Contested Convergence and the Politics of Play on GameTrailers.com

Convergence and Participation in Gaming

Standing Ground for Geeking Out?

There may be a disconnect occurring in what the industry paints as its future—convergence—and what the hardcore see as their legacy—the“integrity” of the hobby. In my work on the interaction between fans and producers of the videogame series Fallout, I argue fan discussion, production, and even protest over the game series was driven by an ideal: text integrity (Milner, 2009). During the years before the long-awaited release of Fallout 3, fans gathered on the game’s official forum to discuss—both with each other and with game producers—how to make Fallout 3 the best game possible. They debated ideals about what would make Fallout 3 whole, valid, and true. They argued for a Fallout 3 they could believe in, one with integrity according to the perspectives shared by the fan collective.

Ito et al. (2010) offer a helpful distinction when thinking about what gamers might use to assess integrity in a convergent era. The authors claim that when youth engage with media, their engagement comes in the form of different “genres of participation”: “hanging out” and “geeking out.” In hanging out videogame participation, “people engage in the process of spending time together socially. It is largely the form of friendship-driven sociality; while gaming is certainly important, it is not the central focus” (p. 206). In contrast, in geeking out videogame participation “the game play itself is the impetus and focus for getting together. It is interest-driven rather than friendship-driven sociality that drives gatherings in this genre of play” (p. 211).

Casual games are often about hanging out. This has been one of the Wii’s chief marketing points, one that has led the console to the top of the sales charts (Madway, 2010; Schiesel, 2007). The Wii is to be played by the whole family, or diverse groups of friends whether they be gamer or no. On many flagship Wii games, the gameplay is designed to have a low learning curve, so as not to intimidate those without a lifelong history of gaming. The content is also more “family friendly” and sidesteps many of the sticky moral issues that lead to media controversy (like controversy over sex, sexism, or violence in games). The same assessments can be made of mobile games, where “questions about accessibility and the ease of play are paramount” (Chan, 2008, p. 15). Facebook games like Farmville are premised on low-investment social interactions between Facebook friends.

By contrast, the “hardcore” labels a social identity in gaming. Gamers exist as social collectives (Newman, 2008); they use devices such as narrative to find a sense of place and connection (Albrechtslund, 2010); they engage in boundary work that creates distinctions between the gamers and nongamers (Ito et al., 2010); they find community (Taylor, 2006). Further, they must at times engage in these practices while simultaneously guarding their collective against threats from a “mainstream” culture they claim does not have their interests at heart or misunderstands their practices (Whiteman, 2009; Milner, 2011). This level of investment and involvement means that hardcore gamers geek out over videogames.

In this regard, hardcore gamers are susceptible to the same political struggles over text integrity as other media fans. Active fans of media artifacts often construct their collective identities in opposition to outside entities, like broader media audiences or media producers. Whiteman (2009) sees fan collectives (like those who so often coalesce on online interest sites) as groups with a collective identity, and a collective ethos, pushing against a “mainstream” media market. Fans, Whiteman argues, cast their in-group “competencies and dispositions” (p. 402) against the broader audiences that are less discerning and media producers who are less loyal to the text. In doing so, fans “maintain and stabilize their own agency” (p. 397) in the face of seemingly unsympathetic interests. Andrejevic (2008) observes this identity-driven activity in the critical engagement on the TV fan site Television Without Pity. Jenkins (2006) chronicles it in the online collectives working to discern details about the show Survivor before they are made public. Scardaville (2005) sees it in soap opera fans who used media to engineer a grassroots campaign to keep the show Another World on the air. In each of these examples, fans did the political work of standing ground for geeking out as part of their social engagement with the text.

In gaming in particular, one by-product of convergence has lead to some especially sharp struggles between fans and producers. Videogame modifications (or “mods”) are a common practice among hardcore game fan collectives. Mods are produced—often collaboratively—by fans who alter a game’s very code to create new characters, new items, or new levels in a gameworld. They are mostly done without the oversight of game producers and are mostly produced without profit in mind. Postigo (2008) ties modding explicitly to both convergence and political struggle between fans and producers. Postigo—arguing that “due to the networked nature of new media, content can be made both by professionals and by the scores of fans and consumers inhabiting digital networks” (p. 60)—claims mods are the result of a convergence between amateur and professional content and labor.

This process becomes political when fans and producers have different positions on the value, ethics, and even legality, of mods. Postigo highlights two cases where modders remixed disparate intellectual properties (IPs) into a single mod. In one case, fans brought the Duke Nukem gameworld into Quake 3; in another fans brought the GI Joe universe into Battlefield 1942. Apogee, the owner of the Duke Nukem IP, and Hasbro, the owner of the GI JOE IP, both responded litigiously. Fans answered back with protests, boycotts, and even worked to find legal ways to circumvent IP laws. Kücklich (2005) writes on the “precarious” relationship between modders and the games industry, which skirts the line between symbiotic and oppositional. Beyond mods, my research on Fallout fans (Milner, 2009) demonstrates the intense work game fans are capable of when they want to influence the gameworld even before the game is produced. In many cases, industry practices and fan practices have meant a political contestation over the integrity of videogame texts.

With these struggles in mind, dimensions of convergence may be troubling to hardcore gamers. When the resources of the industry—the games released, the aesthetics and functionality of the product, the focus of industry attention—emphasize casual hanging out, geeking out is the logical victim. The “interest-driven” practices of gamers may be diluted in the name of convergence. The industry speaks of technological, content, and market convergence as a means to improve the vitality of the hobby, ensuring their longevity as the “lingua franca of the digital age” (Ito et al., 2010, p. 240). However, gamers may be speaking of the loss of identity-driven geeking out in the name of a shallow system of hanging out. To them, the integrity of the hobby might be more important than its bottom line. Modders (who chiefly work on the PC) are an especially committed example of this contestation. But we need a better understanding of how industry changes are being discussed by broad and diverse groups within the hobby. Game producers, game journalists, and game fans of all stripes can offer diverse perspectives of the relation between the convergence box and genres of participation. Therefore, I ask second: How are the videogame industry and videogame fans talking about genres of participation on GameTrailers.com?

Research Site: GameTrailers.com

It is appropriate to take an investigation of gamer perspectives to an online hobby site like GameTrailers, since these sites are immensely important to gaming collectives. Newman (2008) argues “the sense of gaming as a social practice is even more keenly felt if we look online” (p. 24) because online sites are vibrant spaces where fans come together to talk about videogames (see Consalvo, 2003; Demers, 2006). They are also spaces where videogame fans interact with the industry that produces these texts (Banks & Humphreys, 2008; Milner, 2011). In a study of how the industry and gamers are talking about convergence, a site of public discourse is essential. Online interest sites are the most prevalent, far-reaching, and accessible of these sites.

When asking which online sites to explore, Newman (2008) provides some guidance. He argues for the centrality of the gaming press in gamer culture. Newman says “since the earliest days of electronic games, specialist games magazines have occupied a central role in the culture of videogaming” (p. 29). From its pre-internet roots to its net-heavy current state “at the most fundamental level, the specialist gaming press performs the function of manufacturing the sense of a wide community of gamers” (p. 29). Further, “in addition to this symbolic function, the specialist videogame press has been an influential channel through which information about games has flowed” (p. 29). And with the voice and reach of online spaces, the discourse has become more decidedly more two-party. After all “gamers, then, do not simply soak up the PR-approved messages of the developers and publishers in a soporific daze as they obediently await the release of the new game” (p. 35). Instead, they join the discussion, actively and agonistically.

With a gaming press site being a worthy site of investigation, I focus here on a specific site. I recognize this decision sacrifices breadth for depth. However, given that depth is my goal, I decided it was an appropriate sacrifice to make. Moreover, gaming press sites are often so multimedia, have so many active users, and contain so many features that a single URL does not necessarily mean a narrow perspective. To get a real sense of the discursive patterns, norms, violations, and negotiations occurring on any given site, it was essential to hone in on one.

There were quite a few gaming hobby sites that might have been valid to analyze (e.g., Kotaku, IGN, GameSpot, GameInformer, GameSpy). I decided on GameTrailers for a few reasons. First, as I was collecting data, the site was vibrant and active, with many diverse means of participation. There were videos, comments, forums, blogs, user-generated movies, news stories, audio commentary, cheats, and walkthroughs. While there were certainly the standard reviews, previews, and humorous countdowns on GameTrailers, I was struck by its emphasis on in-depth and nuanced video segments that treated the industry as just that, an industry. These segments speculated and commented on market shares and business models and covered major conferences and keynotes. Further, all of this official discourse was heavily responded to in comments section. This is in addition to the “user-generated content” on the site that was full of agonistic debate over issues pertinent to this study. Those that participated in these debates were adamantly invested in the hobby as a social identity. They pronounced themselves as “gamers,” as “hardcore,” and as “fans.” They actively engaged from this niche perspective on a site buzzing with discussion about broader trends in the industry. In this way, GameTrailers was exemplary as a videogame press site that richly integrated both industry and fan perspectives, and addressed the hobby as both a billion dollar business and the domain of niche enthusiasts.

Collection and Analysis

I collected data on GameTrailers from January to May 2010, daily visiting the site and cataloguing videos, blogs, news stories, comments, and threads. I scanned scores of user-generated forums and movies for convergence-related discourse. I collected the most relevant for more thorough examination. One ‘show’ on GameTrailers called Bonus Round, became particularly important as a hub of industry and consumer discussions of convergence, and will be featured here. The show was uploaded in 10- to 15-minute segments once a week, which formed a single four-part episode at the end of the month. It consisted of host Geoff Keighley and three industry insiders (e.g., studio executives, consultants, bloggers, and analysts) discussing a specific industry issue. The episodes for February and March 2010 (entitled “The State of the Industry” and “Story in Games,” respectively) were particularly relevant to my research questions and were analyzed in depth.

Analytically, this study is a mix of online participant-observation (Baym, 2009; Markham, 2008) and analysis of public discourse (Fairclough, 2003; Farnell & Graham, 1998; Tracy, 2001). I do not post on GameTrailers myself, but long have drawn from its content as I have participated in gamer culture more broadly. I analyzed the public discourse on GameTrailers as a cultural insider, familiar with communicative norms and salient issues in the hobby. For this analysis, I immersed myself in the discourse on the site, checking communicative patterns and norms against the theoretical perspectives of “convergence” and “genres of participation.” I pulled videos, forum threads, news stories, and comments that discussed convergence or distinctions between the “hardcore” and “casual” for analysis. In this sense, my data collection was theoretically guided, but inductively grounded. I was informed by “analytic induction” (Taylor & Bogdon, 1984), beginning with theory-driven questions, analyzing data that both confirmed and challenged that theory, and adjusting theoretical precepts based on the social practices observed.

A discourse-analytic method is appropriate for studying the “social practices” reflected and created in communication, since culture is “continuously produced and revised through dialogues among its members” (Farnell & Graham, 1998, p. 412). To Fairclough (2003), an analysis of the production and reception of texts is a fitting way to understand the norms and values undergirding them. So as I examined both the discourses produced by the industry and journalists on GameTrailers, I checked it against how commenters received the discourse. I analyzed the discourse on GameTrailers by looking for emergent themes and patterns in discussion (Tracy, 2001). I considered discursive norms—lexicon, syntax, semantics, rhetoric—as I explored the perceptions of those creating the discourse (van Dijk, 1995). As the results of this analysis are presented below, minimal spelling and grammar edits have been made with the sole goal of improving readability.

Contested Convergence

My first question was how gamers and the industry talked about technological, content, and market convergence (Ip, 2008) on GameTrailers. All three instances of convergence were discussed on the site, and all three were contested. Even when they were taken as inevitable (which they often were), they were not above reproach. On GameTrailers, convergence was open to speculation, inquiry, and critique. How convergence would shift the landscape of the videogame industry and thereby change the hobby for hardcore gamers was of particular focus. In this section, I will investigate the differences in fan and industry perspectives on convergence. In the next section, I will propose these differences became political when fans accused the industry of emphasizing “hanging out” to the detriment of “geeking out” and emphasizing titles that appealed to the lowest common denominator of gamers.

Convergence was a given in industry discourse. During the Bonus Round episode on the state of the industry, Jason Rubin, a cofounder of the game studio Naughty Dog, said the game industry would be “healthier” when it could make more money off more people. In the Bonus Round episode on story in gaming, Greg Zeschuk, a cofounder of the game studio BioWare, claimed that being able to “take advantage” of a loyal audience to sell more product was “valuable” to the industry and fans. However, convergence was more prevalent in industry-driven discourse than gamer-driven discourse like forums, blogs, and user movies. Convergence and the casual gamer were addressed less often, less explicitly, and more ambivalently in these formats.

Technological convergence might have been the most explicitly discussed form of convergence on the site. It was also the initial explanation often given about where the videogame industry was headed. One recurring Bonus Round guest, a game industry analyst at Webbush Securities named Michael Pachter, succinctly expressed what he saw as Microsoft’s technologically convergent aims (in transcripts of spoken discourse, ALL CAPS is used to indicate emphasis):

And I don’t really think Microsoft is about dominating GAMING. I think Microsoft’s about dominating the LIVING ROOM. And the 360 is working. I mean, they REALLY have a device that does A LOT of things in the living room. It’s becoming an internet outlet. It’s becoming a multimedia hub.

This convergence was not inherently accepted, of course. For instance, there was considerable gamer response in the forums to a controversial claim by famed videogame creator Hideo Kojima that the next console generation would “be the last” because the console would inevitably converge with the home computer. While gamer perspectives on the claim were diverse, technological convergence was often seen as inevitable. As one supportive post argued:

Consoles are evolving. This evolution is making them more and more like computers. Think about it. Consoles now have removable hard drives, different input devices, multi-tasking, browsers, etc. I think that the only thing that will happen over time is that the console and PC will meet in the middle somewhere. The ease and efficiency with consoles will combine with the multi tasking and usefulness of a full PC. So yeah, consoles will be dead in the way we perceive them today, but we all knew that was going to happen anyway.

One hardware change in console gaming was hotly debated, and closely tied to convergence. “Motion controls” replace traditional videogame controllers with a control system dependent upon user movement and activity. The Wii’s Wiimote, the PlayStation’s Move, and the Xbox’s Kinect (which had the prerelease codename “Natal” when this discourse was collected, and will be referred to as “Natal” here) are all control systems that make use of the actual, physical motions of those playing the game. Microsoft’s Natal was of particular interest on GameTrailers as I collected data, perhaps because of its imminent release. Natal garnered much talk about how its series of motion capture cameras and voice recognition technology would allow for hands-free control of the Xbox experience. Slashing with a sword in a Natal-enabled game would not require the player to hit a button, but to actually swing an arm. To navigate a Netflix queue, the user would not push a joystick, but swipe a hand. The increasing prevalence of motion controls was already touted a technological means to converge seemingly disparate activities, fusing gaming with more physically demanding activities like running, jumping, and dancing. The Natal promised to bring this to its farthest extent. While motion controls were billed as a new technology that allowed an expansion of interactivity, the utility of this expansion was contested.

Motion controls were seen as useful in more than gaming, thereby further converging diverse activities via an accessible technology. In a Bonus Round episode Naughty Dog's Rubin argued for this utility in Natal:

I think that Natal and things like Natal are going to revolutionize far MORE than gaming. I think putting Natal in the Xbox gives the Xbox an opportunity to become a lot more than just a gaming machine. And I think there are things you can do outside of gaming that will justify buying Natal … It’s not whacking balls against the wall, or whatever. It will be the interface and what it allows you to do. All of the OTHER things hooked up to your TV … Natal and things like it are going to revolutionize our DEN. Not necessarily games.

Second, these controls were often seen as a way to bridge the divide between the “virtual” and the “real,” a way to incorporate the embodied experience into the disembodied world of the game. Again, Rubin articulated this position:

The amazing thing about Natal is never before has a piece of hardware hooked up to your television and been able to recognize you, and who YOU are, had information about you, and WHAT you like, and been able to hear your voice and UNDERSTAND your voice.

In the comments to this episode, some fans agreed with Rubin’s hopeful tone:

Imagine a Mass Effect game where you could talk to the characters and have them react to your pitch and words, instead of choosing a dialogue on the screen.

I think that is pretty much my dream for the ultimate Natal game. It has so many possibilities for games … Instead of pushing a button to punch somebody or throw them out a window, you can physically do it (not punch your TV screen but you get the idea). Natal is the future of console gaming.

However, others were more skeptical. In particular, they were skeptical about whether these technologically convergent devices could work with the seamlessness promised. The word “gimmick” was often invoked in discussions of Natal, as fans worried about its successful integration into a quality gaming experience. These posts are from a forum thread about motion controls:

It’s a gimmick. I believe nobody will buy it. That’s my opinion. It’s fairly grounded in gaming history of a large bone yard filled with dead peripheral movement-based add ons.

The motion controllers are just going to be gimmicks … Can you actually make a GAME out of it? No, you really can’t. At least not something most Xbox gamers care about. Most don’t want to spend money to flail around like a dipshit so they can have a glitchy pretend swordfight in their underwear.

Some posters were also worried about the negative consequences this bridge between the real and the virtual might have for the hobby:

Story and gameplay are everything. I don’t want to gesture and take myself out of the game. If you can tell a deep and interesting enough story then you don’t need gimmicks to make the game more interesting.

Seriously, I don’t want to play a game like that. For me, gaming is an escape from reality. In games, I can do things that I could never do in real life. Know what I mean? I press buttons on a controller, and something as simple and effortless as that can be ANYTHING I want it to be … I don’t want my actions in a game to come CLOSER to reality. I want my actions in a game to stay away from it.

Newman (2008) argues that in gaming, the medium of transmission and product transmitted are inextricably linked. Therefore, it is no surprise that in the Bonus Round episode about story in gaming, motion controls were heavily considered. In the episode, BioWare’s Zeschuk speculated on how motion control technology might alter the stories told in games:

If we can get to a point where you express yourself in a non-controller-based way, and then reflect that in a character that you’re talking to, I think that’ll feel really seamless. I think the next elevation of the craft is actually the player as ACTOR.

Again, the hope was met with concern. One panelist on the show, David Jaffe, president of the studio Eat Sleep Play, worried about story in Natal games. He was concerned about “storytelling merging with interactivity” because he claimed each of these elements requires separate processing in the player’s mind and therefore would be too jarring and disengaging when unnaturally combined. To Jaffe, “the story seems to dissipate” when it becomes something the player does rather than something that happens between the interactive portions of the game (like cut-scenes). One poster in the comments section agreed with this concern:

If I understood correctly, David’s point is that the storytelling element requires a kind of passivity. One needs to be sitting back and hearing out the situation or the characters, but when one wants the interaction, one has to break that passive mode and start to actively consider how to act/puzzle solve/fight/etc. I think I agree.

In general, the use of motion control technology to enhance story was met with considerable speculation. Some thought it could detract from the content cherished by gamers. It could diminish a game’s integrity. In line with Murphy et al. (2005), gamers “pushed back” against the notion that new and diverse technological features—in this case ones that bridged gaming and physical activity—were inherently the best idea for creating a compelling gaming experience.

There was also contestation over content convergence. For instance, there was quite a bit of ambivalence about gaming franchises crossing their original delivery medium. When news stories announced Street Fighter was going from the console to the iPhone, or The Sims 3 was going from PC to the consoles, many gamers were worried. The following are comments to a story about Street Fighter’s iPhone edition:

I am a life-long SF fan who loves the iPhone dearly. Why then, do I find this to be a terrible idea?

I love Street Fighter and I love my iPhone. Still … I’m pretty sure this version of the game will be clunky only because of the controls. I might buy it still, as long as the price is low and the game runs good, just to have something to do on the go. But I know it won’t be up to par.

Downloadable content (DLC) was hotly contested, and was related to content convergence. DLC is an emerging standard in gaming. It allows owners of games to add to what they purchase by downloading digitally distributed expansions to the game. These expansions can add new post-story “episodes” to single-player games. They can also add new features, such as weapons, armor, or multiplayer maps. Sometimes this DLC is available for purchase as soon as the game comes out (called ‘day one DLC’). Sometimes this DLC is not even an additional download, technically speaking. It is packaged and shipped as information on the game disc, so all players are buying when they buy the “DLC” is the ability to access what was already on the physical artifact they walked out of the store with. DLC is a unique example of content convergence. Producers work to extend the shelf life of their game, enhance brand loyalty, and enrich gamer experience by offering content that is not part of the primary media artifact. Its additive nature is similar to a tie-in novel or action figure. It is a supplemental piece of the universe—delivered in a standalone format—that brings together diverse strands in the story.

The “Story in Gaming” Bonus Round had an entire segment on DLC. The segment began with guests positing the value of DLC to the industry. BioWare’s Zeschuk had this to say:

Where we see the real benefit of this is … you know, you create the world and the entire setting … and we want someone to take advantage of it. I mean, you know, just the one game that we’ve built isn’t the end. That for us, that’s the beginning … And what we find is our players want more.

The discussion got more intense when host Geoff Keighley muttered “I think day one DLC’s crazy.” Both Zeschuk and Eat Sleep Play’s Jaffe immediately and adamantly disagreed. In particular, Jaffe “called bullshit” on the popular argument that fans should have access to whatever’s on the disc when they buy it:

I think the consumer has EVERY single right to say ‘this product I bought for 40 dollars or 60 dollars … It’s WORTH it or it’s not. But to claim just because there’s OTHER periphery STUFF … Just because it exists, you’re not ENTITLED to it … You’re only entitled to it if you feel you’ve been jipped on the 60 dollar product. But this logic that says ‘well you put DLC out within the first month, that SHOULDA been on the disc …’ Hey, you know what, did you get your money’s worth or not?

This position did not win many supporters in the comments. Jaffe, who had been complimented in the comments to the episode before the DLC segment was uploaded, quickly became the object of criticism:

I call bullshit on unlockable DLC. You BOUGHT the game and the content was already ON THE DISC. Therefore, it should be free. It’s not like the developers made the stuff after the game was finished.

I guess the real question is ownership. If you buy a disc for $60, should you get access to everything that’s on there? Then, according to Jaffe, if the locked content didn’t hurt your experience with the core game, then it’s fair for them to make us pay extra for the unlock codes? How about this a solution? We pay $40 for the core story and then $20 extra for unlocking bonus content on the disc?

To many who commented, the question about DLC was of “relative value.” The criticism was that the profit element of DLC got in the way of producing quality content. The cost element of DLC was not really discussed in depth in the episode of Bonus Round, but featured prominently in the comments:

All I can say is that if I buy a game for $60, and there is $10 DLC … that DLC better be 1/6 of a game.

‘We often ask people, didn’t we give you enough value for your money?’ Sure, but does the DLC give you value for your money? Nope! So we’re not duped on the main game, but they did get us hooked, so they can take our money cheaply later!

With money such a fundamental issue, market convergence was also contested on GameTrailers. In the “State of the Industry” Bonus Round, Naughty Dog’s Rubin proposed that the industry was in a state of market convergence:

The biggest of the biggest are doing better than ever. But the mid-range game, the game that’s expensive, that the publisher puts a lot of money into and a lot of marketing into … is NOT doing well. You’re gonna see a lot of the teams that have made those games NOT get a new game to make because the publishers are spending MORE money and more attention on the bigger winners. And we’re gonna get LESS AND LESS titles out there.

The critique was that market convergence would lead to a lack of innovation, which would mean stagnation. To the industry, the needed innovation came from expansion into the casual game market. Rubin was a supporter of this shift. He saw “microtransactions”—akin to DLC and modeled after a “premium version” content model—as a way to bring more content to more people with different levels of investment. It was a way for the videogame industry to increase its market share of users, and was a successful business model in casual games:

If we let people play our games, enter our games more inexpensively, and charge them based on how much they use them, I think the industry will make more overall. I think the industry will be HEALTHIER overall, and I think we’ll be able to get more people to look at more unique and individual games.

This position was met with contention. Within the episode, Shane Shatterfield, founder of GameTrailers, argued:

I think we’re overlooking the psychology of it a little bit … I think if you go with the plan like you had mentioned, I think you DIMINISH that pride element of playing video games.

In the comments section, most took Shatterfield’s side and often did so based on social identity distinctions:

I don’t like Rubin’s idea at all. That may work with casual games like Farmville, but I like paying a price and getting all the content of the game, no matter what the price is.

The people playing Farmville are not the same people playing Call of Duty. Trying to apply the same revenue philosophy is shortsighted and arrogant.

Convergence was contested on GameTrailers. The industry was preoccupied with convergence, but its elements and effects were contested, especially among gamers. It seemed inevitable that technology, content, and markets were converging in the videogame industry. The forms and consequences of that convergence were up for debate. The following section will focus on the politics of play on GameTrailers as industry and fans negotiated the convergence diverse genres of participation in gaming.

The Politics of Play

I asked second how the industry and gamers negotiated different “genres of participation,” how they characterized “hanging out” and “geeking out” in gaming (Ito et al., 2010). This, too, was an issue of convergence. Technological, content, and market convergence were discussed because of their goal: a wider audience. Many of the political struggles over convergence came down to the industry’s attempts to converge audiences. To gamers, technological convergence was an issue when consoles and motion controls enhanced nongaming elements over gaming, so that more people in the household would want to dominate the box to watch a movie or do their morning yoga. Content convergence was an issue when the in-depth mechanics of role-playing games (RPGs) were fused with the relatively simple “hack and slash” play style of action games, so that more people would purchase the product. Market convergence was an issue when consolidation of companies meant that innovation in the industry was squelched, so that bland sequels filled the shelves and microtransactions cheapened the gaming experience.

To encapsulate the tension, I chose the term “audience convergence”: the inclusion of more people into the hobby because of changes to technology, content, and market. The industry was interested in offering more with the technology, expanding their brands, and consolidating their power in order to reach more people with more money. This convergence became contested when it was seen as a threat to the integrity of the gaming industry and the resources invested in the niche hardcore. The gamer concern was that any given title would become more watered down in order to reach that broader audience. When the gap between those that “hang out” and those that “geek out” was bridged, the hardcore were seen as the ones who would lose.

Audience convergence was not hated outright, nor was casual gaming. The response was more conflicted ambivalence, and more directed at the industry than specific titles or groups of people. Whiteman (2009) talks about how fans “work to differentiate themselves from a denigrated other” (p. 394). Here, the “other” was not explicitly the “casual gamer,” but the industry that was allegedly pushing the hobby away from integrity. The “casual gamer” was mostly othered by association, as a kind of by-product of an industry that could not successfully balance a wide range of interests and commitments. Audience convergence was a problem to fans only insofar as it meant less choice and diversity in the hobby. Perceptions that the industry was offering “safer” titles meant to reach the lowest common denominator or that it was bridging distinct genres to appeal to a wider base were the most vociferously challenged. When profits were thought to water down the integrity of the hobby, that is when gamers on GameTrailers spoke up. In this way, they exhibited a staple in fan behavior. Jenkins (1992) calls fandom “fist and foremost, an institution of theory and criticism” (p. 86). On GameTrailers, fans theorized and criticized the technology, content, and business changes in the industry. Their theories and critiques constituted a political engagement with changing standards of audience and industry in gaming.

While fan discourse didn't share the money-driven pragmatism common in industry discourse, there was no universal “anti-convergence” perspective. Some made claims about the destruction of gaming thanks to the shift of resources from the committed “hardcore” to the fleeting “casual.” However, some also appreciated what a bigger audience could bring to the industry. For instance, the Wii—the standout example of how audience convergence ruined gaming with its “casual” emphasis—also had quite a few apologists. Within a thread asking if the Wii was “not so bad” (the title itself reveals the accepted consensus to be debated), there were certainly those who were worried about the Wii’s “lazy” developers and “dumbed down” audience:

The Wii would rather appeal to moms and little girls than to ME, a lifelong hardcore fan of Nintendo. Have you seen their Animal Crossing: City Folk commercial? HAVE YOU ?!?! =(.

What bothers me about the Wii isn’t the Wii itself. It’s the consumers that purchase the Wii and don’t support it by purchasing the good software … It’s that crowd that pisses me off. Not so much the ‘casual’ crowd, but the ‘uninformed consumer’ crowd. You don’t buy a Nintendo to swing around a fake tennis racket … You buy it to jump on goombas, stick a sword in Ganon’s head, and blast Metroids, dammit.

Others, however, argued a shift in focus meant more innovation and, ultimately, a more rewarding gaming experience:

I think it’s by far the best console of this generation due it is variety and the best first-party exclusives … Anyone who bashes the Wii for its lack of games doesn’t care enough to look for the gems and shouldn’t be taken seriously. It’s just become acceptable to hate the Wii for superficial reasons.

Although I do understand your hatred for this type of consumer, you have to realize that Nintendo needs to appeal them in order to make money to DEVELOP the hardcore games.

It is important, though, that differing opinions on the state of the industry were still negotiated using the same cardinal value: the integrity of the hobby. Convergence was not villainized in and of itself. It was villainized when it became an indication of a political shift. Convergence was contested when it meant less attention to the fans who invested considerable time and money into the hobby, and who heavily integrated it into their social world. The popular RPG series Mass Effect is an example. The original Mass Effect had a fairly complex inventory system for holding in-game loot, which is standard in many “old school” RPGs. When Mass Effect 2 came out, however, that complex inventory system had been “sreamlined,” removing much of its complexity and therefore the potential for player customization. This move was contested on the grounds that it was done to reach more casual fans who play “shooters” rather than RPGs. Likewise, Mass Effect 2 came with more DLC, emphasizing microtransactions more than the first had. Some felt that because of audience convergence, the integrity of the game had been sacrificed. The game was “dumber,” and fans were being “nickel and dimed” if they wanted a complete and enjoyable experience. Others, however, felt the moves made for a more enjoyable experience, since they made play less tedious and gave fans more content to enjoy. They argued that “engaging” was different than “casual.” On both sides of this debate, the cardinal values drawn upon were the ultimate benefit of the “gamer” because of the integrity of the game.

The call for integrity was evident in distinctions between hanging out and geeking out as well. However, the two modes of engagement with games did not represent oppositional social identities to the extent I had originally thought they might. Certainly, there were those who framed the “casuals” as the enemy. However, the overarching tone of the discourse was more complex than mere factionist opposition. Rather than oppositional social identities engaged in a zero-sum game (i.e., geeking out looses if hanging out wins), I saw an interest in finding room for both genres of participation. Hanging out and geeking out were seen as states, not traits. They were ways people played, not who they were. Ito et al. (2010) were right; they were “genres of participation” rather than identifiers of types of people. But they became problematic when gamers did not think there was enough industry attention for both to exist.

One thread asked specifically whether casual gaming was ruining the industry. There were those who said yes; and there were just as many who said no. A number of people explicitly spoke out against the dangers of reducing players to labels. The conceptions themselves were even problematized:

Casual gamers aren’t the problem. The term casual gamer doesn’t even imply what you think it does. All it relates to is the frequency in which a person plays games, not the games that they play. Even if it did, you’d be a fucking moron to genuinely blame casual gamers, or ‘new gamers’ for fucking everything up. If gaming is ever going to really expand, we need to be ready to accept games for ALL different people.

Since more people have accepted gaming as normal, more and more gamers have been trying to draw the line between hardcore and casual. Back in the day, a person who loved Tetris to death would have just been a gamer, like the Mario, Sonic, or Doom fan. But now they are ‘teh casualz’ and are killing the industry.

Many who did not like the “casual” direction of the industry leveled their critiques not at players, but at modes of production. The criticized an alleged industry need to appease both genres of participation in a single title:

The gist is that games do way too much hand holding these days. A big reason for this is the massive multi-million dollar games that are released these days. Developers can’t afford to make any chances with these, so they dumb them down. They’re basically the video-gaming equivalent of a Michael Bay movie …

This is what happens when games become so expensive to develop that you have to cater to the lowest common denominator among your audience to make a decent profit. But this only applies to big companies. If you look beyond all the crap that's released today, you’ll find a lot of small companies keeping the spirit of the late 80’s/90’s alive.

“Audience convergence” was not seen as a problem because it was making room for those who like to hang out with videogames. After all, even the “hardcore” do that. Rather, audience convergence was contested when this shift was seen as impeding gamers’ ability to geek out. Gamers were looking for a both/and. They wanted motion controls to enhance a game’s depth, not stunt it. They wanted DLC to expand the experience, not restrict it. They wanted games to hang out with and games to geek out with. They wanted industry growth to mean more choice, not less. The fear was that industry emphasis on hanging out would mean a loss of titles that were complex and niche enough to facilitate geeking out. When this happened, the integrity of the hobby would suffer. This is how audience convergence became a political struggle.

Implications

We are left with a pair of lessons. First, gamers do not always accept the premises behind convergence, or the consequences of it. Technological, content, market, and audience convergence are all contested elements. While both the industry and gamers argue convergence is inevitable, it inevitability means different things to the two parties. To many in the industry, technological, content, and market convergence are pragmatic means to broaden audiences and increase profits. To many gamers, convergence should be premised on integrity; title should stand up to what the hobby should be. But these changes had both parties talking. The fundamental buzz behind discussions of convergence on GameTrailers was what audience convergence meant for the industry.

Second, convergence was contested on GameTrailers when it meant a political loss, the loss of resources in order to appease a broader population. Most gamers on GameTrailers were not so worried about “casual gamers” as an oppositional social identity, even while the “hardcore” was constructed as the in-group. There appeared to be room for gamers to both enjoy “hanging out” and “geeking out” within the same hobby. The worry was tied to audience convergence, because it blurred the distinctions between casual games and hardcore games. The out-group responsible for this blur was the industry, not its customers. Gamers contested convergence when hardcore titles were said to receive less attention because of an industry emphasis on the casual, or when multiple genres fused together in the name of reaching a broader audience. That is when generic differences became sites of political struggle. There was room for hanging out and geeking out, as long as both could coexist without a substantial sacrifice of one in the name of the other.

The very nature of the videogame industry means it will likely stay at the forefront of convergence culture. This will mean uniquely consequential tensions. As the market share of the videogame industry increases, broader audiences may well lead to broader struggles. As genres and play styles converge, longtime fans may protest shifts and trends. Industry members would do well to consider these perspectives as they design and market diverse products to wider and wider audiences. On GameTrailers, gamers had strong opinions on these changes. Convergence was contested when play became political.