the third and final part of my essay. if you haven’t read the first parts, here are the links: part 1. part 2.

Chapter 3: Becoming a Culture

In the final stages of presenting a story within the outer world promotions, many cultural references had already become established within the community, particularly from the game play itself.
With the painterly style of Team Fortress 2 came the ability to be more creative with realism and this translated from the creation of the game into the actual game play where creativity is encouraged. Unlike most games where the environment becomes more difficult with each level to continually challenge the player as they get better, Team Fortress 2 has no form of difficulty progression. Instead the environments are designed to allow for the creativity of more experienced players yet doesn’t slow down newer ones. Also the fact that players don’t “level up” elevated the need for them to be more creative and find tactical ways to become stronger in the game. This has lead to an almost martial art style of play for each of the individual characters, where effective moves and tactics are learned, perfected and utilised. Of course, with every martial art comes etiquette and this was no exception, however being mostly unwritten, only the basic etiquette of making sure you don’t do anything unhelpful to your team is understood. Naturally there are some controversies behind using certain weapons or classes because they’re mostly associated with newer players or are apparently easier to use, but that is usually down to personal embellishment of the basic etiquette. These ideas are usually spread on fan sites, particularly on the website known as “uber charged” because of its popularity and more professional approach to team fortress 2 specific articles. These sort of sociological dynamics are present within most online games of any genre but the painterly nature of team fortress’ graphics aided the capabilities of weaponry and dynamic environmental features in not being tied down by the constraints of reality. This gives more freedom for the abilities of the player and their weapon, allowing more diverse tactics to be formed than in most other games. Along with these tactics comes people discussing the superiority of them and valuing another player’s skill and respectability based on the difficulty of the manoeuvres they can accomplish in game.
In game creativity and cultural etiquette weren’t the only things the community contributed to the outer development of the world of Team Fortress. More creative uses of the game brought it back into the fun and light hearted territory. One particular piece of fan created media that comes to mind would be the community acclaimed “Ignis Solus” by Lit fuse studios, which is a short film about the Pyro and his lonely day within the map “2fort”. It doesn’t really tell the story of the game but it characterised the Pyro in a number of different dimensions without a “meet the Pyro” video for reference and also takes cinematic advantage of the impressionistic environment. Although it conveys a simplistic story, it captures the sense of loneliness and makes you feel as though the game is running in a world parallel to our own.
Saxton Hale and Mann Co were used to acknowledge one fan by the name of Diogo Lima who created the convincing guard dog update prank, fooling thousands of fans. His creativity was rewarded in the same way as the fan who sent off the scout update coupon, with an impersonal corporate letter from the fictitious weapon supplier who played along with the prank.

Later, in the previously mentioned war update, the community was further encouraged to be creative outside the game with the announcement of the propaganda contest. The brief was to put together a propaganda poster to encourage your favourite class out of the Demoman or the soldier to win the war against the other. This further immersed players into the war where they argued about who should win to the point where it might as well have been real.

Conclusion
When the new style of Team Fortress 2 was first established, the quality of fun and dynamics within the game play had rapidly increased with its development. Thanks to the graphical style, the game achieved a level of cartoon realism that allowed developers to incorporate more fun environment without being tethered by the full constraints of reality. However, not only were the dynamics of the game improved, so was the means for telling the story which later encouraged players to interact with the characters outside of the game. This outer world incentive mainly stems from the creation of the Fictitious company Mann Co and the characterisation of its CEO, and because of this a sub-culture was established where players played along with the idea that Mann Co, the game characters and the game world is actually real. From this point fans didn’t just play the game, they lived it.
Overall, 20^th century commercial design is what improved the playability of the game and the relationship between the players and the characters. Furthermore it has inspired and encouraged gamers to be creative not just inside the game, but outside through their own fan art, films and websites. Without its style, Team Fortress 2 would be just another game.
Thanks for reading.
Disclaimer: this essay is an original piece of written information by Adele Waldrom for her final university dissertation. Copying this and claiming it as your own would be a great act of stupidity, even more so if it is copied with the intent of replacing genuine hard work. all references, however, have been posted for anyone interested in writing their own essay on video game art.
the references i have used can be found here in the Bibliography
the third and final part of my essay. if you haven’t read the first parts, here are the links: part 1. part 2.

Tags: Article: Gaming Culture, Game: Team Fortress 2, Soul Grafitti