The Last of Us sparked some newfound hope and joy in life which I could’t just let go. That spark turned into passion and today it’s my life.
In few months, I’ll be holding a Master’s degree in Literary Studies and Linguistics with a focus on games user research, cognitive narrative studies and player-narrative interaction. This path seemed to my 18-year-old-me unimaginable. To my 26-old-me it’s everything – all because of the video game The Last of Us.
After I obtained my higher education entrance qualification (German Abitur), I thought I knew what I want to be: Geographer. I’ve been fascinated with geography without considering that we don’t share a mutual fascination. After failing geographic information system (GIS) exam and not appearing to the geophysics exam few days later, I noticed something that I knew already. There is a dark hole in me, created by a combination of unhappiness, stress, frustration, unknowing… It all accumulated to these feelings of being lost and alone. I decided that I don’t want to be a geographer. This is only after one semester (six months).
After moving to Jena, Germany to study Geography, I decided to move back to Düsseldorf, Germany and study there but there is a problem. The program I’m interested in starts in October and so I had to wait six months. Enough time to regroup. I took on a job and with my first pay check I bought the last version of the PS3, which comes with a video game: The Last of Us. I didn’t see a trailer to this game, didn’t have much context to it, didn’t play it with any expectations or biases. During my first play, I wished that I had more context.
One, two, three, four, five, six…
I remember being stuck with Tess and Ellie in our first encounter with few clickers and runners. I’ve give a new weapon as well to take care of them. This level is very dark and I could not see any enemies but I could hear them. My heart was beating loud, I was nervous to go down there. Honestly, I have never been stressed in that way in my life. After dying few times, I finally managed to get Tess and Ellie out of there. I felt accomplished. I felt happy. I continued to interact with this game to feel stressed on purpose for five days. After the hospital scene, I could feel this story is coming to an end. I tried to play in shorter intervals just to prolong this game. Eventually, I arrived with Ellie at the end and had to lie to her. I felt bad. Then the end scene music started. I put down my controller and started crying.
I don’t remember the exact wording, but I said to myself something along the lines “why would anyone create such a story”. It took me one week to process the events from The Last of Us. I felt Joel’s pain and I felt Ellie’s pain. I felt carrying their struggles with me and together we tried to resolved them. After one week I started playing the game from the beginning, followed by a third, fourth, fifth and six play-through. I didn’t know that this game will become a bigger part of myself.
I don’t want to write about things I don’t care just for the sake of writing. I want to write about things I believe can change us, such as video games!
October 2013 has arrived and I enrolled in English and American Studies (major) and Art History (minor) at the Heinrich-Heine-University (HHU) Düsseldorf. I’ve been taught different theories on gender, narrative, culture, history of English and American culture, how to read old and middle English (that was fun), how to analyze art, presentation and writing style. Finally, in 2016, I have enough credit points to write my Bachelor’s thesis. All I need to do is find a topic.
When you major in English and American Studies at the HHU University, you are very welcomed to read a book, choose a theoretical framework and analyze it. It also doesn’t matter if fifty students before you wrote about the exact same topic. That is the first problem for me. The second one is tied to recognition of video games as Art. I’m fascinated by the power of video games and the ways players are being exposed to different types of experience. In particular, I’m fascinated by their narrative ability. Three years after playing The Last of Us, I still can’t stop thinking or playing that game. I figured, I want to find out more about video games and how are they able to impact players. But the world of academia at that time and especially at that University doesn’t really care about that medium. I couldn’t disagree more and I wanted to do anything in my power to prove them wrong.
I’m writing that B.A. about The Last of Us – no matter what!
I choose to write about narratology vs. ludology debate, where narratologists argue video games don’t have stories and are not an Art form, and ludologists where stubborn in approach narrative studies to learn more about stories. Anyway, I pointed out the importance of working transdisciplinary (This is the way!) and visualized how we can use narrative theories to approach video games. I certainly did write my B.A. only on The Last of Us, trying to explain with the theory of Blending why Joel and Ellie’s story is being processed by players and why this game leaves such a visible mark on players. I felt happy for the first time in my academic life.
Before discovering my research passion for video games, I truly felt lost. I started studying because the society expected that from me. I did like what I’ve been studying but when I found out which career path I can go with it, I felt sad and depressed. I don’t want to work in the City Archives or Library or for Publishers or in P.R. I don’t care about these things that much and I don’t see myself working with joy for the rest of my life in these areas. Also, I don’t want to write about things I don’t care just for the sake of writing. I want to write about things I believe can change us, such as video games!
Despite my Professors being absolutely unhelpful and inapproachable about my ideas, I finally found a young Doctorate lecturer who gave me a go with my topic, although I never wrote about video games before. It was certainly a challenge but when you truly love something every challenge is easy.
From a Lost Cause to a PhD Candidate
The Last of Us sparked some newfound hope and joy in life which I could’t just let go. That spark turned into passion and today it’s my life. After completing my B.A., I decided to fully specialize on video games. Today I see myself as a GUR (games user researcher) with lot of experience with player-narrative interaction and cognitive narrative studies. Currently I’m writing my M.A. thesis about how narrative elements of AAA-titles influence attention. Knowing the answers to that can help game designers design optimal play experiences.
After finishing my M.A. project, I will pursue a PhD in GUR and develop a theoretical framework which can be used in production processes. That framework is build on my current project and the goal is to end up having what I call attentional flow for every AAA-genre. Imagine how much better games could be if you would know exactly the optimal workload for your target group. Not only would you sell games better but players would get exactly a play experience they need.
To wrap up this long monolog, without The Last of Us I would have been unhappy, I never would think about doing a M.A., nor be invited to conferences to give talks, nor get a scholarship for the University of Alberta, nor think in the slightest I could actually do a PhD.
Without The Last of Us my life would suck.
Thank you Naughty Dog for my life.
Playful Brain Demand 