Your Brain on Video Games

Image courtesy of Intel

If you were to ask any random person what they think about the impact of video games on a person, the answer most would give would likely be about how bad they are for your brain, vision, attention span, attitude, and general well-being. While that has most definitely been the major opinion on video games for as long as they have been on the market, cognitive neuroscientist Daphne Bavelier begs to differ.

In her talk on TED.com, Bavelier states that in reasonable doses, playing action-oriented video games can produce some very positive cognitive changes. For example, Bavelier and her colleagues performed a test that measured the brain's ability to recognize three-dimensional shapes from different perspectives. Bavelier and her team had non gamers take the test and then retake it after playing action games in small bursts over a period of two weeks. After playing video games, test subjects' testing performance improved, and stayed improved for five months afterwards. So what does this all mean? It means that playing video games in appropriate doses can actually improve memory, recognition, problem solving, and reaction time. It also means that if used correctly, video games could also be used for education or rehabilitation.

One of the first things video game detractors are quick to assume is that prolonged play can cause bad vision. According to Bavelier, those who play video games for 10 to 15 hours a week have vision exceedingly better than those who do not. Gamers tend to be able to observe small details in cluttered spaces, meaning that they have greater focus and can make things out clearer than others (like reading the small print on a medicine bottle for example).

Bavelier compared the use of video games to the consumption of wine. Used in moderation, video games, like wine, can have very positive effects on the body. In the same way that there are molecules in red wine that help increase life expectancy, there are numerous aspects in video games that help increase brain elasticity, learning, attention, and visual comprehension. Personally, as much as I love playing video games, I cannot play them for more than one hour at a time. I try to balance my time playing games with my other responsibilities and activities; I have always had a difficult time staying in one place for a long period of time, regardless of the situation.

For a life-long gamer like myself, it is very refreshing to hear Daphne's perspective on the effects of video games on a person. Her research reaffirmed my own personal feelings towards video games, in that I always felt they were no more dangerous than candy or television. I personally believe my experience with driving/racing games helped me be a better driver in real life; I had been playing racing games long before I got my license, and I feel I had better response time and vision as a result of playing them for so long.

At the same time, this does not mean people should just sit around and play video games all day long. Moderation is key; marathoning games can have some very dire consequences. Sitting in one spot for long periods of time or blinking less can have damaging effects on your body. In appropriate doses, however, video games are not nearly as toxic as some would lead you to believe; in fact, they might just make you smarter.

To listen to Daphne Bavelier's entire presentation - Your Brain on Video Games - click here.

Brand Storytelling and the PlayStation 4

Image courtesy of The Inspiration Room

I have been playing video games for as long as I can remember, and though I have owned and played systems and games from just about every gaming company, Sony's PlayStation systems have always been the ones I gravitate to. Turning on the original PlayStation as a kid, seeing the SCEA logo come up on screen, and hearing that iconic boot-up sound will always be engrained in my mind. I have always admired the marketing campaigns Sony uses to promote their PlayStation systems, as I felt like the majority of them perfectly captured what made the PlayStation the premier place to play games. PlayStation has had some highs and lows over the years, but in its over 15 years of existence, Sony's gaming machine has stayed true to its identity - a gaming system by gamers, for gamers.

In the marketing world, in order to really hit your point home, you need to develop a brand story. A brand story is not just a bunch of facts thrown out at consumers, it is the culmination of feelings, passion, and emotion. There is a narrative at play, with a beginning, middle, and end. A great brand story makes the consumer feel involved in the product's campaign; it talks directly to them, making them feel as if they are the most important person in the world, and that nothing else matters.

One of my personal favorite brand stories comes from the current PlayStation campaign. The release of the PlayStation 4 last November marked a huge shift in branding for the PlayStation. Sony had been going through a rather rough time, namely due to the struggles of the PlayStation 3, which was suffering from somewhat of an identity crisis. The marketing campaign for the PS3 was rather strange, and never managed to strike a chord with Sony's key demographic. Most gamers gravitated towards the Xbox 360, and the Wii owned (and basically created) the casual gaming market. With the upcoming release of the PlayStation 4, Sony knew that they had to turn things around. The PlayStation 4's success hinged on learning from past mistakes, and putting the focus back on the gamer.

Reminding gamers why PlayStation is a leader in the gaming market was key, but they also needed to show that their new, more powerful machine was the best place to play games. The slogan they used to promote the PS4 was one that I felt perfectly summed up what Sony wanted to accomplish, and gave gamers everywhere a clear picture of what their new system was all about:

Greatness Awaits

It is still being used in promotional material for the PS4 to this day (though in Europe, the slogan "This Is For The Players" is being used more prominently), and has been instrumental in making the PS4 the current leader in the current console race.

When I first saw the Greatness Awaits campaign in action (in one of my favorite commercials ever, period), I knew exactly what the PlayStation 4 was going to offer me. The gamer was the focus of that campaign. It works perfectly because it automatically produces incredible images of conquest, courage, and victory in your head. It was like a rallying cry, an invitation to a new incredible world. It shows you everything that is possible with a PlayStation 4.

The Greatness Awaits campaign was the perfect way to reinvigorate the PlayStation brand because it works on so many levels: it built excitement for the system before it launched, and it still being used now to help build excitement for prospective buyers and continuously remind current owners why they bought it in the first place.

When the PS4 launched, it became the first home video game console in the world to sell 1 million units in 24 hours. Needless to say, there was a considerable amount of excitement surrounding it (and still is). Its success is due in part to the excellent marketing effort Sony produced. Behind all of its grandeur and production budget was a simple message: all of the power and technical advancement of the PS4 took a backseat to the gamer. You were the star of the show with a DualShock 4 in your hands. It was your duty to answer the call.

Besides, who are you not to be great?

Digital Heart and Soul

Image courtesy of UbiSoft

One of the most intriguing games released this year was Child of Light, a downloadable RPG with stunning storybook visuals, solid turn-based combat, and a mesmerizing soundtrack. I usually shy away from RPGs, as I never feel like I have the time or patience to properly play them. But Child of Light won me over not just because of its aesthetics, but because it was presented a very focused narrative and gameplay experience. Child of Light is only 10 or so hours long (much shorter than most modern RPGs) but was deep enough for even the most hardcore gamer find plenty to love about it. Perhaps the most astonishing thing about Child of Light is that it was developed and released by UbiSoft, one of the biggest game companies in the world, best known for the Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, and the Splinter Cell series. Here was one of the most powerful gaming developers releasing a tiny little download-only RPG, which features a female protagonist and dialogue told exclusively in rhyme. Sounds like a recipe for failure, but Child of Light proved to be anything but, becoming a smash success both critically and commercially.

Child of Light is a fantastic game, but I believe that its mass appeal is due in part to that fact that it both contains and exudes genuine heart, two things that are sorely missing in today's gaming landscape.

UbiSoft recently announced that the development team behind the game had become a "core part" of the company. UbiSoft Montreal's VP of Creative, Lionel Reynald, said that the team behind the game wants to work together again and create more titles in the same vein of Child of Light. If the success of Child of Light has proven anything, it is that gamers are not always looking for the next huge blockbuster experience.

I personally rank Child of Light among the three best games of the year so far, a list that also includes Supergiant Games' fantastic Transistor, and Valiant Hearts: The Great War, another stellar title from UbiSoft. All three are download-only titles that last under 10 hours, and all garnered major acclaim among the gaming masses.

In comparison, three of the year's biggest games - Titanfall, Watch Dogs, and Destiny - were all considered disappointments by gamers. This is rather shocking, especially considering the amount of promise and hype each title had. All three have sold extremely well, but sales numbers mean nothing when the game is not received well by gamers.

I guess what I am saying is this: I will take a shorter, more focused game over a massive, open-world epic any day. Cramming every type of gameplay mechanic into one title does not always guarantee a better, more varied gameplay experience. A game like Child of Light succeeds because it accomplishes exactly what it sets out to be; it knows its identity and does not try to shy away from it.

I know it is hard to see it some times (especially in an industry filled to the brim with sequels, massively-multiplayer social experiences, and thrilling spectacle), but games do not need to be big and shiny all of the time. Some of the best games are made by small teams with limited resources; they have to rely on their talent and unwavering love of gaming in order to deliver a great experience. Development teams like The Fullbright Company and Galactic Cafe, creators of Gone Home and The Stanley Parable, respectively, did not have massive budgets or state-of-the-art resources to work with, and yet they both still managed to create two of the most stunning gaming experiences of the last few years. Heart and soul trumps massive amounts of money every time.

So remember this gaming industry: bigger is not always better.

Can the Xbox One Survive in Japan?

Image courtesy of Kotaku

The Xbox One recently launched in Japan, and things have not gone very well. In its first four days on the market, the Xbox One sold just over 25,000 units. While that may seem like a strong number for the first few days, things only got worse. In its second week, the Xbox One sold a mere 3,015 units, and then a measly 1,314 units the following week. In comparison, Sony sold about 300,000 PS4s in the same timespan. So in just three weeks, the Xbox One has sold under 30,000 units and it does not seem like things are going to be looking up anytime soon. Compare that to China, where the Xbox One has sold over 100,000 units in just a few days. Console sales in Japan have been slowing down considerably as of late, with both the PS4 and Wii U selling about 9,000 units a piece. Still, it is hard to have any kind of optimism in the Xbox One's current sales performance.

Microsoft's Xbox brand has famously struggled in Japan, and tends to place less emphasis on that market as a result (their biggest markets are the Americas and Europe). According to a recent article from Kotaku, the Xbox One does not seem like it is getting adequate promotion in Japan, despite the fact that Microsoft's booth at the Tokyo Game Show attracted a large crowd. Still, without a strong marketing strategy, the Xbox One is a very hard sell in Japan. Many of the system's non-gaming features are difficult for Japanese consumers to understand (or even care about) and are more tailored to a Western audience. At face value, it seems like Microsoft has just given up on Japan, and is showing no effort to appeal to Japanese gamers.

So how can Microsoft turn things around? Video game website Dualshockers suggests that Microsoft purchase or form a first party studio in Japan with hopes that making more games tailored for a Japanese audience will turn things around. There have been rumors that such a deal was taking place, but Microsoft's Phil Spencer has denied those reports. If Microsoft was to establish a game studio in Japan, there is a good chance that the entire Japanese game market will receive a boost, as the combination of Microsoft's technical know-how with Japan's style of game development could lead to some very interesting things.

The bottom line is Microsoft needs to change things, and quickly. They cannot just pull out of Japan all together, as that would be a tremendous waste of time and money. Microsoft needs to readjust its strategy if they want to become a major force in the Japanese gaming market. This is a wake-up call Microsoft cannot afford to ignore.

No Hype is Good Hype

Image courtesy of MoviePilot

The action/adventure game Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor was released this week to surprisingly high praise from critics and gamers alike. Despite strong word of mouth from games media, the game has been flying rather low in every gamers' radar, mostly due to the fact that it was released on the cusp of the holiday gaming season. Most games released during the late-September/early-October time period get buried under the sheer amount of games released in the fall, not to mention fall victim to more high-profile games like Call of Duty and Assassin's Creed. Not to say that there was no excitement for the game; it is the first game to use the Lord of the Rings license in over three years, and features a game mechanic (called the Nemesis System) than many believe is the first true example of next-generation gaming. But the moderate hype behind Shadow of Mordor cannot even compare to that of Destiny, Call of Duty, or Titanfall, all games that had massive marketing budgets behind them and major coverage from gaming media outlets.

Shadow of Mordor is a really good game. I have been thoroughly enjoying my time with it and can find very little things to gripe about. I have been looking forward to it ever since its announcement, and I always felt like it had the potential to be a game I would really enjoy. But I never built any hype up for it; Shadow of Mordor kind of floated around in the back of my mind.

On the flip-side, I road the hype-trains for both Watch Dogs and Destiny all the way to the last stop. Those were two games I feverishly anticipated. While I enjoyed Destiny, it definitely did not live up to my expectations; Watch Dogs, on the other hand, was a massive letdown in my eyes. Before I even got my hands on those games, I had already put them up on a pedestal, convincing myself that they would be everything I could possibly want and more.

Hype killed those games for me.

So here is Shadow of Mordor, reemerging from the back of my mind to end up being one of the best games I have played all year. But I wonder: what if I placed the same amount of hype and expectation on it as I did Destiny and Watch Dogs? Would I still enjoy it even if it looked and played the same as it does? Is it a better game because it did not have my own lofty expectations to weigh it down? Maybe.

Having essentially no hype whatsoever has worked in Shadow of Mordor's favor, as it has with other games in the past (Spec Ops: The Line, Dragon's Dogma, and Just Cause 2 are all examples of games that received little to no hype but ended up being hugely popular among critics and gamers). Shadow of Mordor is being called this year's sleeper hit. It is also one of the best-reviewed games of 2014. Everybody is talking about it now, even though no one really gave it a second glance a few months back.

When you think about it, no amount of hype is going to change how good or bad a game turns out. Your expectations for a game have no direct influence on its outcome whatsoever. A game is going to be the end result of the work its development team put into it, and nothing more. So do yourself a favor and get off of that hype train before it even leaves the station.