Professional gaming is a big deal these days. There are eSports teams that fight for world champions in virtual gaming or battle games. grydscaen talks about gaming in a virtual world starting in grydscaen: tribute.
eSports teams include trainers, coaches and teams as well as sponsorship like regular sports teams, there are tournaments, fans and you can even make a living doing it.
In grydscaen: tribute in the short story Simulatrix there is a social media game called iNax Simulation and a side game plug-in called Simulatrix. iNax is a social game where players have an avatar and can interact with other players on the social network and go through a daily routine. Players get stats interacting and can gain points by delving into missions with other people. In the Simulatrix short story we meet Blue as an avid gamer who is addicted to games called a “ware head” in the story.
Blue actually comes in as the number 2 player of all the players of the iNax game but we see that he gets obsessed with the game which causes him to do some dangerous activities. He goes to an underground tournament that actually has some dangerous activity and a real world interaction to it.
The iNax game has a reality setting that players can actually interact in real life.
Simulatrix the other game mentioned in the story which is a military war game simulation that has a mission and uses either regiments, mobile frames, weapons, single combat, first person shooter or mecha based fighting.
In the Simulatrix game Blue is in a virtual reality view leading a set of 6 combat players on a mission to take down an Atlantea Federation ceremonial general and a Trance Channeler. He has to maneuver his players on the board and get the two targets. In reality the game is linked into an actual set of players that can not only die in the game but also die in real life. In the Simulatrix story Blue actually gets the two targets but kills his team in real life from the virtual reality view.
Now in real life gaming most game players and champion teams are male. There are a few female teams but they do not get sponsorship and there is a certain level of sexism in game play and female gamers are harassed.
Then we have the current mobile gaming trend Pokémon Go which allows players to catch and train pokemon. Hopefully people will pay attention and not get hurt searching. There have been some people hurt trying to play in cars or walking into the streets and some people have been apple picked having their phones stolen right out of their hands while they are playing.
For me I find online gaming slightly frustrating. I got through the Final Fantasy game Dirge of Cerberus and was playing Robotech. I also like Assassnins Creed and Fifa. Then I was playing another Final Fantasy game and kept dying in the dungeon. I actually beat the boss and moved on but forgot to save when I died later and couldn’t move forward so I had to go back to the dungeon. And I had also wanted to play Watch Dogs which is a PC game for me but I was also having issues with that. I really wanted to see the story play out but I died but I am not giving up just yet, just on hiatus. I will stick to being a writer and a systems analyst.
In the Simulatrix story we also talk a little about how the game was created when CR47 is compiling the game and the graphics when Jazz the hacker guild leader actually gets to see the game for the first time. I studied game design and 3d modeling in art school so I am familiar with making worlds and was able to make some 3D models of my characters while I was studying.
The Simulatrix game was something I wanted to write because I talk about ware heads in grydscaen but had never really mentioned anything about them. In the Riuho (School) story I also talked about Riuho stealing game tech from a ware shop and wanted to show how that went down. I also show that the drug dealer Wraith sold ware illegally on the street giving a subversive side to gaming. Because the games had to be sold illegally on the street there is an undercurrent that gaming is looked down upon by the Elite government of the Pacific Territories and it is a big underground business. Even Hack the tech and ware nightclub in Haven 15 sometimes has game tournaments or sells gaming software at illegal data sales.
All in all eSports are becoming a big money deal with championship teams fighting in world competitions and can even make 1 million dollars if their team wins a world tournament, along with sponsrship. grydscaen touches on it and if we ever get to see a live remake of grydscaen maybe we will get to see some of the gaming in the series in play.
Pokémon Go, Final Fantasy, Robotech and Assassins Creed are copyright their respective owners.