Culture Study Podcast - Falling in Love with Video Games as an Adult

00:00:00.000 When I was little, I had older parents and they were somewhat technophobic, so long before

00:00:05.680 I ever laid hands on a game controller, I used to just sit and read video game magazines,

00:00:10.600 look at the little screenshots, read the words, and just imagine, just imagine how good these

00:00:15.620 things were going to be when I finally got to play one.

00:00:17.660 So weirdly, my first video game memories are not of actually playing them, they're of reading

00:00:21.680 about Nintendo games in magazines in the supermarket.

00:00:30.000 This is the Culture Study Podcast, and I'm Anne-Hellen Peterson.

00:00:36.100 And I am Keza McDonald. I'm the video games editor at The Guardian

00:00:39.540 and the author of a new book about Nintendo called Super Nintendo,

00:00:43.620 How One Japanese Company Unlocked the Power of Play.

00:00:47.180 Can you remember which games seemed most vivid in your mind

00:00:51.980 that you read about in the supermarket checkout line?

00:00:54.760 It was always Nintendo's games, so Mario and Zelda.

00:00:59.120 When I was growing up, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System had basically just come out, I think, by the time I was this age.

00:01:05.800 This is when I was about six or seven years old, so it hadn't been out for very long.

00:01:09.440 And it was slightly before the PlayStation became the biggest thing in the world.

00:01:13.760 So all of the pictures that I was sort of imagining these games from, there were these beautiful pixel art, really colorful.

00:01:21.480 They looked like the fantasy worlds that I had, like the fantasy novels I read all the time as a little kid.

00:01:26.860 they look like that but in a game like interactive so it was and the legend of zelda linked to the

00:01:31.880 past i remember that was the first game that really caught my eye properly and then i didn't

00:01:35.840 get it when i finally got a games console i didn't get it for ages like months afterwards because it

00:01:39.800 was so expensive when i finally got to play it it felt like this like fabled myth that had been

00:01:44.780 handed down through generations even though it probably been about six months i i hate being

00:01:50.060 like back in my day the games were like this but i do think that there is something really

00:01:55.140 interesting about like the way that i started playing you would like i had a i had a nintendo

00:02:01.500 just an old school nintendo but then also you would like rent games just for the weekend

00:02:06.760 and like for blockbuster yes like what a different experience to only have your hands on a game

00:02:13.240 for a short period of time and then maybe return to it the next weekend or like a month later and

00:02:19.580 try to conquer it whereas now it's just like everyone has everything all the time almost

00:02:24.760 yeah and you know that experience of like trying to pick a game you could probably finish in a

00:02:28.700 weekend totally my my brother and i would be done looking at all the shelves being like right well

00:02:33.460 that's a huge role-playing game we're not getting anywhere with that yeah let's try and pick

00:02:37.440 something else but we we played some real stinkers from blockbuster some really bad games and i'm

00:02:44.360 sure this is the case now but like just there's so many esoteric games that you'll like think that

00:02:49.300 you're bringing up something that like is a point of familiarity for everyone your age and they're

00:02:53.920 like i've never heard of that game in my life what are you talking about yes that happens to

00:02:57.760 me all the time unsurprisingly perhaps given that i'm a games journalist but i'll be like hey does

00:03:02.260 anyone remember that game on the ds where you made singing uh singing jellyfish and they're

00:03:07.000 like people like what are you talking about electroplankton it was called electroplankton

00:03:10.240 does nobody nobody else remember this my version of this is the game california games if anyone

00:03:15.300 has heard of that please come into the comments um but also even like what i think of as standards

00:03:20.280 it's like bubble bobble if you're maybe just two years too old or young like those are not

00:03:25.820 seminal for you oh yeah because games were changing so fast as well in the 90s and early 2000s so

00:03:31.660 you'd play something and then a year later it'd be completely obsolete which it just it's not like

00:03:36.620 that these days you can play a game from 10 years ago now and it still it still looks pretty good

00:03:40.440 it's still relevant so we are so excited here at culture study about your new book super nintendo

00:03:46.340 So excited that we're doing like an actual Q&A with you in the newsletter about it.

00:03:52.180 But for those people who are not reading every issue of the newsletter, can you tell us a little bit about the book and how it came to be?

00:04:01.560 So the book is called Super Nintendo, the game changing company that unlocked the power of play.

00:04:06.200 And it is a cultural history book about the Japanese games company that is the longest running video game company that we have.

00:04:14.320 the company that made mario zelda pokemon and many many many other games that are very foundational

00:04:22.240 to a lot of people's um understanding of games so the reason i wanted to write about nintendo

00:04:27.920 was because it was my own route into video games it was my my first games console it was the

00:04:33.060 the games i fell in love with when i was a child um and now i'm 37 and i'm a games journalist for

00:04:39.220 living and have been for 20 years so it's a very important company to me but also for many many

00:04:44.380 millions of other people nintendo is also their route into games and i think if you if you want

00:04:50.040 to understand human beings you need to understand play because we we're a species that plays into

00:04:55.300 adulthood very few creatures do that um and we need to kind of keep room for fun and for play

00:05:02.040 in our lives and if you want to understand play then video games are a really important thing to

00:05:07.380 understand because it's kind of the modern world's fastest routes into play and then nintendo itself

00:05:12.920 is a really good way to understand video games what they're about why people love them how they're

00:05:17.520 made you know if you if you get if you get nintendo then you probably get video games as a

00:05:21.820 whole and you'll understand this like what makes games so magic for the people who love them this

00:05:26.300 is what i so appreciated about the book was this core of like how do you make play like how do you

00:05:31.780 make it vivid not just how do you make it addictive it's more like how do you make something joy how

00:05:36.900 do you make a game joyful how do you make it something that makes you actually feel good and

00:05:41.140 not like kind of like icky and exhausted when you've experienced it do you know what I mean

00:05:46.680 that's so right and like the idea of play being an intentional thing that we do you know it's not

00:05:52.040 just wasting time it's not just filling our time it's like how do we play in a way that's enriching

00:05:56.460 in a way that kind of feeds our brains and is creative and you know if I'm sitting there

00:06:00.760 scrolling Instagram as we all do sometimes for 40 minutes then I will feel bad after I'll be like oh

00:06:06.060 i didn't really choose to do that i just kind of got captured by that algorithm whereas like a good

00:06:10.880 video game that's fun that i'm having you know that that's that's uh you know a choice that i'm

00:06:15.180 making to engage with it i don't feel like captured by it you know i think big tech has

00:06:19.260 kind of colonized the idea of play right it's all you know come back every day for your bonus gems

00:06:24.160 on your mobile game or whatever and that's just not that's not for me what games are about you

00:06:27.840 know it's about this intentional choosing of a fun time and good game design for me is like you

00:06:32.960 know how do we feed your brain how do we like feed your your that that need for fun that you

00:06:36.920 have the child inside all of us like you want to activate that with with with video games that are

00:06:41.020 good and that's that's why they're great when they are great this is such a great segue into

00:06:45.600 the theme of the episode which is about women and non-binary people who get into gaming maybe later

00:06:51.340 in life and i was so struck by how many questions we received that really talked about like how do

00:07:00.460 I not feel bad right especially as a woman as someone who is like socialized as a woman for

00:07:06.520 playing games like I knew that we would probably address this in some way but the fact that we got

00:07:11.980 I think like a dozen questions that were specifically trying to hone in on this question of

00:07:16.540 like I feel bad or I like I think badly of my husband but I still want to play like all of 0.51

00:07:22.860 these things that are reproducing these norms about essentially women shouldn't play exactly

00:07:28.780 Exactly. And that goes really deep. It's because that doesn't just get, women also shouldn't do

00:07:33.200 sports for fun. Women shouldn't do reading for fun. It has to be reading for self-enrichment 1.00

00:07:37.860 in some way. Sports have to be for exercise and like, and regimening the body. Like it can't be

00:07:42.980 for play. 100%. You can't just eat for fun. It has to be, you know, some kind of insane

00:07:47.040 nutritional thing that's doing the absolute optimal thing for your menopausal bone health

00:07:50.120 or whatever. You know, it's just, everything has to be kind of put through this lens of,

00:07:54.120 of like productivity of some kind and things are marketed and branded to women as like this is

00:07:59.820 something that will improve you or that will help you to be better at being a woman do you know what

00:08:03.860 i mean and games games are darn like that games are just they're just fun and i i honestly have 0.94

00:08:09.160 met so many um women and girls who played a lot as kids maybe played a lot of games as kids and

00:08:14.920 then suddenly felt like they weren't allowed to anymore at some point maybe in adolescence or

00:08:18.740 maybe college kind of age and then just never really played them again but still have like a

00:08:23.100 real fantastically fond memories of play and then they come back to games sometimes much later in

00:08:28.020 life and rediscover it and it's it's i see that really very often it's it's surprising how often

00:08:31.980 there's like this big gap you know i think so much of the conversation has been about like how it's

00:08:36.880 really difficult to be a woman in gaming right like in the larger like discursive sphere online

00:08:43.700 sphere of gaming and how there's a lot of toxic masculinity and like shaming and trolling and

00:08:51.240 attack and like everything to do with Gamergate and all of that right like that's so real but then

00:08:56.860 I think and this is something that I'm so excited to unpack in this episode there is a lot of

00:09:01.740 self-imposed understanding of like who who is allowed to game or to take time to game

00:09:07.500 absolutely and it does come from both sides as well because we do the reason we read about video

00:09:12.240 gaming being difficult for women is because it has been I've lived this yeah I've been a I've

00:09:16.760 been you know a gamer since i was you know six and a professional like games journalist since i was

00:09:21.800 16 and over that time i have had some pretty bad experiences of misogyny in the games industry in

00:09:27.720 lots of different ways but i also almost out of sheer stubbornness i was a bit like no i belong

00:09:32.240 i belong here um and if you don't think so i will simply stay i will simply just out of sheer

00:09:37.660 obstinacy i will i will become a veteran of this space um but yeah it's so it doesn't come from

00:09:45.040 nowhere this perception of games as being unwelcoming to women but i do genuinely believe

00:09:50.020 it's an awful lot better now than it ever has been um gaming communities are a lot more broad

00:09:54.560 and more diverse and also like everyone kind of plays games now like millennials we're all grown

00:09:58.580 up we're all pushing 40 or we're already there and like we play games we understand them really

00:10:03.160 well and there's no longer this like it's just teen boys like teen boys are now actually not

00:10:08.020 even the largest subsection of gamers by a long shot um so that's that's nice it's it's helping

00:10:13.700 Yeah. And also a lot of people who make games are women now. Like when I was a teenager, I got my first jobs on gaming magazines. There was maybe one other woman in the building wherever I was, like one. And there were maybe three or four others in the country. And now it's much more like 50-50 or 60-40 in the games media as to gender representation. And players too, it's more like 50-50. Certain genres are more male dominated, but gaming in general, it's just a lot better than it has been. 1.00

00:10:40.780 Okay, so our first question is going to get into some of these stereotypes that aren't necessarily true of gamers.

00:10:47.620 It comes from Teresa, and Melody's going to read it.

00:11:10.780 inform more women getting into gaming life oh wow there's so much in this question

00:11:16.500 did one of my ex-girlfriends write this

00:11:18.860 i do feel there can be a perception can't there of gaming being very infantile

00:11:27.640 i wonder if we could like this is connected to long-standing perceptions about

00:11:35.080 what gaming does to people like the especially like even the word anesthetizing right like very

00:11:41.940 specific moral panic that has accompanied games from the 80s to today so can you talk a little

00:11:51.040 bit about where you think these stereotypes like how these stereotypes developed and we can start

00:11:55.920 there interestingly in the 1980s a lot of women played games like computer and made games too

00:12:02.080 like some of the um very successful games from the 80s and 90s were written and made by women

00:12:06.840 but then something happened in the early 90s where companies like sega and playstation decided to

00:12:12.620 market very very strongly at young men like so strongly young men yeah if you look at like print

00:12:18.460 ads from like the magazines of the time and the newspapers it's like literally you'll ignore your

00:12:22.300 girlfriend for the new game boy it's it's really very targeted lara croft and tomb raider i think

00:12:27.240 we all remember how she was pitched i mean she she's become a very unlikely feminist hero because

00:12:31.640 we simply had no one else but at the time she was pitched as like you know very much for the male

00:12:36.960 gaze so um that sort of tied into this idea of gaming as being an infantile thing for for boys

00:12:44.000 um and another thing that has happened is that games used to be something that people played

00:12:48.780 together sitting on the couch and then when the internet took off right now when we are socially

00:12:54.560 gaming we're playing with our friends but we're doing it alone in front of us it looks like we're

00:12:58.640 alone even though we might be having you know a wonderfully social time it looks like you're

00:13:03.680 sitting there with a headset on isolating yourself from the world even if what you're doing in that

00:13:07.120 moment is connecting and spending time with your friends a lot of guys and you know i do this too

00:13:12.900 but a lot of guys like to you know their friendships they like to do something together

00:13:16.220 rather than necessarily like get together and just have a chat they like to do stuff together

00:13:20.160 and gaming is one of those things where you can be you can you get your buddies together for a

00:13:23.580 squad and call of duty and maybe it's easy to have a chat while you're you know uh also fighting a

00:13:28.480 bunch of other side by side activities this is something i was actually interviewing someone

00:13:32.420 about male friendship and they were talking about how like dudes just love to do things side by side

00:13:37.040 not looking at one another that's absolutely it and like so games can be a version of that and so

00:13:42.060 if it looks like you know a guy is not developing a social circles at all or like isolating himself

00:13:47.800 with a game but that may not actually be the case at all um another thing that kind of jumped out

00:13:52.040 at me there was this idea of like uh um not creating or learning games can involve an awful

00:13:57.480 lot of creating and learning it depends on the game but but they definitely can but yeah so these

00:14:01.520 these stereotypes from i would say kind of the mid late 90s really they've they've been

00:14:05.520 astonishingly persistent and i still still to this day as a you know woman in her late 30s now get

00:14:11.160 asked like you know really girls play these games now still now so it's it's it's understandable

00:14:16.280 that there is this uh disconnect i will say also like um it doesn't really matter what it is that

00:14:21.940 someone is doing if they're ignoring you you're gonna hate whatever that is whether it's watching

00:14:26.720 football all day or whether it's playing games or whatever it is like if someone's just a bad

00:14:31.000 partner and it's going to just ignore you in favor of whatever the hobby or other distracting thing

00:14:37.860 is there then that's you know that's understandable that would create resentment some of the like the

00:14:42.540 best couple relationships that i know of are people who actually play games together like

00:14:47.140 it's just such an incredible bonding experience for them um but i love i love pinpointing this

00:14:52.800 moment in the 90s because I certainly experienced this and I think you know the question asker says

00:14:58.780 elder millennial and millennial girlfriends exactly this yeah my ideas about who played

00:15:04.020 games were so strongly formed in my teens and early 20s and this is when as you pointed out

00:15:09.680 Sega was making this turn like I'm even thinking about the masculinized fonts like yes the way that

00:15:17.180 Sega appeared on the screen the color of the game council like everything and also just the

00:15:23.460 popularity of Mortal Kombat uh very violent games yeah right all of these incredibly masculinized

00:15:30.040 games like to me that all screamed like these games aren't for you and then they would play

00:15:34.500 them together and I was like I don't want to play that game with you like I'll play bubble

00:15:39.380 with you but I don't like I have no interest in taking up that subjectivity myself yeah I do feel

00:15:45.480 like the nadir of this was in about 2005 that was the point at which it was that ironically the year

00:15:50.340 i joined like the video games and she but about that kind of time when it was like every single

00:15:54.420 game had a identical like shaven-headed white man with a gun every single one there's an amazing

00:16:01.160 like there's an amazing like grid of them that you can find there's like a meme which is a grid

00:16:04.620 of 12 like 12 games that came out in 2005 to 2008 with identical male protagonists there was a point

00:16:10.720 where only 2% of games had a female protagonist

00:16:13.060 in the mid-2000s, which is wild.

00:16:16.300 Wild!

00:16:17.420 Absolutely wild.

00:16:18.340 And now it's more like, you know, 30%,

00:16:20.220 which is just getting somewhere.

00:16:21.700 But, you know, there was a point where a video game character 1.00

00:16:23.860 was more likely to be a cartoon animal than a woman,

00:16:27.040 which really says a lot. 0.99

00:16:28.800 I have a friend from college who, when they played Mario Kart,

00:16:32.000 he would play the princess, and because he played the princess,

00:16:35.380 they nicknamed him Box, 0.97

00:16:36.960 which is like a pejorative word for vagina like and that is so sad it's still his nickname is 0.86

00:16:44.360 because he played the the princess the one female game like character that you could choose but i do

00:16:52.500 think like the contrast with nintendo is is kind of interesting to me especially like just in terms

00:16:58.180 of like stereotypical gendering one of the things i love too about the book is how you trace the

00:17:04.640 evolution of zelda so what was happening with zelda at that moment zelda um was a it's 40 years

00:17:11.800 old yeah this year zelda so like i know it's wild right um so it starred it stars a little kid

00:17:17.860 basically and one of this is link the star of zelda is actually not zelda zelda's the princess

00:17:22.680 the star is this wee guy link in the in the little green hat um and he was he was a little kid um or

00:17:28.280 kind of an adolescent in most of the zelda games and the principle of the zelda games up until kind

00:17:33.480 of the late 90s was rescue the princess right it was his quest was always zelda would would uh

00:17:38.420 need you know that he'd have to save the world via saving princess zelda um that was generally

00:17:44.860 the vibe and um as the it's very interesting as the games got more sophisticated two things

00:17:49.980 happened firstly link got kind of he got a very like androgynous vibe in the in the 2000s he

00:17:55.280 became more of a kind of quite gender neutral character i found him very appealing as a kind

00:17:59.060 gender questioning teenager because he was such a you know he was a boy but not really you know

00:18:03.740 he was kind of somewhere in between um with his big floppy blonde fringe that i don't at all have

00:18:07.880 any any resemblance to and um you know so i always found linked and he he's a character that you can

00:18:14.120 kind of see as genderless or as either gender depending on how you connect and as a result

00:18:18.860 zelda has a really big female fan base probably because of this but then zelda herself the 0.64

00:18:22.640 princess she starts to take a more active role in the games in the mid 2000s and she starts to star

00:18:27.380 in the games alongside link and then finally last year there was a zelda game that actually 0.53

00:18:32.580 you play as zelda rather than link so she kind of uh she mirrors the trajectory of game character

00:18:38.080 female game characters in general in the whole rest of the games industry and that she went from

00:18:41.780 object to co-star to now star as well or just exclusive star and that is a very interesting

00:18:49.100 mirror of how female game characters have gone i love that i do think like going back to this

00:18:55.000 question from Teresa I I do wonder how much like you know I talked about how I define myself against 0.82

00:19:02.100 that like as a teenager and I think that people now like they're like I don't want that in a

00:19:06.820 partner and as you point out really what you don't want is someone who like ignores you all the time

00:19:11.440 and what you don't want is a 15 year old boy like no nobody wants that in a partner somebody

00:19:17.100 behaves like a teenager and they're mapping that understanding of someone like if you're looking

00:19:21.740 at someone's online dating profile and you see that maybe what you're actually seeing is 15 year

00:19:26.940 old boy because that's your understanding of like how those boys behave and like some people um and

00:19:32.680 some some guys some people do have a problematic relationship with gaming right but in the same

00:19:36.640 way as everybody can have a problematic relationship with pretty much anything but you know one thing i

00:19:40.860 will say from the perspective of a lifelong gamer boy like with an eye um is that is that like

00:19:46.260 gamers are very playful people like that can actually bring quite a lot it can it can actually

00:19:49.960 be a plus i think yes absolutely and you know i love like even talking to the kids in my life

00:19:55.520 about the games that they're playing like if you actually listen it's actually very interesting

00:20:01.020 like you just have to listen instead of letting it gloss over like sometimes i let it just like

00:20:05.840 go over me like a waterfall while they're telling me all of this downloading all of this information

00:20:10.960 about all these characters that they're playing but if i actually like listen and watch them play

00:20:15.140 Like it becomes, they're trying to tell you something about what they find interesting.

00:20:19.900 Exactly, yeah.

00:20:20.560 And if you listen to what it is that activates someone about a game, if you listen to what

00:20:24.340 that is, then you learn something about them, definitely.

00:20:26.040 In the same way as someone's favorite album and favorite book will tell you a lot about

00:20:29.460 who they are.

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00:24:53.720 Love. Okay, next question. This is about cozy gaming and it comes from Hannah. How do you think

00:25:04.380 the rise of cozy gaming on social media platforms has influenced women and non-binary folks to try

00:25:10.440 gaming? Is it the lack of the toxic masculinity, real and or perceived, in this cozy subgenre that

00:25:17.940 breaks the initial barrier? Or could it be something else? Okay, so first, for people who

00:25:22.600 are not cozy gamers, what is a cozy game like? Cozy games are games that prioritize connection

00:25:31.020 and building things. So they're nonviolent, there's never violence, or very rarely anything

00:25:35.100 reproaching violence. They tend to be about building either a community or building buildings

00:25:40.040 or like making a town something like that it's they're very sedate their pace they're very low

00:25:45.100 stakes there's not threat there's not violence there's not failure so they're a very different

00:25:49.240 kind of um they have they have a different they're very different feel to like grand theft auto or

00:25:54.360 something like that or mario where you're trying to complete a challenge like cozy games it's not

00:25:58.260 generally try to complete this challenge it's just exist in this world and have this experience

00:26:02.420 right and like how do you feel about this idea that it's an attempt to woo people who aren't men

00:26:09.220 into the gaming world was this accidental like how do you trace the the development of these

00:26:14.680 games because i to me it sounds like sim city yeah like sim city is a cozy game actually you

00:26:19.880 know i think i think there are a lot of kind of older computer games that were about sort of

00:26:23.440 building a civilization in some way i mean the game civilization has a lot of war in it but there

00:26:27.680 were a lot of other games like sim city like the sims the sims was the first i think the first kind

00:26:31.760 of real inflection point of the cozy game because it was a game about like helping people through

00:26:35.680 your life and there wasn't like traditional gaming stuff like levels to complete and bosses

00:26:39.440 to beat and all that yeah um and then animal crossing which a lot of people will be familiar

00:26:43.880 with is uh another uh very important cozy game it's about just going to move to a new town and

00:26:49.940 then you like collect furniture and you know water flowers and chill out on the beach and just have a

00:26:53.920 nice time and uh it's become a really really big genre in the last kind of five and ten years

00:26:58.960 yeah and part of the reason for that is there was this massive untapped market of like people who

00:27:03.340 just weren't interested in like violence or competition in games and that was a market that

00:27:07.640 nobody was really looking at in the 90s and you know game developers are always looking for new

00:27:13.020 ways to new types of fun there's actually a really interesting uh game design philosophy called

00:27:18.780 tendon befriend which is like it's a different like fight or flight most games work on fight

00:27:23.580 or flight right you're either running from something or you're you're in combat of some

00:27:27.140 kind tendon befriend is a different gaming experience where it's that the point of the

00:27:30.820 game is like it's almost like oxytocin based it's a different a different brain chemical that you get

00:27:34.960 rather than just constant dopamine um so yeah it's a it's a very very popular genre and it does

00:27:40.280 a lot of different people play cozy games but it's got more women than men play cozy games and i think

00:27:45.420 that games that embrace you know also another example of this is narrative games so games that

00:27:50.640 the primary objective is to experience a story those also attract different people from you know

00:27:55.280 your traditional shoot the aliens kind of situation i always like at least with the the

00:28:00.880 early narrative games i was like stop telling me the story because it was always like a guy

00:28:06.020 like speaking in low tones about like whatever the story was and i know the stories are much

00:28:11.020 better at like and you'd have to like read it again yeah exactly um i i do like you know tend

00:28:22.040 and befriend it does strike me as like tapping into these like traditionally socialized feminine

00:28:28.480 characteristics of like even though there are low stakes you're still trying to like be productive

00:28:35.500 almost in your game does that make sense well yeah like i've seen the thing is i have seen like

00:28:39.920 there's this stereotype that isn't true that women are more casual gamers right like women will have

00:28:44.900 they'll have a little go but they're not that into it i have seen women absolutely rinse animal 0.92

00:28:49.400 crossing for all it's worth for 400 hours you know like i have seen women just get right in 1.00

00:28:54.100 there in the sims and create entire like parallel universes and apply all of their intelligence and 1.00

00:28:58.740 commitment to these games in the same way as as like anyone would and um yeah like the the effort

00:29:05.700 that goes in and the the enjoyment that comes out it's just a different kind of flavor of it i think

00:29:09.940 but yeah i think maybe maybe it is true that because there's this element of like you make

00:29:13.800 something or you create something you or you manage and run something perhaps that feels like

00:29:17.540 a more acceptable version of fun like a more a sanctioned fun no like I should have taken cues

00:29:24.640 from my obsession with SimCity that like I love like creating systems and infrastructure and like

00:29:31.440 looking at like analytics and all that sort of thing Melody Rollercoaster Tycoon's another one

00:29:36.620 for that Melody you got really into Stardew Valley during the pandemic yeah I started with

00:29:43.040 Animal Crossing and then after I was just trying to look at my stats I'm almost positive I have

00:29:49.300 1200 hours on Animal Crossing that was in basically like hardcore like every day for two years

00:29:55.400 and and then it kind of got to the point where there was nothing I could do anymore and then I

00:29:59.260 played Stardew Valley and then I got I almost completed it I have a 99% completion I'm short

00:30:05.580 like one craft and then I was just like I can't do this anymore but that was like another full

00:30:11.420 year at least what what did you love about it the tend and befriend i mean i because i never played

00:30:18.860 video games before the pandemic and then i saw people posting screenshots from animal crossing

00:30:24.180 and i was like this looks so cute and if i don't get this i will die and it was like it was impossible

00:30:29.520 to get a switch so there was like a whole a whole adventure just even getting the console

00:30:34.280 um but then it just became like it became my primary hobby of playing that because i could

00:30:40.900 play with my sister we could visit each other's islands and then we also joined this Facebook

00:30:45.320 group where we could go visit strangers islands to like collect furniture that wasn't available

00:30:49.980 on our islands and catch falling stars and so it was a stand-in for community in a time when we

00:30:56.540 couldn't do that yeah yeah 100% like that that experience is is also one I've heard a lot like

00:31:01.640 a lot of people discovered games with Animal Crossing during the pandemic because we couldn't

00:31:05.240 hang out anymore yeah yeah um and it was such a lovely cute adorable place to be yeah but the

00:31:12.220 thing i loved about stardew valley too was there's a story there that you're progressing and so and

00:31:17.100 it takes place like over seasons over years and so yes you're tending and befriending but you're

00:31:22.980 also working out a story yeah yeah um okay next question this is a similar question but i think

00:31:30.340 we're we're trying to hone in more on some of these like ingrained ideas this comes from

00:31:35.600 kristin i've been in love with gaming since my dad brought home an atari 800 excel computer when

00:31:41.120 i was five i also never personally met any female gamers my age or older who are part of the same

00:31:46.940 conservative high demand religion i recently left is there any data on the correlation between women

00:31:52.580 who game and those whose beliefs stress more traditional gender roles related i'm also a

00:31:57.740 member of a retro gamers club and a significant portion of the women in the group happen to be

00:32:02.420 bisexual or lesbian could it be that video gaming largely being considered a male interest meant

00:32:08.720 that women who have been gaming for decades are more likely to be gender non-conforming in other

00:32:13.720 ways such an interesting question right oh i love it it's it's really you know there's actually

00:32:20.000 quite a lot of data about this um so in the in the uk people who are game developers or work in the

00:32:26.540 games industry 23% of them identify as LGBTQ wow which is which is almost 10 times what the kind

00:32:34.280 of general population like census data would say yeah and kind of twice what conventional wisdom

00:32:38.900 would say so it is a huge it's a high proportion now I have a theory about this which is that um

00:32:44.380 for millennials gaming kind of attracts misfits of like various stripes like you know because when

00:32:48.500 you were if you played games in the 90s then you were probably you were probably called a nerd it 0.98

00:32:52.160 was probably like in some way you were a misfit um and I think a lot of queer people have that

00:32:56.260 experience as well I'm a bisexual woman and I grew up like you know getting picked on for being gay

00:33:02.220 all the time and like gaming was like a space where that didn't happen for me it was a it was

00:33:06.520 it was also a place where you could experiment with like your presentation and all sorts of stuff

00:33:10.300 like that so gaming was like a really important thing for for me growing up queer and then I hear

00:33:15.480 that a lot from a lot of other people too and then I think also if you if you grew up being a bit

00:33:19.920 nerdy and maybe being picked on then you just you're kind of used to just sort of forging you're

00:33:24.520 not worried about what people think of you or like oh I shouldn't do this because people you know

00:33:28.620 people don't expect that of me because you already have to question yourself and you already have to

00:33:32.480 like establish like who you are think about it a lot more a younger age and so I do think there

00:33:37.240 is a high correlation between people who like really love games and people who are who are

00:33:41.780 queer or women who are gender non-conforming it's it's a it's a really interesting piece of piece

00:33:46.080 of data that I've noticed yeah that the point about like how no one else in her conservative

00:33:51.580 of high demand religion were also gaming i just like i'm thinking about the people that i know

00:33:57.700 who are still in or were grew up in those sorts of religions and like of course there wouldn't

00:34:03.920 be any time for gaming like you're too busy doing all of the incredible demands of performing

00:34:10.240 femininity and domesticity in the home but that doesn't fit into like play does it no not at all

00:34:16.740 especially if that's a boy thing these are probably the same people who would have got

00:34:19.920 criticized for playing with uh boy toys like trains instead of dolls you know it's the same

00:34:24.280 kind of situation right right and like maybe you can go play basketball like for your high school

00:34:29.640 team but like not after that right like that's you know there are in some in in many cultures

00:34:36.520 of course very strictly enforced gender norms about what success will play for boys and girls

00:34:40.200 even at like age three yes there's a great experiment um where uh the researchers put

00:34:46.120 little babies like little one and a half year old babies in dresses or not but like not corresponding

00:34:50.660 to their gender and like the way that then the adults in the room would then the think the toys

00:34:54.580 that they would offer the things that they would be given to play with would differ simply depending

00:34:58.600 on whether the little baby had a dress on or not so it's really deeply ingrained this idea of like

00:35:02.700 what's gender appropriate play and what isn't and i see this actually in like ipad games that kids

00:35:08.960 start playing when they're younger and how they like so many more boys that i know get like onto

00:35:16.680 like the minecraft route right like socialized into that route in part because their other friends

00:35:22.660 are playing and that sort of thing and then like the girls that i've observed they get bored with

00:35:27.780 their ipads in part because like the games that were that are targeted at them are like put the

00:35:34.260 lipstick on the dolly they're like this is boring yeah exactly boring and lame exactly i mean don't

00:35:39.400 get me wrong like i mean barbie horse adventures absolutely slapped like when it was a really

00:35:43.880 really good game that was aimed at girls there's a lot of girls who have there were these like

00:35:47.480 girly games that you know i remember actually when i was when i was about uh 14 um there was this

00:35:54.040 like on the surface extremely sexist game called dead or alive extreme beach volleyball

00:35:58.480 that came out on the xbox and it was um a lot of like really really like big boob uh bikini girls

00:36:06.520 um hanging out on an island playing volleyball and like the point of the game was sort of to

00:36:10.320 just look at them really yeah yeah and um and i remember inviting my friends around to play this

00:36:15.080 um because i was at that point i was like writing online for games websites and stuff so i invited

00:36:19.500 my friends around like to laugh at this game and then i went away for half an hour i came back all

00:36:22.780 my friends were busy like picking out the correct clothes i didn't care about fashion they really

00:36:26.180 did they're like busy they're like dressing all these girls up in the clothes they're like oh no

00:36:29.260 those shoes are actually better and then they'd like have them play the volleyball and they're 0.99

00:36:31.760 like yeah you know I don't think it's very practical as an outfit like but they really

00:36:35.180 enjoyed the game actually they really enjoyed like the bits of it that had gone completely

00:36:38.640 over my head I thought it was so funny so it's secretly a really good a really good game for

00:36:43.120 teenage girls the other thing I'm thinking about too is like when you are playing in a more social

00:36:51.000 atmosphere as much as it pisses me off like the dynamics that were true when I was 13 still

00:36:58.160 often reproduce themselves as in like the guys play and the girls watch yeah that happens a lot

00:37:04.240 and you know there's actually nothing inherently wrong with that no but it does it there needs to

00:37:08.720 be an opportunity if you want to play you should be able to right and like what certainly when I

00:37:12.800 was I remember being uh so I made a point when I was an adolescent I made a point out of just

00:37:16.960 becoming extremely good at games so that i could beat boys at them and that was kind of my way

00:37:21.220 of sort of asserting myself but like you shouldn't have to do that you know i mean you shouldn't have

00:37:25.180 to just get incredibly good at halo in order to have a place at the table you should just be able

00:37:30.800 to play so like the opportunity to play is the most important thing it's such a specific like

00:37:35.780 i think of you as like your age is like prime millennial like a specific prime millennial

00:37:41.320 like moment is getting like really good at halo so really good at halo with that pistol you know

00:37:45.920 three shots to the head anybody was done with that death matches I got really good at this 0.51

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00:39:57.460 Our next two questions are about how we think about the time that we devote to play. We're

00:40:02.720 going to do them back to back. The first question comes from Meg. I recently in my mid-30s got back

00:40:07.500 into gaming, if you can call the Sims kid picks in rollercoaster tycoon gaming, and it is so hard

00:40:12.520 to figure out how much time is okay to devote to this new hobby. I'm particularly weak to the

00:40:17.620 design elements of just one more try that video games are so good at. I think especially because

00:40:23.200 I don't have practice with them. How do I figure out reasonable time bounds for myself that don't

00:40:27.900 just use diet culture shame to keep me from enjoying this very fun time.

00:40:31.860 And the second question is from Tara.

00:40:34.080 I'm 29 years old and started playing my first video game, Stardew Valley, three months ago.

00:40:39.280 It's the first time that I've experienced what I feel is true time blindness.

00:40:44.000 Is this a bad thing for me?

00:40:45.600 Is it a good thing for me?

00:40:47.400 Is the thought that it could be a bad thing,

00:40:49.360 just my worldview that says this kind of time loss is a loss of productivity?

00:40:54.700 Well, first of all, congratulations, Tara.

00:40:56.560 time blindness is beautiful welcome that's all i'll say there and like i i experienced time

00:41:03.560 blindness with with reading all the time and i think that people if it's a literary book then

00:41:09.020 it's good like if it's a romance and you have time blindness and you stay up too late people

00:41:12.660 are like that's bad right um so what is what do these two questions together make you think about

00:41:18.760 in terms of like productivity play all those things there's two things here like we've already

00:41:24.340 talked about this idea of like allowing yourself time for leisure and for fun but then there's also

00:41:28.920 this idea of like high versus low culture like yeah again if you if you lose time you know in

00:41:34.780 a literary novel that feels different from losing time you know on on a game and there's a I think

00:41:40.320 there's this element of like uh almost feeling guilty for enjoying yourself yeah which which

00:41:45.120 comes in a lot uh I just however games can be because they're you know the game designer's job

00:41:50.020 is to to make things that are that are very compelling and very fun so there's always a

00:41:53.940 kind of element of choice right my my personal rubric for this because i i am i am really bad

00:41:58.800 for getting sucked into games and spending too much time on them when it's like i'm not even

00:42:02.220 enjoying myself anymore i'm just like i just want to beat it right so but i i remember to ask myself

00:42:07.040 kind of every kind of 15 20 half half an hour so i'll just ask myself am i still having fun am i

00:42:11.620 am i choosing to do this or is this something that i'm now doing over compulsion and like that's

00:42:15.740 something i apply to lots of things including my phone lots of other things too but with games i

00:42:19.920 find i tend to i'm getting something out of it like the question to ask yourself is like am

00:42:23.800 i enjoying myself am i getting something out of this it doesn't have to be am i being productive

00:42:27.560 but am i getting something or enriching out of this experience or not yeah no and i think that

00:42:32.740 that really points to the the part of meg's question where she's like i don't like the

00:42:39.640 just one more try like feeling like i've been suckered into this right but like if you're

00:42:46.760 having a ton of fun it's like kids asking can i stay up 15 more minutes because they're having

00:42:52.260 so much more like so much time it's time well spent isn't it and that's the question to ask

00:42:57.380 I just read a book called The Score by a philosopher called Ti Nguyen and it's about

00:43:01.480 how sometimes you can get so obsessed with the metric of something that it actually you start

00:43:05.720 doing things for the wrong reasons right like an example of that is like Fitbit if Fitbit's

00:43:09.240 constantly tracking your exercise and your you know your heart rate and all this then you're

00:43:12.260 not really exercising to feel good or you're not exercising for fun you're exercising to fill the

00:43:16.960 number up you're exercising to meet the metric that's been assigned to you yeah and it can be

00:43:21.280 the same with games um and social media does this too like you know are you are you putting that

00:43:26.520 post up on instagram because you're sharing something you want to share are you doing because

00:43:29.480 you want likes you're trying to game the system right and so the question is always is this the

00:43:33.920 game i want to be playing i've like adopted this as a thing like in my life is this the game i want

00:43:38.140 to be playing right now just asking yourself that it stops you from having these feelings of like

00:43:41.820 i've been captured by this right and and trying to avoid like is it bad that i'm doing this is it

00:43:47.760 good like there's no moral balance permission here's some permission like just have permission

00:43:52.200 to play starchy valley as much as you like as long as you're as long as you're going to work

00:43:55.200 or like you know yeah speaking to your friends and i i have actually seen a lot of people our

00:44:00.900 age who are trying to think about this with their leisure or with their work whatever it is

00:44:04.960 so you you mentioned the fitbit example but i see this too with people thinking about like

00:44:10.260 tracking their books right like right people who get obsessive about it and then they start like

00:44:16.000 only reading short books because they don't want to mess with like their pace essentially

00:44:19.880 and now like this year I'm seeing lots of people who are like I'm only reading super huge books

00:44:26.080 so that I can just actually like lose myself in these books and not like really reject the idea

00:44:32.400 that like there's a number that I need to reach I personally like I have this overarching goal of

00:44:39.060 running 10 marathons before I'm 50 and I ran a bunch in a row and I realized like I don't know

00:44:45.960 six months ago I wasn't liking running and I was becoming too obsessed with like keeping my times

00:44:51.640 and that sort of thing and so I not only have stopped running until I can feel like it's fun

00:44:56.200 again but I've also stopped like using Strava at all because I'm trying to like get back to that

00:45:01.840 point where I'm like I want to do this and I'm having fun doing it that's it yeah the point at

00:45:06.700 which you stop feeling that is the point at which you should consider whether you should be playing

00:45:10.880 a different game whether metaphorically or literally should you be playing a different game

00:45:14.100 totally um okay the next question is about how people new to the hobby can get

00:45:18.640 more into the hobby this comes from anna hey there calling in as a woman who has discovered

00:45:23.780 gaming as an adult uh playing a cozy game has been such a nice wind down and it gets me off

00:45:28.880 my phone or even cute co-op games i can play with my partner or my friends who knew the game

00:45:35.380 landscape is so different than when i was a kid and my brothers played endless sports and shooting

00:45:39.960 games. How do I learn about new games? It's overwhelming, and I don't know where to start.

00:45:44.860 So far, I've just gone off of recs from friends. Okay, so we're going to do specific game recs in

00:45:49.720 a minute, but what resources would you recommend for people like Anna who are looking to find and

00:45:55.860 explore new games? So this is kind of my job as a games journalist is to find things that are

00:46:00.700 interesting for some reason. So if you read the Guardians game section, but the thing is,

00:46:08.000 there are a lot of games websites and there are very they're very you know they're aimed at people

00:46:11.200 who play games a lot yeah and they if you go to like you know one of the big gamer websites like

00:46:15.880 IGN or Kotaku both of which I used to work at you're going to look at that front page and have

00:46:19.260 no idea what's going on so it can be very it can feel intimidating I really feel this like when

00:46:23.780 people are just getting into the games especially as an adult they they want to find new stuff but

00:46:27.660 then they maybe google it and they get just a crazy like overwhelm of um of recommendations

00:46:32.320 so I think a good thing to try and do is maybe read some reviews of games now and then and see

00:46:37.380 if you find a critic who seems to like have your vibe or seems to have your taste and who's writing

00:46:41.900 you enjoy and maybe you know has maybe recommended other things so find find a critic that's that's

00:46:47.240 one way another way is uh you know tiktok or twitch there's an awful lot of like streamers

00:46:53.860 um and people who will play games for for an audience you know so they stream they stream

00:46:58.760 games and people watch watch them play and those people are often tastemakers because you know if

00:47:03.460 you find a streamer who's really into eg stardew valley and then you see what else that person

00:47:07.980 plays oh that that's that can be really useful um there's for for people who like puzzle games

00:47:13.940 specifically there's an amazing website called thinky games that has this awesome like

00:47:17.460 recommendation database so you put in a game you've enjoyed press enter and it'll give you

00:47:21.260 four more games that are kind of in that vibe and it tells you all about them and you can like have

00:47:25.680 a look and see what and you can you can tag like no combat you can tag not too difficult you can

00:47:30.320 tag co-op you can tag i want a really hard puzzle and then it will give you like tailored

00:47:34.140 recommendations um so yeah i think tiktok and twitch can be useful for this finding critics

00:47:39.620 to read and if you go can it's very easy to find to find game reviews you know but if you find one

00:47:45.800 that someone that has your taste and then also uh thinky games and other websites like that can

00:47:51.040 can tailor recommendations but also friends are really good to ask because if you go on reddit

00:47:55.220 i see this all the time you look at a reddit thread and it's like oh hey um you know my pal

00:47:59.600 danny is new to games and you know he's just played a little bit of skyrim like what should

00:48:02.920 he do next and everyone and people recommend like the most insane games they're like oh he should

00:48:06.700 try dark souls famously one of the most difficult games of all time and it's like no he shouldn't

00:48:10.500 that's crazy so you can't always trust reddit this is trolling or like he should play euro

00:48:17.520 truck simulator it's like really that seems so specific yeah no friends and even like i mean

00:48:25.100 what a great use for instagram actually is to like just put up a story that's like i've been

00:48:29.680 i've been playing this i really like it and it might also show you some people who are playing

00:48:34.600 games who you didn't know were playing games because it is not always like a public facing

00:48:38.820 thing that people do yeah and like it's good that you know when i was growing up we had magazines

00:48:43.200 but now we've got you know we've got games journalists like me games critics but there's

00:48:46.320 also just this whole universe of people on youtube and on social media who are kind of

00:48:50.620 different sorts of game influence so maybe they're not critics but they're just people who really

00:48:54.700 enjoy a particular genre or people who are you know very funny and enjoy games that kind of give

00:48:59.380 them a chance to play off that and it's it's there's a lot going on there's a lot there's a

00:49:03.020 lot to find it can be overwhelming but you you will find someone who is your vibe okay so this

00:49:08.280 next section we have people who are asking for specific recommendations because they want to

00:49:12.900 hear from you we're considering this the ask and anything segment and it's just for paid subscribers

00:49:18.520 so if you're listening to this and you're like wait i want to hear this i want in on this head

00:49:23.660 to patreon.com slash culture study to become a paid subscriber and get the rest of this conversation

00:49:28.980 and all of the good recommendations this has been fantastic i love it you're maybe going to make me

00:49:36.060 get back into gaming like i didn't even say that at the top of the episode like but that this is

00:49:41.140 part of my my goal for this episode is to convince me um we have a switch we have all sorts of

00:49:47.640 different apparatuses like i can do it uh if people want to hear more from you on the internet

00:49:52.740 where can they find you I write the guardians video games newsletter which is called pushing

00:49:57.140 buttons it kind of it keeps people up to date with what's going on in the gaming world but it's

00:50:00.700 written from my perspective as a tired elder millennial with two children and so I think it

00:50:06.060 will probably appeal um to a lot of listeners yes it's a lot of grown-up gamers you know it'll

00:50:11.760 appeal um and also I'm on I'm on blue sky um as Keza McDonald and of course I have written this

00:50:18.200 book about nintendo uh so you i can i'm quite easily googleable and um i'm always really

00:50:24.240 interested in like you know writing for i really like kind of bringing the joy of games to everyone

00:50:29.320 you know what i mean i'm not a i think like there's been too much gatekeeping and gaming

00:50:32.780 for too long so i'm always just thrilled to hear from people who are new to the hobby or like

00:50:36.780 looking for recommendations fantastic thank you so much

00:50:40.180 thanks for listening to the culture study podcast to be sure to subscribe wherever you get your

00:50:49.900 podcast because we have so many great episodes in the works and i promise you don't want to miss

00:50:54.700 any of them if you want to suggest a topic ask a question about the culture that surrounds you

00:50:59.340 or submit a question for our subscriber only advice time segment go to our google forum at

00:51:04.680 tinyurl.com slash culture study pod, or check the show notes for a link. And if you want to support

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00:51:17.440 $50 a year, and you'll get ad free episodes and exclusive advice time segment and weekly

00:51:22.300 discussion threads for each episode. The culture study podcast is produced by me and Helen Peterson

00:51:27.760 and Melody Rowell. Our music is by Poddington Bear. You can find me on Instagram at

00:51:32.780 Anne Helen Peterson, Melody at Melodias 47, and the show at Culture Study Pod.

Culture Study Podcast - March 25, 2026

Falling in Love with Video Games as an Adult

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