Posted by When one thinks of video game players nowadays, what comes to mind typically tends to be what we call “streamers” or more often “gamers”. The video game industry has taken a huge leap in the past decade, going from a nicher uncool hobby in the 90’s to early 2000’s, to becoming a typical widely accepted hobby, especially among children, teens, and young adults. Game play, specifically, has had a surge in interest over the past decade, earning its own section on Youtube, and even having platforms dedicated to almost purely streaming video games like Twitch. Popular streamers like Ninja, SypherPK, and many more center their content around playing different video games and showing their skills in them. Within these creators, there is often collaboration within them, displaying a different way of community and friendship over a shared interest. However, platforms like Youtube and Twitch did not get popular until 2005 for Youtube and 2011 for Twitch, meaning that many of the platforms currently used were not around during these times. For a hobby like video games that is often perceived as a more solitary activity, the lack of gaming platforms and outlets contribute to the possible feelings of isolation, and contribute to the “loner” stereotype associated with gamers during the early 2000’s and late 90’s.
This is where the evergrowing evolution of the internet comes in. It just so happens that during this time period that the hype around the “.com” websites started, which is often referred to as the .com bubble, which peaked around the 2000 and “the bubble burst” around 2001 and 2002. This craze around the .com websites, and the simple rise of personal websites and the development of community-oriented websites in general opened up a new dimension of internet connectivity and interaction. Popular websites like MySpace, Skype, etc started gaining traction and the users of these websites started forming communities through shared interest through them. This expanded throughout the internet, a wave of new websites all catered to specific genres, topics, and niche interests. These websites did not necessarily become world phenomena, or insanely popular, but a lot of them did reach their target audience. One of these websites was called gamexperts.com.
Game Experts was a website dedicated to a number of categories within the Gaming Community. The topics include a general list of : Games, Demos, Cheats, News, Patches, Screenshots, Previews, Online Games, and a Feedback section . The goal of this website when it was being created was to become the leading gaming information hub on the internet as described by their own document that they give any potential advertisement. The following document is presented below in the “About Gamexperts” section:
(Figure 1: Wayback Machine)
Websites like Game Experts are an example of websites that encapsulate the five aspects of the circuit of culture: Representation, Identity, Production, Consumption, and Regulation. This circuit is a series of interconnected stages that allow one to perform a full study on a piece of media, and in this case, the circuit of culture will be used to analyze and understand the website gamexperts.com
Production
A key point of the circuit of culture is that you can start in any stage, at any point of the wheel, and the study of the media is not completed until every stage is explored, and we have technical “gone all around the wheel”, this makes more sense when one looks at a diagram of this circuit:
(Figure 2: Doing Cultural Studies : The Story of the Sony Walkman)
Focusing more on the production side of this website, Game Experts was founded in October 1998. Although there is not a specific name of a creator or founder, there is a note at the bottom of the website accrediting the creation and maintenance to a company called “Northside Solutions Inc”, which is a company still currently running, that goes by the name nodeup.io, which continues to offer web-hosting as one of their services. Now, a lot of the websites created during this time were individual websites, with their own interests. However, websites with the intent that Game Experts had, of becoming “…one of the top gaming information sites on the internet”, was not designed with the intent to be a small website, meaning that there is the underlying worry of cost, and considering they are using an external company for its hosting and maintenance, the website has its costs and probably a group of people that have to paid, especially considering the abundance of information of the website, and the different types of media displayed through it. This means that they are going to have to find a way to pay their baseline costs and, considering the motto in their document (Figure 1), gain some revenue. Like most websites during this time, and even current ones, there is the typical donation button as seen below:
(Figure 3: Wayback Machine)
This is not the only form of revenue however. Around 1994, the first on website ad was provided by AT&T, and by 1997 there was a surge of advertisements being embedded within websites. With this, came revenue, as for any advertisement there tends to be money attached to them. Game Experts was no different. Considering this website was founded in 1998, this was right on time with the surge of advertisements in websites, and Game Experts did not fall behind. Just like the many other websites during this time, Game Experts included ads throughout its pages, and had a specific button on the bottom right for the website like this:
(Wayback Machine)
Following this link, we are brought to the same page as of Figure 1, which gives information on the website’s origins, figures and most importantly for this part, what they call the “Gamexperts.com Rate Card”. This rate card outlines all the information from rates to placement of ads as seen below:
(Figure 4: Wayback Machine)
The rates around this time were usually $1-5 per thousand impressions, making the rates for this website cheaper than the standard advertising prices. As ads were relatively new, there was really no regulation or consistency around advertisement pricing, and especially for more high-traffic websites. As Game Experts continued to gain popularity, these ads were going to be seen more and more by the visitors, making these rates average for the time being. Now, there is an argument that could be made, that the website itself serves as an advertisement itself for all the different video games it displays, leading us to a different stage in the circuit of culture.
Consumption
When one thinks about consumption, we have to consider all the aspects that come when considering a topic like consumption. The first aspect we should consider is the relationship between the people who produced the website and the people who consume it. In this case, there is a limited amount of information on who created the website, however, considering the time period the website was created, one can assume that the creator/ creators of the website had an interest in video games, weather that be that they themselves where gamers, or they where interested in the impact that gaming had on society, with the amount of content, linking, and categorizing within the website, it is evident that whoever produced it enjoys the content they are producing, and is truly interested in the research and cultural relevance that this website needs to have, as in order for the website to maintain relevance it has to be updated continuously. The audience of this website, similarly to the producer/s, share an interest in video games, in the evolution of the video games, and want to be informed about the latest news, glitches, and cheats related to them. This amount of dedication and interest lays out a foundation for who is consuming this site. Running on pure assumptions, one can infer that the consumers of this site are predominantly male, the earliest statistics I can find is from Statistica, reporting that over 60 percent of gamers were male in 2006. Considering that this site was developed in 1998, and its peak was around 2005, we can assume the demographics include a larger male percentage. Along with this, the considerable amount of information on this site, and especially the cheats aspect, would invite a lot of hardcore gamers, adding to our consumer profile of largely male, hardcore gamers. These assumptions are supported with the self reporting stats displayed in Figure 1, which highlight the 90% male readers with over 37% of them having bought over 16 computer games each. One also finds out that most of these gamers (69%) are PC gamers, which is on par with the rise of popularity in PC gaming displayed by the chart below.
(Figure 5: U.S. Video Gamer Gender Statistics 2018)
Now, in terms of physical consumption, the website does not inherently sell anything, it offers ways to support the website through donations, but it is not necessarily selling you anything through it. However, through the ads in place, although the website, and its content is not making you buy anything, it does provide a space for advertisement to influence its users, and consequently cause some of the consumers to indulge in this aspect of consumerism. On this note, even if the website is not telling you to buy certain games, it is a space that serves as an advertisement in itself of the variety of games that it displays, The different categories demonstrating walkthrough screenshots, and cheats, give the audience a glimpse of what that game has to offer, which inherently contributes to physical consumerism, as after visiting this site, a user could feel more inclined to buy a game they researched through here.
Identity
This leads us to the overall identity of this website. This website is very specifically made for hardcore gamers, gamers looking for cheats, and one can argue that it is a potential place for new gamers or potential gamers to find new and different games to play. In a time before Youtube and streamers existed, sites like these started creating a community within gamers. In an article called, “Rising to Stardom: An Empirical Investigation of the Diffusion of User-Generated Content.” by Liu-Thompkins, Yuping, and Michelle Rogerson, the authors explore and track and investigate how user-generated content (UGC) becomes viral and spreads throughout the internet, it focuses on specific factors like network structure, content traits, and creator characteristics like age, reputation, etc. They analyzed 140 randomly sampled YouTube videos in 2009, tracking their interaction for around two months, and used this data to create a model that helps predict the spread of UGC. This is connected to GameExperts as the production of media, videos, and media on this website is a version of UGC, similar to how creators generate YouTube content. There is a community being created through this website, interacting with UGC, in a Youtube-like manner. This is done through the website’s content and engagement. One specific example of this would be in their preview section. This section is meant to give the users previews on upcoming games, a specific game that caused a lot of interest was called “Zoo Tycoon” :
(Figure 6: Zoo Tycoon: Complete Collection)
Underneath the description and news of this game, there is a comment section that mimics a present day Reddit, or youtube comment section displaying and discussing this upcoming game as seen below:
(Figure 7: Wayback Machine)
These interactions and engagement with the site give us insight in the way these communities engaged with each other, and with the content. Highlighting the way they are connected through this shared interest. Unfortunately, when one speaks of identity, and especially the identity of a site, the consumers and the people engaging with this content is not the only one that matters. In an article called “Geek or Chic? Emerging Stereotypes of Online Gamers.” by Rachel Kowert, Mark D. Griffiths, and Julian A. Oldmeadow, the paper discusses a study on the portrayal of online gamers, including negative, exaggerated stereotypes, and positive character traits. They focus on research with around 340 participants who took surveys answering the way they perceived gamers within their own personal beliefs and how they thought other people perceived gamers. The paper studies how the negative stereotypes associated with gamers are often spread through a sociocultural level, which contributes to the way that these stereotypes are the ones that are being heard, in contrast to a cognitive perspective which refers to an individual’s mind and their perception of these social cues. In studies like this, we see the perception of other people into gaming culture and “gamer”, websites like GameExperts provide a different perspective of these individuals, emphasizing their intelligence and skills (hacks, cheats), while highlighting the sense of community building, contrasting popular belief. Now, only someone who is actively engaging in these communities will be presented with this contrast in perspective, and especially during this time, these two different perspectives will continue to remain disconnected as gaming has still not been integrated as mainstream media yet.
Regulation
The regulation of video games has always been a controversial topic, whether that be enforcing laws to access mature content, like video games enforcing ID’s for the purchase of video games with mature content, to Agreements within certain games. An example of this is the typical End User License Agreements that one usually has to accept before playing video games. This is where Game Experts and the media displayed in it could potentially be breaking these agreements. Specifically the cheat section.. Cheats have always arisen ethical debates, as it disrupts the fairness of the game and impacts other user’s experience within the games. Not only this, but as these cheats are displayed on a site, the distribution of these cheat codes could potentially be another breachment of these agreements. In the blog post “The Ethics of Game Cheating and Hacking”, takes a more modern talk on hacking, and cheating in games. It goes into the way that because of this kind of cheating, and “hacks” have caused companies to invest in anti-cheating sectors, and have community guidelines that users have to agree to. This also affects players, especially multiplayer games whose gaming experience will be affected by other players cheating, causing bans and temporary bans to players who use them. Although Game Expert is not directly responsible for the decisions gamers make, the exposure of such cheats can influence players to use them, as they are so easily accessible, therefore impacting their personal experience with the games and those who are playing with them. On another note, it was not until 2012 that mature content was regulated against minors with the arise of mass shootings and their potential link to video games as demonstrated in the article “A Timeline of Video Game Controversies”, this timeline gives an outline of certain video game controversies and regulations, the impact they had on policies, and how video games themselves were affected by events happening. This means that sites like this, with violent video games like SWAT, Gore, and Ballistics have very minimal regulation on their content and who accesses their content.
Representation
A website like this offers an early 2000’s perspective on gaming culture. It is sites like this, and the communities that they started to form that commenced the movement that started changing the popular views and beliefs on gaming and contrasting the stereotypes surrounding this topic. In the article “Video games can reach everyone”, the newspaper column discusses the cultural impact that gaming has had on society, they discuss the instance of a concert in which gamers and Anime watchers cosplayed and attended this concert as characters they resonate with. This article demonstrates how gaming started becoming part of mainstream culture and the way that these games resonate with a human’s personal identity, forming a community of individuals with similar sentiment. It demonstrates the impact that the exposure of gaming through websites like Game Experts affected people to a much deeper level than simply playing the games, it resonated with them. Through this, there is a shift in the way video games start being considered. In the newspaper column, “Conference debates video games as art”, the excerpt discusses the role of video games on an artistic level. Although in the beginning there is quite a pushback, as people do not tend to see video games as art, the author shows the evolving cultural impact of video games, as the conversations of them being considered art, or of artistic value have started to arise, like this article demonstrates, beginning a cultural debate on video games being a storytelling and creative form of work. The vast different genres of video games gives an opportunity for people with different interests to resonate with games, and the developers to start developing games as stories, and pieces of art creating a much more complex view of gaming. Through the way Game Expert displays their different games:
(Figure 8: Wayback Machine)
One can already see different types of games and stories that can be displayed through games, and the variety of genres and topics that can lay the foundation for these games. As gaming started becoming a more mainstream hobby, websites like Game Experts are contributors to the exposure of different games to a new audience looking to become part of this community. In another newspaper column called “Gaming industry should be embraced”, the evolution of film is tied to the possibilities of the video game industry and how video games are starting to enter more academic and artistic spaces. The author describes a shift in the view and consideration of Video Games as they have started to be considered pieces of artistic and academic value. Ranging from areas like developing these games to touching on subjects like Computer Science and Engineering, appealing to more artistic, and film studies, developing cohesive storylines, with appealing visuals, etc. This continues to demonstrate the cultural, artistic, and academic shift happening in regard to video games, a sentiment that continues to affect this community in the present day, as these stories continue evolving and attracting new gamers.
The last clear capture of game experts was around 2012, as one can assume other mediums of gaming became much more popular, reducing the popularity of a website like this. This is the last capture of Game Experts:
(Figure 9: Wayback Machine)
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Cultural History of the Internet 