Someone wrote a thesis on ARMA 3

[Undeceived 392]

Uh-huh. And what will the scientific world gain from thorough analysis of some computer game, exactly?

I understand the university though - these students are free to major even in Plastic Spoon History as long as they're paying for being able to pretend that their "work" actually worth something.

 

Writing a thesis is to prove that one is able to work scientifically. I'd say that the subject is rather unimportant (in most cases), as long it is in some way compatible to the university (which seems to be the case here).

 

And who knows! Maybe one day this thesis will be useful as hell (if it isn't already - I didn't read it yet)! :P  Do we know what's tomorrow will bring?

 

 

EDIT:

Sorry, after continuing reading the thread, I noticed that you guys were trying to get back to topic.

Gonna take a closer look at the thesis now.....

[ac.mack 5]

Hey all -- so, I'm the one who wrote the thesis and I've really enjoyed reading all the comments and criticisms on here (seriously, super helpful perspectives)! If anyone has any feedback that they want to send me, I'd love it read/hear it. I'm in the process of turning some of the chapters into journal articles for publication.

 

ac

 

(ac.mack@uleth.ca)

[Tankbuster 1747]

I was wondering if you'd see this. :)

 

I've given all my feedback publicly here, though I am going to give your work another read through soon, just to make sure my fastread of it last time didn't miss anything.

 

I have a question for you, though, feel free to not answer as I'm just being nosey :)  What score did your thesis achieve from your examiners?

[ac.mack 5]

And I thank you for that feedback. I was a little surprised to see my work here (and very nervous to open the comments, ha).

 

Our scoring system at the uLethbridge is:

• Pass—The thesis is passed as submitted
• Pass with Minor Revisions–The thesis is passed on the condition that the student makes minor editorial revisions, to the satisfaction of the supervisor, or another as authorized by the Thesis Examination Committee.
• Pass with Major Revisions–The thesis requires substantial revisions that must be completed to the satisfaction of the entire Supervisory Committee.
• Defer–The Thesis Examination Committee defers a decision until the student makes major changes to the thesis.  The student may be required to go through the thesis oral defence process a second time.
• Fail– The thesis is failed and the student must withdraw from The University of Lethbridge.

I passed with minor revisions (a request for an abstract). My supervisor was willing to just straight pass me, but I had a (fantastic) committee member who likes her data quantified.  

[KeyCat 131]

Thanks for the link! Will be an interesting read...

 

/KC

[Belbo 462]

I passed with minor revisions (a request for an abstract). My supervisor was willing to just straight pass me, but I had a (fantastic) committee member who likes her data quantified.  

I think, gratulations are in order. :)

[Tankbuster 1747]

I think, gratulations are in order. :)

Agreed. Congratulations.

[pd3 25]

Uh-huh. And what will the scientific world gain from thorough analysis of some computer game, exactly?

I understand the university though - these students are free to major even in Plastic Spoon History as long as they're paying for being able to pretend that their "work" actually worth something.

 

Right, very funny indeed. <_<

 

The problem is Arma 3 is probably as far as a community goes a nigh-impossible nut to crack when it comes to trying to slip garbage progressive narratives into the game or the community.

The players care about mechanics and flow of gameplay, little else, progressives have been trying to "test the fence" as it were trying to gain leverage on this game and the community and it just isn't happening, so of course they're going to attempt every conceivable angle to rationalize a given narrative with the hopes of it paying off in the future.

Passive academic analysis is one of the least forceful vectors by which to attempt this.

 

 

[pd3 25]

I do think we're getting some distance from the subject here. The thesis is an examination of the community and this is includes, but is not restricted to this very forum. Readers will see that large parts of what she writes is not actually about the game, but how we play and react to the game and then how we behave as an online community.

Yes, she talks about gamergate and perhaps as an outsider, she over eggs that pudding. I'm not defending misogyny, and what happened there was dreadful, nor do I seek to dismiss it, but I do think it's a minor issue - 'a storm in a teacup' as we say in English.

The thing is, she could have chosen to write this about any gaming community. It's probably only come to our attention because it's about our game. So my question is why here? I suggest it'sbecause of the unique way the devs engage with the community.

Of course, other than the above, this community is typical. It has just as many idiots, trolls, walts and tossers as any other.

>claiming GG was about misogyny.

Dude, please.

[chortles 263]

Since I have no reply to pd3 that wouldn't be a personal insult... scratch that, pd3, are you still thinking pre-DayZ or something?

 

@am.mack I am quite interested in whether you interviewed any communities outside of North America and Europe (particularly South America and Asia) or was that in your thesis and I missed it?

[pd3 25]

I'm already taking note of a few points which I believe to be inaccurate.

 

 

"Throughout the 20th century, particularly post-World War II, these games gained great popularity due largely to
their propagandist nature."

I believe this to be complete misconception, the overwhelming majority of people I know who retain an interest in warfare regardless of the era seem to possess a more technical interest in "how warfare is waged technically, via equipment/ordnance, and how it is applied strategically and tactically".This passage is also interesting as it continues to beg the question with regard to presuming a "propagandist" motivation to warfare-themed games

 

 

"With the release of ArmA 3, the Czech company has based its protagonists as soldiers in a US-led NATO operation. Once again these games are modeling themselves after real world systems, but most notably after the American forces"

The explanation for this is of course simple, the american military is one of the most active and technologically advanced forces in the world, it is as a faction the one that factors in most plausibly with regard to the simulation of potential world conflicts, it has nothing to do with propagandizing or promoting a given ideology, the motivation is about creating a plausible setting using political entities that would most likely be involved, as you see, the focus is on achieving a level of technical and geopolitical, strategic and tactical accuracy.The following paragraphs seem to attempt to passively conflate actual military interest in simulation with commercial-grade products and some level of ideological cross-pollination. America's army being a very notable and obvious exception.

 

 

Additionally, the predominance of male protagonists and the explicit exclusion of playable female avatars also marks the space as masculine, whether or not women gamers exist within it.

This is what addons are for, this tacit observational argument is in line with 'Skeez out of nowhere turning her attention to Arma and indicting the game for not having female avatars, she has also stated things in the past such as that the social content of games matters more than mechanics.This is why people such as this should have ZERO say over how time and resources are dedicated to such games, Arma is ostensibly nothing but mechanics, and as we're seeing presently, it takes a lot of time and therefore money to get things right, and to even redress mistakes that have been made in the past.

When you know that somebody else will cater to a very very very niche audience that encompasses less than five people in 100, you know that company time is better served fine-tuning the game mechanics than trying to cater to a proportionately small demographic based on precisely the same sort of reasoning aesthetic championed by 'Skeez, that is that the social and political implications of a game's content matter more than its function. I would respectfully state. No it doesn't. I would also contend that the people who should have the most influence over such a game as this are people who care about aspects critical to its function.

My girlfriend plays Arma with me, she's never complained about a lack of female avatars, likely because she cares more about the functional nature of the game over how it massages her perception of herself. This is not the explicit function of such a game as much as progressives may want to shoehorn the notion that somehow everyone who plays simulator type games are "playing pretend" or engaging in co-opting some kind of heroism fetish. It is impossible to marginalize that particular observation/concern as it has been already championed by the most prominent and boisterous and incidentally more clueless critics of anything that does not serve their interests politically.
Their argument is that if they themselves are self admittedly venal in their political motives, then everyone must be so to an equal degree, they cannot be viewed as the cultural aggressors, even though they are.

This is why they resort to trying to play semantic games and goldbricking their moral status and trying to portray others as being coarse, uneducated and in need of moderating influences to curtail their "problematic" influences.

 

 

"namely the US’s mistrust and vilification of Russia"

Oh come on, implying that wasn't and still isn't very mutual between each political solitude, nice neutral language there.
 

 

"The rest of the bootcamp involves minimal player cinematic cut scenes that impress upon the gamer that there are rising tensions between the factions on the island and sets the US and NATO forces as necessary saviours."

This is a perception interpreted entirely by the author themselves, I can already see the lack of objectivity increasing. The setting and context is pure utility as, again NATO and U.S military actions and assets are some of the most universally and most easily associated with given a western gaming audience.
 

 

"Within these episodes is a predominant theme of the West as saviours"

The author keeps saying it and I'm not seeing it. War and conflict are a highly relativistic force, that's one thing you learn about any sort of conflict especially if it becomes violent, at some point the parties involved become so invested that the only thing that matters is prevailing, the political context is often lost in the thick of actual combat. This is and always has been the allegorical truth promoted by BI even since the old days of Operation Flashpoint, as every time one died, you would see a quote from a famous individual effectively pointing out the morally relativistic nature of warfare and conflict. The fact that you are placed into the perspective of a given character fighting for a faction that is the most easy to identify with is IMO principally a marketing issue, it's purely incidental.

You cannot have a game like this without a certain level of occlusion of perspective given the nature of the simulation, you as the player may come to realizations external to the characters in the game, however it makes for an awkward product if there is some repeated attempts at maintaining a greater objective context instead of simply playing from the perspective from a given side.

I really dislike the attempts to claim that somehow there is a deliberate attempt at reinforcing some level of morality or propagandized values when this series has more prominently than others tried to highlight the trivial side of warfare and deaths that occur within it.
 

 

"In the game, exchanges like these are common. Often filled with masculine
bravado and profanity"

What precisely is the point of highlighting this as if to imply somehow it's an extraneous component that anyone with a shred of common sense understands to be endemic to combat environments throughout history?
The game strives to in some capacity and I would say rather objectively - convey the nature and atmosphere of combat for the sake of authenticity.
 

 

"and perhaps of greater concern for this project, are the instances of #GamerGaters attacking women doing digital research and their online research data."

Thank DiGRA for that, exclusively. As it has revealed itself to be an utterly venal entity that is openly hostile to the continued existence of both the present culture surrounding games as a whole and their development.
Academia has now irrevocably been tarred with a brush that merits distrust and skepticism when it comes to uninitiated academics prodding and probing, especially when they either consciously or unconsciously carry their biases with them when doing research.
 

 

Said’s critique and exploration of these representations are useful to my exploration of ArmA 3 milsim culture as it frequently involved content derived from past and current military conflicts in the Orient (e.g. Iraq and
Afghanistan), as well as representations of Muslims and Arabs.

Okay, although much of what Arma attempts to do is simply recreate historical or at least somewhat reasonably accurate hypothetical situations, which makes me wonder why you're associating the paragraph mentioned below with the game as if there is some amount of deliberate intent thereof.
 

 

One key aspect of Orientalism is the way in which it creates a binary opposition, a dichotomy between the West and the Orient, between ‘Us’ and the ‘Other.’ Where the West was considered civilized and progressive, the Orient was barbaric and backwards. People from the Orient, particularly Muslims, were perceived of as being lazy, savage and intellectually inferior, while the Westerner was the pinnacle of logic, rational thought and righteous behaviour

 

Thus, Said’s discussion of the historic representations can be directly applied to these new digital representations.

Wow, that is one of the most pretentious and euphemistic ways of claiming Arma 3 promotes in any way shape or form some degree of cultural discrimination or stereotyping.

Literally none of that is present and actively espoused in the game, if you have that preconception coming into an experience such as this game, this game is not going to change it, or is it's job to do so. I also don't believe it will take somebody who is of an undecided opinion of a given demographic and somehow decide as a result of playing, decide that it's a complete and objective source of cultural guidance. The series has always did what it said on the tin: To insert the player into the gritty, often violent and unpleasant and philistine nature of international conflict. Never have I seen any objective endorsements of any particular way of thinking, that is 100% the byproduct of how somebody decides to interpret the experience. Arma and it's predecessors did not intend to inform the player on anything except possibly that war and the deaths within it trivialize life in a rather dehumanizing way.
 

 

One key aspect of Orientalism is the way in which it creates a binary opposition, a dichotomy between the West and the Orient, between ‘Us’ and the 'Other.’

This an immutable consequence of living in the "real world", and since Arma attempts to simulate this aspect of the world in which we live, I'm not sure I really like the implications that the author is making about the social impact the game has, or the responsibility of authors to engage in some gaming-variant of Lysenkoism.
 

 

Problematic representations of the Orient are still found in Western media

Ohh, and here we go, the bias crosses the threshold of obviousness like the frothy head on a pint of lager over the rim of a glass.

"problematic?"To whom? To whose political interest does this pose a problem? Certainly not intelligent people who are able to discern that observing a composite of what happens in the real world is not explicitly reinforcing it. Honestly, I didn't think I'd get only halfway into this before the venal progressive nonsense started to bleed through but I suppose I should have expected nothing less.

It appears to me that the author is using their own biased political sensibilities as a metric to analyse an aspect of culture and technology that does not serve the author's preferred socio-political morality and beliefs.

[pd3 25]

Since I have no reply to pd3 that wouldn't be a personal insult... scratch that, pd3, are you still thinking pre-DayZ or something?

 

@am.mack I am quite interested in whether you interviewed any communities outside of North America and Europe (particularly South America and Asia) or was that in your thesis and I missed it?

Suspend your triggering and be civilized if you're capable of it if you want to have a discussion with me.

[skyace65 19]

just my quick 2 cents on female avatars.

 

Maybe it's not the biggest demographic out there, and maybe adding them wouldn't open the floodgates of new gamers. But at the very least it makes the game look more welcoming and less like a sausage fest, and if more popular shooters also had the option than over time I think we could start to see some demographic changes. Plus it would give the game more media attention from gaming sites.

 

Second thing. From a campaign perspective female models would be great because right now there's very little to distinguish characters from each other, and very few people in the campaign are memorable. I'm going to be honest, first time playing the game I didn't recognize that Conway was the one you played as in the prologue when you meet him later.

[chortles 263]

Mind you skyace65 that Bohemia previously had a screenshot and video of a woman running and swimming... among a bunch of other content that didn't make it into the game; I wouldn't find it plausible to imagine that the devs were somehow unaware of the possibilities, much less the "sausage fest" jokes that players both milsimmer and not have thrown this game's way even before taking mods into account.

[pd3 25]

just my quick 2 cents on female avatars.

 

Maybe it's not the biggest demographic out there, and maybe adding them wouldn't open the floodgates of new gamers. But at the very least it makes the game look more welcoming and less like a sausage fest, and if more popular shooters also had the option than over time I think we could start to see some demographic changes. Plus it would give the game more media attention from gaming sites.

 

Second thing. From a campaign perspective female models would be great because right now there's very little to distinguish characters from each other, and very few people in the campaign are memorable. I'm going to be honest, first time playing the game I didn't recognize that Conway was the one you played as in the prologue when you meet him later.

It doesn't have to be more "welcoming" especially to a demographic of people who don't care enough about the game to want to play it without something as seemingly inconsequential in relative terms.

I don't want people whose lynch-pin criterion for playing the game is something that insignificant as compared to other aspects of the game, the game itself and the community is not well served by pandering to niche special snow-flakery when many other individuals have niche interests that will simply have to be served by the addon community.

Now, the fact that the U.S military is opening combat service roles to women may change that, however I absolutely oppose and detest the idea of capitulating ideologically to an interest and a demographic that DOES NOT CARE about the actual game beyond symbolic pandering.

It's beyond shallow, there is literally nothing wrong with Arma being a "sausage fest", that is implying that there is something morally wrong with the majority of the player base being male. Arma was built around a specific aesthetic and design philosophy that happens to be enjoyed primarily by a male demographic, if women want to play the game; that's great and they are welcome to. However it's very evident most game playing women don't care about games like this, and I would suspect that the majority of female players who genuinely like the series aren't terribly bothered by the fact that female player models aren't included by default (this lack of a feature may change for the next game for the reasons aforementioned).

As I said, it's almost an insulting jab at how shallow culture critics believe women to be that a simple issue of whether an avatar is included by default will change their level of interest in the game, the Arma series is much deeper than that, and we aren't served as a community by attracting or pandering to people who are in fact that shallow as consumers. I'm NOT saying that female gamers are that shallow generally speaking, I'm saying that this sort of game really isn't something that strikes the fancy of many female game players, and there's nothing wrong with that. The reality is, gender and biology does accompany some consistent psychographic features, just look into studies regarding 2d-4d digit ratios in children both male and female.

They've found that women who have a more masculine 2d-4d digit ratio unequivocally preferred activities that were generally enjoyed more by their male counterparts.

Yes, warfare in general and games that try to simulate it generally exude a masculine energy, and if some women find that enjoyable, there should be absolutely nothing stopping them from enjoying the game as it exists. Unless of course as I stated their interests don't actually lie with the game, and instead gratifying themselves by status-signalling and getting other people to pander to them when they don't represent a considerable niche of the gaming demographic.

And what's more, there's absolutely NO moral or utilitarian justification for frivolously trying to attract more of such people for their own sake. If they enjoy the game, great, there's nothing holding them back from playing except perhaps the idiot-goofballs that you encounter at times on public servers, but it doesn't matter whether you're male or female, you're going to find those people.

Arma is fine and as a series has FAR larger concerns than placating proportionately minuscule sub-demographics within its user base, I actually believe based on current real world events regarding gender participation, we may see a built-in female player model. However, the motivating factor should not be individuals with no actual interest in the game itself trying to force others to institute these changes to satisfy some level of political narcissism.

 

[semiconductor 309]

But at the very least it makes the game look more welcoming

This just in: computer games are about having a great time, not about being "welcoming" or catering to desires of Gender Studies graduates and similar "researchers". Stay tuned for more on this story at eleven.

[pwner 35]

This small part of the thesis caught my eye:

Oscar: Hey, we’ve got a random in the chat.

Utah: I think that’s an applicant or something…

Omaha: No, she’s the researcher from the University of Alberta [i think he meant Lethbridge…]

Utah: Oh, that’s the chick.

Evidently, the members of the Unit did not have the same model as I did.

 

Since this exchange, I have been curious as to how Utah and others would have reacted had they not known my gender or misgendered me.

 

The above text was the first interaction the Unit had regarding my presence as a researcher and as a “chick.†Upon reflection, it was an indication of how some of my interactions with ArmA 3 gamers would proceed, though most were pleasant enough. These gaps, I contend, were the result of the predominant model most community members had of ArmA 3 being a landscape populated by males, positioning women as outsiders, even if they were entering the space as academics and not gamers.

From the little snippet that was given, I don't think that exchange between members of The Unit represented what was being described afterwards. ac.mack says that in this exchange she's being positioned as an outsider because she's a woman. The two first lines of dialogue are:

Oscar: Hey, we’ve got a random in the chat.

Utah: I think that’s an applicant or something…

Noting that

The above text was the first interaction the Unit had regarding my presence as a researcher and as a “chick.â€

and thus she probably wasn't around for long. I think that if she was being seen as an outsider, it was because she was an outsider. They thought she was an applicant. She was an unfamiliar face.

 

It's not a big part, but just something that caught my attention.

[pwner 35]

This just in: computer games are about having a great time, not about being "welcoming" or catering to desires of Gender Studies graduates and similar "researchers". Stay tuned for more on this story at eleven.

If BI adds female characters, it's not going to be about "catering to desires of Gender Studies graduates." It's going to be about simulating the other 50% of the human population. The way you put it, it sounds like you're unequivocally opposed to female characters, and I'm sure that's not true.

 

just my quick 2 cents on female avatars.

 

Maybe it's not the biggest demographic out there, and maybe adding them wouldn't open the floodgates of new gamers. But at the very least it makes the game look more welcoming and less like a sausage fest, and if more popular shooters also had the option than over time I think we could start to see some demographic changes. Plus it would give the game more media attention from gaming sites.

Short of marketing directly to females, I don't think females are going to like military shooters. It's supposed to be about (simulated) brutality and violence. Not many females like that. The women that do like that sort of thing are already playing. After all, you don't see John Doe skipping ARMA because there isn't a Kingdom of Narnia faction.

[semiconductor 309]

I think that if she was being seen as an outsider, it was because she was an outsider.

...but why bother writing this when you can make a mountain out of molehill and then uphold a feminist narrative so your "research" might pass as a paper that addresses some imaginary gender issues? <_<

[semiconductor 309]

If BI adds female characters, it's not going to be about "catering to desires of Gender Studies graduates.

Please read the post I was replying to. Thank you.

 

The way you put it, it sounds like you're unequivocally opposed to female characters, and I'm sure that's not true.

The way you put it, it sounds like you're trying to judge me for a statement I haven't made. I'm sure that's not true though.

[Tankbuster 1747]

Blimey. There's nothing intellectual about it. Gamers are humans and suffer the same frailties as the rest of the population, It's just that the arseholes can find a wider, less critical audience on the internet.

[svarun 16]

Congratulations! Good work.

[pd3 25]

If BI adds female characters, it's not going to be about "catering to desires of Gender Studies graduates." It's going to be about simulating the other 50% of the human population.

Lol wut.

If BI adds female characters, I hope it's because there's some reasonable, legitimate real-world pretext to do so other than pandering to a presently near-nonexistent demographic.

Intent matters, it's not about snubbing anyone, it's about prioritization. If there is a legitimate premise to give such a design feature a serious look, then it doesn't matter, nobody's going to get upset.

 

[ac.mack 5]

This small part of the thesis caught my eye:

From the little snippet that was given, I don't think that exchange between members of The Unit represented what was being described afterwards. ac.mack says that in this exchange she's being positioned as an outsider because she's a woman. The two first lines of dialogue are:

Noting that

and thus she probably wasn't around for long. I think that if she was being seen as an outsider, it was because she was an outsider. They thought she was an applicant. She was an unfamiliar face.

 

It's not a big part, but just something that caught my attention.

 

 

Good point. My issue here was the use of "that chick" as it felt rather dismissive and I was concerned I'd be denied access because of the feminist/gamergate shitstorm that was going on at the time. But you're right, I was an outsider in that instance, absolutely, though this issue of "chick" was recurring and with various gamers and groups.  I (perhaps erroneously) felt that my male colleagues likely wouldn't have these sorts of initial interactions. The gender chapter was very reflective, as I was trying to sort out my own feelings about feminism/modeling/gamergate etc. A lot of people like to tell you what and how to write as a grad student...

[ac.mack 5]

Since I have no reply to pd3 that wouldn't be a personal insult... scratch that, pd3, are you still thinking pre-DayZ or something?

 

@am.mack I am quite interested in whether you interviewed any communities outside of North America and Europe (particularly South America and Asia) or was that in your thesis and I missed it?

 

I didn't, no - at least not that I was aware of.   This was mostly for language reasons (Japanese is my only second language and I only have a mid-level fluency these days). But I was also concerned with the idea of representation. I'm not sure any researcher can ever adequately/accurately represent the "other" (as you guys have noted, parts of my analysis don't quite fit your models and vice versa). But, at least if the gamers were of my tribe (North American and European) I might get a little bit closer. I hope that makes sense.