Last week, Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour talked about the role of women in the video games industry. It featured interviews with gaming insiders, from esports presenter Frankie Ward to members of the inclusive online community Black Girl Gamers. It was wonderful to hear so many disparate, expert views on games culture being given so much time on the show.
One of my favourite moments was when presenter Nuala McGovern read out some listener responses to the question: why do you play video games? “I don’t think there’s enough recognition of gaming as an activity for couples,” one replied. “My husband and I bonded over our shared love of gaming. Our honeymoon was playing Borderlands 2 while we saved for a flat deposit, and now, with a young child, we explore stories, we visit new worlds, we solve mysteries … There is an underappreciated romance to gaming – we communicate, encourage, collaborate and celebrate together. It’s a joy.”
I found this very moving because I know many friends who met their partners through playing games, and who see the act of gaming together as a much more textured and immersive experience than wallowing in front of a TV series. I’ve lost count of the number of couples who’ve told me they especially enjoyed playing survival horror games such as Resident Evil and Silent Hill together – even though they are strictly single-player experiences. Sharing scary games is a way of lessening the terror while exploring an abandoned orphanage or science lab. It introduces an element of physicality – as does taking it in turns to use the joypad, swapping it from hand to hand, like an intimate gift.
An elaborate dating site … Final Fantasy XIV.
Playing a video game with someone you’re falling in love with, meanwhile, gives you a new perspective on who they are and what they can do. It’s helpful to know your partner is brilliant at solving spatial puzzles, or that they’re determined and resourceful when faced with tricky tasks. If nothing else, it’s a hint at exactly how it’s going to go when you end up assembling an Ikea bookshelf together. Recently, I wrote about the use of video games in child therapy, and one of the counsellors I spoke to, Ellie Finch, is looking at doing couples therapy in Minecraft because it’s often a space where all the people in the relationship feel comfortable. I suspect that challenging clients to build a simple house together will tell her more about their interpersonal dynamic than two hours of talking.
There is a lot of romance in experiencing new places together, getting lost and combining skills to help each other out of calamities. There is sweetness in a shared Stardew Valley or Animal Crossing escapade; there is intellectual challenge in quiet evenings with Blue Prince or Split Fiction. For too long, gaming was seen as the preserve of lonely young men, a hobby too guarded and insular for lovers; now everyone can play and the digital world is opening up. Lots of people are now effectively using online games such as Final Fantasy XIV and GTA Online as highly elaborate dating sites, sometimes meeting and forming relationships in real life. Games remove many barriers – the expense of going out, the vulnerability of meeting strangers – they are test spaces for the romance-curious.
I hope that as this generation of gamers age, they will keep playing together. I hope they show their grandchildren the levels they designed in Super Mario Maker, or the beautiful apartment they constructed in The Sims – the digital photo albums of entire lifetimes together. Games have so much to tell us about each other, if we are open to play and being playful.
What to play
Tiny fun … Neogeo Super Pocket. Photograph: Blaze Entertainment
Last year I reviewed the Super Pocket from Blaze Entertainment, a funky little handheld capable of playing a range of cartridge-based retro games. Now there’s a new Super Pocket Neogeo edition, inspired by the cult 1990 console by the Japanese manufacturer SNK, in the familiar black and gold colouring. It comes loaded with 14 Neogeo titles and it’s a really intriguing selection, from bona fide classics such as side-scroller Metal Slug X and formative fighting game Fatal Fury. There are lesser known gems, too, including luscious beat-’em-ups Top Hunter: Roddy & Cathy and Mutation Nation. The Super Pocket will also run all the other carts designed for Blaze’s Evercade consoles, opening a whole galaxy of well-emulated retro delicacies.
Available on: Super Pocket console
Estimated playtime: countless nostalgic hours
What to read
Nothing new under the sun … Shadow of the Colossus. Photograph: Sony Computer Entertainment
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VGC has a translation of a recent Japanese interview with Ico and Shadow of the Colossus designer Fumito Ueda, who claimed that “the age of game mechanics is over”. His assertion was that developers were no longer inventing new mechanics and were focusing on existing design techniques as well as the look and feel of games. It’s a provocative assertion, perhaps gaming’s equivalent of Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History and the Last Man – but I hope he’s wrong.
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Valve has been removing adult games from Steam, reportedly as a result of pressure from credit card companies. An Australian anti-porn group called Collective Shout has claimed responsibility – the organisation recently published an open letter to payment processors such as PayPal and Mastercard claiming that games available on the digital store featured child abuse and incest. Vice has gathered reactions from Steam customers.
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Somehow, I’m not surprised by the discovery that Nintendo employees rarely leave the company. Games site GoNintendo has shared some employment data from the company showing that staff in Japan stay with the company for 14.4 years on average, with people at offices elsewhere staying between eight and a half and 10 years. It’s nice to know that, amid the crisis in the industry, with thousands of staff being laid off, at least one major company apparently knows how to nurture its workforce.
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Question Block
Akin to Silent Hill … Shepton Mallet Prison. Photograph: Keith Stuart/The Guardian
This question came from Jamie, via email:
“I recently visited Orford Ness, the National Trust site in Suffolk that was used for experiments throughout the 20th century by the Ministry of Defence. I was struck by how much it reminded me of games like The Last of Us and Atomfall, with the whole place feeling like being inside a computer game level but minus the zombies. Have you visited somewhere that felt as if you were in a game, and are any of those games worth recommending?”
This is such a great question! To start with, the game developer and author Holly Gramazio just recommended Kelvedon Hatch Secret Nuclear Bunker to me – it’s a cold war bunker that just screams covert government base or umbrella corp laboratory. Last year, I spent the night at the haunted Shepton Mallet Prison for an article on horror games, and it felt as if I was in a Silent Hill level – it’s open to the public and they do regular sleepovers. For something a little more grandiose, I’d recommend Kedleston Hall, in Derby, the inspiration for Croft Manor in the Tomb Raider games, or Milan cathedral, a breathtaking gothic masterpiece, filled with spiral staircases, shadowy corners and elaborate stone carvings. It was a key influence on Dark Souls. I’d also suggest you visit the research library at Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, which looks like something out of a grandiose historical adventure game. And if you’re a fan of GTA V, you have to visit Los Angeles at least once. Seeing the city’s looming skyscrapers, mountainous surroundings and sprawling districts under the orange haze of a setting sun will make you feel like the king of your own weird, surreal and mesmerising open world.
If you’ve got a question for Question Block – or anything else to say about the newsletter – hit reply or email us on pushingbuttons@theguardian.com.