No I in Team

For generations, video games were seen as something of a social stigma. Gamers were called anti-social, shut-ins and introverts. People assumed there were no practical applications for video games whatsoever. In modernmörgåsbord of information negating all those years of dismissal. One of the biggest discoveries was that video games are a fantastic way to build teamwork (Jagad 2011). 
times, things have changed as more and more research on video games have uncovered a veritable s

MMOs are online games that require a certain amount of teamwork to complete. While you can usually just play alone and avoid interactions, if you want to beat the big bosses and get the best loot, then you have to work as a team. Teams generally consist of at least 1 leader and anywhere from 3 to 39 other members. Generally, as the group content gets larger and more complicated these teams start to form sub teams which each have a sort of departmental head to organize the individual groups within the team. Not all are successful but the lessons always are.

In a basic dungeon run, you have a tank class, a healer class and a varying number of damage dealers. One of these people will emerge as the leader, whether due to experience or natural leadership ability. The group will then either be successful and work together or refuse to work together and fail miserably. There are occasion where the group can be dysfunctional and still able to complete the mission and vise versa. All scenarios will yield a good chunk of knowledge for the players that will help them be better team members in the future. Did the current group pull too much and cause a wipe? Next time the players will want to pull less. Did the group discover a new boss and die to a mechanic? Next group, the players will tell the group about the mechanic and what to avoid.

As the difficulty ramps up with raids of 10 - 40 people, managers start to become necessary. The raid leader is the defacto boss and there are usually at least one co-lead to help with the logistics involved. In the higher "World First" races to clear brand new raid content before anyone else, the teams follow a rigid team structure. Healers usually have a healing lead to help manage healing cooldowns and rotations as well as running the numbers on each player's effectiveness. Tank leads manage threat and damage mitigation, boss swaps, mechanics and some of the more lethal aspects of a fight. Ranged and Melee leads do a similar roll among their respective groups. The raid leader generally decides on the strategy for a given fight and if the raid is successful, the loot masters handle the dispersal of loot by deciding which players benefit the most for an upgrade or which player deserves a shiny new weapon. 

Each one of these roles are management roles. They teach those players how to handle different groups of people and their personalities. It teaches them how to delegate tasks, how to identify problems and most importantly, how to solve problems efficiently as they arise. For the rest of the group they learn how to work with their peers. They learn what lines are and what to do to avoid crossing them. They get to experience a group win or loss as part of the team and most importantly they get to experience what happens when someone doesn't perform their role to standards. The skills learned from playing a video game directly benefit a player in real life. They learn to be a team, whether they're laying siege to a mountainous castle or rushing to meet a project deadline. 


citation
Jagad, Lakshmi Ms., "Online Gaming and Teamwork." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2011. http://scholarworks.gsu.edu/communication_theses/83 

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Machinima: The art of game

Have you ever wondered what would happen if the characters in your game suddenly starred in a movie? Perhaps you've always wanted to see your main character star in their own television series. Some might consider these as minor flights of fancy but other defy this narrative. An entire subculture revolving around machinima has sprung up to do exactly what some people assumed couldn't happen. Machinima is the use of a video game to create derivative works of art within the game itself. Now, this technique is nothing new and has been around since the days of Doom. (Veigl, 2011) As technology continues to advance, so too do the tools that enable this new art form.

Machinima really took off with the launch of Halo: Combat Evolved, a first person shooter game. The company Rooster Teeth began making short, irreverent comedy skits from within the game that they titled Red Vs Blue. The concept was simple enough: two groups of military grunts, one red and one blue, are operating bases at opposite ends of a canyon and everyone is an idiot. Every time Bungie Studios released a new Halo game, the Rooster Teeth production would begin using that engine to develop more of the series. As the technology advanced and Bungie took notice of this small company and their large online fanbase, tools were added to the game to make the machinima easier to record. This allowed the show to take a more narrative approach and develop into a full fledged story complete with betrayal, intrigue and conspiracies. Once Microsoft purchased the game and wrapped it into 343 Studios, a new issue arose: copyright.

Like Halo, another game came out in 2004 that changed the face of Machinima. Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft a massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) came out and almost immediately fans began making short films ranging from simple boss kills, music videos, sketch comedy and even a few long running series. Another notable form of art that branched from this was the use of screen shots to create comic strips. This was a sort of mash up between the rapidly expanding fan-art community and the Machinima community. Both Microsoft and Blizzard were facing a bit of a crisis. Other game companies were cracking down on content, specifically Nintendo and Let's Plays. Let's Plays are videos of other people playing through a game and commenting on it, usually in a humorous manor. Suddenly, the tools that players were using to create art were being taken away from them. Artwork was subjected to takedown notices, videos were hit with copyright infringement infractions, and the community was worried about what would happen.

Blizzard and Microsoft both came to the same conclusion. If the fans want to share their love for the games and it helps grow the fanbase, then why should they be prevented from doing so? So both companies embraced these new digital forms of art. Microsoft continued supporting the work Rooster Teeth was doing and Blizzard began recognizing exceptionally well crafted artwork. Blizzard is also known for pulling talent from these communities to work at the company itself. One gamer, Alexander J. Velicky went so far as using his talents to create an entire expansion for the popular game Elder Scrolls: Skyrim at the age of 19. (MacManus, 2013) This massive and extremely impressive creation landed him a job at Bungie Studios. (Gaston, 2013)

More and more studios have embraced the world of Machinima and fan created art in general which has opened the door for a flood of new creations. No one knows what the future holds but if the trend continues as it has been, we will likely see two big things happen. One is the creation of something epic, akin to a full length movie. The second is a massive lawsuit and cease & desist order in response. Both events would change the face of this digital art form forever.

Citations:
Veigl, T. (2001, January 20). Machinma: On the Invention and Innovation of a New Visual Media Technology. Retrieved July 7, 2017, from https://www.academia.edu/8329333/Machinima_On_the_Invention_and_Innovation_of_a_New_Visual_Media_Technology

MacManus, C. (2013, July 17). 19-year-old creates incredible Skyrim expansion. Retrieved July 7, 2017, from https://www.cnet.com/news/19-year-old-creates-incredible-skyrim-expansion/

Gaston, M. (2013, November 25). Skyrim's Falskaar mod maker lands games industry job. Retrieved July 7, 2017, from https://www.gamespot.com/articles/skyrim-s-falskaar-mod-maker-lands-games-industry-job/1100-6416394/

Images:
Doom
© 1993 id Software
Red Vs Blue
© 2003 Rooster Teeth
Illegal Danish
© 2004 Blizzard Entertainment
Skyrim
© 2011 Bethesda Studios