilst it highlights some ‘lesser known’ (to the masses) female characters, I found it weird because although it has 3 characters from the Zelda series, it doesn’t have a single one from a game I would class as a JRPG.

If you google ‘women in JRPGs’ you get a whole host of forum sites discussing how in the genre women are always either absent, sexualised or belittled and I wondered if this is the reason that they do not crop up in positive discussions of female representation. I am not arguing that women are never portrayed like that in JRPGs, but the idea that that’s all JRPG women are is simply not true and I want gamers to know this.

As part of the 12 Days of Blogmas I chose 8 characters I love, and three of these were women from JRPGs. I wrote a whole article about the women in the Final Fantasy XIII series. I could name an example from most JRPG’s I’ve played. I want people to know this because I feel the issue has been misrepresented on the wider internet which may lead the casual googler to believe that all female JRPG characters are just there as eye-candy, when in fact they are soldiers, leaders, shop keepers, doctors, scientists, dragon-riders, sentinels, genius mages, saints, actresses, students, resistance fighters, singers, robots, saviours, friends, sentient-weapons, persona users, special inquisitors, orphans, seers, enemies, sisters, lovers and yes – princesses. I could go on, but you get the picture.

Games belong to their creators

 

Games are artistic creations. Some of them are rubbish, some broken, some unfashionable, but in the vast majority if not all cases, video games are creations of the developer’s imagination and not-inconsiderable skill. We as consumers experience them, and even write our own stories through them, but they are never ours. Being an active Twitter user, I see people every day complaining about who is or isn’t in Smash or whatever, and this is fine. Opinions, desires, speculation is all good healthy stuff, but at the end of the day what goes into the game is up to the developers.

I want my games to be made by people who have a creative idea and have the ability to run with it, I want to see the visions of these people come into existence just as I want to see the next book by an author or the next song by a band. I’m not going to tell them how to do it, it isn’t my place to. Fans of course have the right to speak their minds, and even have input if they are asked for it, but at the end of the day the decision on the direction of a game and overall creative control is and should always be in the hands of the developers themselves. If we were really entitled to control these processes as consumers then the creativity that has brought us so many amazing and life-changing games would disappear and be replaced by a mismatch of ideas and a world where only the loudest voices get what they want. Nobody wants that.

Nintendo Switch rocks

OK, OK. Lots of you know this, and some of you may in fact disagree. However, as a day one adopter of the Nintendo Switch I just want people to know that I think it is great and it makes me really happy.

Just so you know, I think that the PS4 is good too. I’m sure the XBox One also is (I don’t have one but I’m sure it is). I don’t do ‘console wars’ and I’m not here to argue about one being better than the other, but just that I think the Nintendo Switch is a fantastic and innovative invention. Most of you probably already know a lot about it, like how it is portable and can also be played in ‘tabletop’ mode. I however only play in traditional console mode with it hooked up to my TV. That is how good it is. It doesn’t even need the other features to make me happy. At first it didn’t have a huge selection of games but the eshop is jam-packed now with a wide variety of titles, even some straying away from Nintendo’s ‘family friendly’ image. They have frequent sales (we just picked up the cool rhythm action game Crypt of the Necrodancer for under £4), and it takes no time at all to boot up and get playing.

I think what I’m really trying to say here is that when you exist in and around ‘gamers’ and ‘gaming’ you end up seeing a lot of negative opinions. I’m not trying to say Switch is perfect (as there is no such thing in a games console), but it is charming and fun and ace and I want everyone to know that, even if you never want one.

Lets try being more positive this year, lets spend more time talking about the things we actually like.

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So, what do you think? Do you agree with any of these sentiments or maybe you disagree with all of them. Either way, let me know in comments and hurry over the AmbiGaming to check out the rest of todays Blogmas posts!

Thanks for reading,

Pix1001 x