PRINTGuess who games?
July 24, 2008 | 12:00 a.m. CST
Photographs by Mellissa Huffer and Rachel Swetnam
Gaming, in a multitude of forms, has long been blamed for a host of social ills. In the 1980s, Dungeons & Dragons was widely associated with Satanism, and Tom Hanks starred in Mazes and Monsters, a made-for-TV movie about a college student who goes insane and then vanishes after participating in an eerily similar role-playing game. In the 1990s, teen violence was regularly blamed on video games, even after juvenile crime dropped and game sales continued to rise.
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A decade later, that old adage about there being no such thing as bad press seems fitting. According to a 2007 survey by the Entertainment Software Association, sales of U.S. computer and video game software swelled to $7.4 billion in 2006. That’s an impressive 300 percent increase from 1996.
And who’s doing the purchasing? The answer might surprise you. Gaming isn’t just for pimply-faced preteens faking cheesy accents and casting 20-sided dice in a basement, the survey found. And it’s not just for men. The average gamer is a now well-seasoned 38 and has been gaming for 13 years. And females account for a formidable 38 percent of gamers.
Meet nine Columbia gamers who come from different walks of life. But, please, leave the “dork force” digs at the door.
The Role-Playing Gamer
Kelly Drummond, 39
On a Saturday afternoon, Kelly Drummond camps among a swarm of men at a long, cluttered table in the back of Valhalla’s Gate, a gaming store. The air buzzes with anticipation and excitement. A session of Dungeons & Dragons is about to begin.
Drummond’s interest was piqued when, bored, she wandered into the store a few weeks back. Drummond hadn’t gamed here before, but a sizable bag of colored dice is a testament to her experience with D&D, a role-playing game in which participants create and assume personas. The group is then led through an imaginary mission by a “dungeon master.” Dice rolls add randomness to the endeavors.
Today’s mission? The crew, seated amidst piles of junk food and many-sided dice, must retrieve a mysterious chest from a ship docked in the land of Harn.
Drummond’s played for decades. She was even a dungeon master for three years, and her kids were weaned on D&D. No, really. She used to breast-feed at the gaming table. “I’d have to say, ‘If you don’t like watching this, then look away, because I’m doing it,’” she says.
D&D requires strategy and lots of imagination, Drummond says. “It’s putting on a persona and then going and playing that character as well as you can, given the circumstances they get themselves into,” she says. Today, she enters the corrupted land of Harn as Raina Loresst, a three-and-a-half-inch gnome who specializes in sleight-of-hand tricks.
As Raina, Drummond speaks in a high-pitched voice and giggles frequently. But as the game heats up, it’s clear that her femininity constitutes a strategy in itself. “It gives me an advantage,” she says. “I’ve usually got things exactly where I want them to be.”
Today, the element of chance works against Raina. Although her party secures the sea chest, unlucky dice rolls render her spells consistently useless. “I was disappointed I didn’t get to actually kill anyone,” she admits. But she’ll be back.
“Till the very day I die, I’ll be a gamer,” Drummond says. “When I’m 80 years old, I can see myself at the tables.”
The Participatory Gamer
Jeremy Howard, 21
In the basement of Brady Commons, a flashing beast calls out to Jeremy Howard. He empties the pockets of his black warm-up pants and positions himself atop the arrows of the Dance Dance Revolution machine. He pops in some tokens. He fixes his eyes on the screen’s scrolling arrows and begins to move in time with the fast-paced electronic beat.
Outside the arcade, Howard isn’t much of a dancer, but here, he maneuvers as nimbly as any salsa protégé. He discovered DDR during high school, and his background in percussion instruments enabled him to translate the complex scrolling combinations into physical movements. “It was easy for me to see the arrows and read them as a pattern,” Howard says.
In 2007, Howard became president of MU’s DDR club. The club occasionally hosts tournaments and game nights, but Howard keeps things low-key. Each Wednesday, 10 regulars and a few occasional members have dinner at Noodles & Company and then head to Brady Commons to play DDR and hang out. Afterward, they’ll get ice cream and attend a comedy show.
“It’s become a social group at this point,” Howard says. “I’ve met some of my best friends through DDR club.”
Although Howard is a fairly advanced player, the game’s top rankings have eluded him. However, a Friday in June marked a small milestone. Howard beat the Silvertear song “So Deep” on heavy setting, a feat six months in the making.
The future of the DDR club is unclear. Brady Commons is expanding, and the new amenities don’t include an arcade. But Howard considers the club’s potential demise with trademark optimism. A second machine sits in the lobby of Hollywood Stadium 14 Cinema, and several group members have at-home setups.
“If we lose the DDR machine, we’ll figure something else out,” Howard says.
The Perlow-Stevens Family: Jennifer, 37; Clayton, 13; Chris, 41; Charlie, 6
It’s Tuesday afternoon; the Perlow-Stevens family is bowling. Pins drop, balls hook into gutters, but there are no lane malfunctions to worry about, no smelly rental shoes to commiserate over. Chris Stevens and Jennifer Perlow are barefoot in their den with their children, Clayton and Charlie. And they’re contorting wildly before a television screen.
Chris bought the Nintendo Wii as an anniversary present for Jennifer last May. “We never thought we’d buy video games for ourselves,” he says, but the Wii was different.
Chris and Jennifer often play alone, but the Wii has also become a modern-day hearthstone. The family plays together about four days a week for an hour at a time. Gaming offers a new way to spend time together. “It’s interactive,” Jennifer says. “It’s not sitting there watching someone else do something.”
The Wii has also been an equalizer. Activities such as bowling can be frustrating for families with a range of ages and abilities, but the Wii is “easily accessible for the whole family,” Jennifer says. Even Charlie’s tiny hands can navigate the controller, and Clayton will often ditch the Xbox in his room for the novelty of gaming with his parents and sister.
But it’s not all syrupy-sweet. Chris and Jennifer are all for a little healthy competition. “We’ve been known to make a few wagers,” Chris says.
Wii games involve lots of physical movement, and Chris and Jennifer have both nursed morning-after muscle pains from their virtual escapades. “I was so sore I had to switch my bowling hand,” Jennifer says.
Sore egos and shoulders aside, the Wii has augmented this family’s time together and not detracted from it, no mean feat for a gaming system. Their collection now includes a Wii Fit balance board, a gun-shaped remote casing called a Zapper and a small cache of games, and it’s continuing to grow. For Jennifer’s birthday this month, she received a new Wii nunchuck controller and Winter Sports 2008, adding to the family’s Wii arsenal.
Scott Ziolko, 29
As a kid, Scott Ziolko often stayed up till dawn playing Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat tournaments with friends. Now he’s 29, and although he still owns six gaming systems and 60-70 games, late-night combat sessions are much fewer and farther between.
Ziolko games 10-20 hours a week, but these days, it’s usually on the fly. He’ll often whip out his portable Nintendo DS in stolen moments between working as a transcript evaluator at Columbia College, publishing his own comic book series and spending time with his wife and two daughters.
One of Ziolko’s favorite action-adventure games is God of War, which draws inspiration from Greek mythology. In War, gamers play an exiled Spartan who becomes an agent of the gods. “It’s an epic battle against classic mythological creatures,” he says.
Ziolko thinks that the power element of action and combat games appeals to many players. Even the puniest of gamers can accomplish feats of derring-do with the controller in hand, Ziolko says.
He has other hobbies, but Ziolko thrives on the satisfaction he gets from completing the task or story line of a video game. “You get invested in a game more than you would other forms of entertainment,” he says.
His wife supports the hobby. “She knew I was like this when she married me,” he says, laughing. Still he’s careful to be respectful. “I don’t hog the TV,” Ziolko says. “I’m not shirking responsibilities.”
He’s nearing 30, and although evenings with friends and family often involve some gaming, Ziolko says it’s no longer the focus of social gatherings.
Still, he sees no reason to retire his controller just yet. “It’s not something people necessarily outgrow,” Ziolko says. “That’s obvious with the amount of mature games out there. It’s not just for kids anymore.”
Betty Swanson, 25
Forget Second Life. Betty Swanson and gamers like her have been reinventing themselves in the virtual realm for years. Her game of choice? World of Warcraft, a multiplayer online role-playing game. Her alter ego? Essentia, a gnome-warlock she designed to resemble herself.
“I asked myself, ‘If I were a gnome, what would I look like?’” Swanson says, and Essentia was born.
According to Blizzard Entertainment, Swanson is one of more than 9 million virtual citizens who inhabit the WoW realm, where characters meet, go on quests or raids and battle mythical creatures. The endeavors earn players virtual money and gear and grant them passage to new areas of the game.
WoW is constantly being updated and expanded. “There aren’t any limitations,” Swanson says. “There isn’t an end to the game.” She attributes its popularity to the fact that it lets players interact within a world of infinite possibility. “You’re totally in control rather than the game itself being in control,” she says. “That’s what sets WoW apart.”
WoW also offers a welcome escape from daily life. “I don’t have to think a lot,” Swanson says. “It’s kind of like a second world. You get to be somebody else for awhile.”
But perhaps retreat is a better word than escape, because the real world keeps Swanson plenty busy. Between spending time with her husband and 7-year-old son, studying radiography at MU and working at a collection agency, Swanson has found it hard to make time for WoW lately.
Swanson is a level 70 player, currently the game’s highest level. Normally, she shells out $15 a month to play, but her hectic schedule has forced her to put the subscription on hold. However, when Swanson graduates next May, she’ll definitely resume daily gaming. “It’s gonna be nice when I can start getting into it again,” she says. “It’s what I really miss.”
Dru Cook, 19
Dru Cook’s been big into video gaming “since forever,” but it was a gaggle of sweaty, pixelated athletes that ultimately captured his heart.
Cook encountered them in the universe of Madden NFL, a sports series that allows players to assume command of a professional football team and compete against each other. “You pick a team off the NFL roster, you pick a playbook and a stadium, and you go at it,” the MU sophomore says. “It’s the greatest simulation of professional football in the world.”
Cook liked Madden so much he became assistant campus representative for EA Sports, the developer of Madden and other sports games. His duties include running Madden Monday, a weekly MU gaming event where gamers discuss sports gaming strategy and play sports games on Xboxes hooked to TVs in Brady Commons.
He boasts the highest Madden score among MU’s Xbox community, and people regularly approach him for advice, but his dedication has earned him recognition beyond Columbia. Cook estimates he ranks among the top 400 U.S. players, and he’s a six-time veteran of The Madden Challenge, in which a $10 entry fee buys Madden addicts a shot at the title of world’s best. Each year, Cook’s score has improved. In 2007, he finished in the nation’s top 32.
Cook is aiming for still-higher rankings, and he hopes to become head rep for EA Sports at MU, but his love of all things Madden isn’t just a youthful holdout. He’s studying communications and graphic arts and plans to make a career of gaming. He has developed several game story lines, reviews games for friends and dreams of becoming lead designer for EA Sports. But, really, any job involving video games would suffice.
“A good day is a day dedicated to my video games,” Cook says. “It’s not just a get-rich-quick scheme. It’s what I do.”
