Erik Yan – Hall 1121 Spring 2019

Artist Statement

Erik Yan

5-18-19

Eng 1121

Professor Hall

Over this semester I believe that I have improved on my writing. I think i’ve been able to write longer pieces than I ever could. In the past, writing more than 2 pages was considered a lot for me. I’ve noticed ever since like my first class of college, most of my written work was 2 pages or more. I kind of felt like it was kind of difficult to write a lot because I like to just say or present my point. My explanation for my point would be really brief with not much reasoning as to why I felt that way. I think throughout the semester I have noticed I sort of have been improving on explaining myself and my reasoning. I’ve been able to also explain my use of evidence a little better. I still need to work more on that but it is better than how I wrote in the beginning of the term. Having to explain more of why I agree to a certain thing helped to also extend my paper. I think my type of writing has remained more or less the same because the style of writing has been pretty similar throughout my pieces of work. The two pieces of work I have chosen both are written in a casual way. I find that it is more relatable when reading it which can help set up like a emotional connection. The two pieces I chose are the MTA Signal Memo and Gender Inequality in Video Games. I chose these two because I felt that my MTA Signal Memo was a “low stakes” homework assignment that made great use of a lot of evidence. I was able to gather evidence about MTA signal problems and I was able to explain why I picked the evidence I picked and what it all meant. This memo was basically kind of a mini essay in my opinion just without really an introduction and conclusion. I also chose my paper about women in video games because that was a subject of interest that coincided with the topic of my paper. I felt more invested in writing that paper because I was personally interested. This allowed me to write longer with more of an explanation of why I thought the way I did. I think something I can improve on is trying to explain what my evidence means in my own understanding of it. I basically mean explain why I picked it and how I have interpreted that evidence because no one else knows what I’m thinking but myself. I want to be able to properly write down my understanding of it so that someone else who picks up my paper and reads it, will understand what I am thinking about it.

My interest in writing has remained the same, which is only really writing when school requires it. I don’t find an interest in writing. I only do it because I need it for my classes. I find it much easier to just speak my ideas instead of writing it out. Plus since I would be having a discussion with someone on the topic, I can also get an immediate response or counter to my argument. Even though I do not write a lot outside of class, I still feel that I have had some type of improvement compared to previous written pieces. As I have said earlier about explaining my point more, In my “Gender inequality in Video Games” paper, I brought up evidence talking about the proportion of women compared to men working in a game related field. I explained how the evidence basically demonstrated that there was a disproportionate amount of males and females working in the video game field. I also recommend a solution to fix the issue of the disproportionate amount of women and and men working in the video game field. I recommended that companies should encourage more females so that more of them can join a video game related fields. Now looking back at it, I have noticed that I could have said “Video game companies can have free STEM programs which will help to encourage and maybe get more women interested in that subject”. If I said that I think it would be a little more convincing and help further support my claims. I did enjoy this semester’s writing assignments, I was basically allowed to write something that pertained to my interests.

Letter to Video Game Companies (Unit 4)

Dear Video Game companies,

Video games have been around since 1962. Majority of games today still run with the same formula of games as they were in the past. You have your super macho male protagonist while you have a super sexualized female character. This is a misrepresentation of how females actually are. Could it be a possibility that you guys know that they are misrepresented and are exploiting it to gain more money? Characters such as Lara Croft have been portrayed as having really large breasts. This has been the case until 2013’s Tomb Raider which portrayed Lara Croft as more of an average women compared to her portrayal in her earlier games such as Tomb Raider II (1996). This lack of representation of women have been ingrained into gaming culture for a long time, which has led to all sorts of harassments towards women in the gaming industry. As Chella Ramanan quotes “Society doesn’t see technical women enough so it’s assumed that they don’t exist and ‘technology isn’t something women do,” says Anne-Marie Imafidon, co-founder of Stemettes, a group offering free Stem workshops and events for young women”. This means that since the gaming industry is mostly focused around males, it discourages many women from trying to enter fields needed for gaming. I believe this is a great point because if I was a woman and I hopped onto a game and I get hit with responses like you’re bad because you’re a women, I would completely be discouraged in picking up that game and playing it again, let alone try to work in the game creating industry. This “welcoming” will definitely not encourage women in trying to be interested in a field where she’ll only be criticized because of her being a women. As a video game company, wouldn’t it be an interest to make a game that appeals to more people not just males? This could possibly increase revenue and get rid of the negative connotations of women. Another thing companies can do are encouraging more women to join fields that are more male dominated. From the quote I had earlier, Anne-Marie Imafidon is the co-founder of a group which offer free classes that involve Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. Giving women access to these classes will encourage them to pursue a major related with video game creation and design. Dr.Richard Wilson found that “80% of the workforce is qualified to degree level or above, but the proportion of women studying subjects such as computer science or games programming courses is low”. Which would mean that not a lot of females have the opportunity to really contribute to the development of a game since there are so few women in computer science and other similar programs.

A potential solution to this is to try to have programs that encourage females to join programs related with gaming and this may further encourage more video game companies to hire female employees. They can then have them work on female leads for the game. This will give a better representation of females in video games. There are some great games that have female leads such as Mirror’s Edge and Uncharted:The Lost Legacy. If more companies made games like those two, then we can have more games with accurate representation of women. This will also reduce the harassment of women when they are playing games online. We can them finally break the cycle of always having a male protagonist that is super masculine and is always rescuing women who have really large breasts and butt. This is an outdated cycle that over sexualizes women and glorifies guys. I hope that any video game company that is reading this will be able to change and create more games that are similar to the ones I mentioned earlier.

From Erik Yan

Letter to the MTA (Unit 3 Redo)

Dear Pat Foye,

I’d like to discuss the issue of train delays. As a everyday passenger who has to rely on the MTA subway system I would expect delays to happen every once in awhile but this is sadly not the case. I would assume since we are in 2019, why do we still have this issue of signal delays? Why are we using equipment from 80 years ago as put by Dan Rivoli in Daily News article. Dan also mentioned that the way trains are track are by people keeping track of a black board with lights that represent each train stop. This sounds so outdated. We have unmanned drones but we still have people looking at a blackboard telling other train conductors whether there is a train ahead of them or not. This would mean that that if one train has an issue it would also affect the other trains behind it, it would cause the trains to move slower so that an accident is prevented. Dan also discusses solutions that you are probably discussing now, He brings up trying to modernize the subway by implementing a new technology called communication based train control. This technology would be installed on the tracks and is less of a hassle to maintain unlike the outdated mechanical switches that have to be manually done. In the article “Meet the Century-Old Technology That Is Causing Your Subway Delays” by Aaron Gordon, he talks about the advantages of the new communication based train control. He mentions that it is the ideal solution for the 21st century and that this train control system is able to automatically correct a trains speed. This would mean that this technology can eliminate human error and lead to a safer commute.

The issue I see with trying to implement this new train control technology would be time and cost. In the article by Dan Rivoli he said “The report estimated it will take the MTA 50 years to fully overhaul its 19th-century-style signal system, if it sticks with updating four miles of track a year”. This would mean that process will take a very long time and definitely inconvenience riders. It’d be a little quicker if the whole subway system was closed to make these changes but these changes would take months or years and people need to go to work. The other issue would be funding. In an article by Jake Offenhartz he said “As for the MTA’s $29.5 billion 2015-2019 Capital Program, Cuomo has so far appropriated around $5.4 billion of a promised $8 billion, while the city has committed $2.5 billion—an unprecedented amount, but $700 million less than the governor originally demanded. Part of the money from that plan will go toward the creation of new signaling systems, while money from the MTA’s general fund is used to maintain existing infrastructure. Earlier this year, the governor slashed the state’s contribution to the MTA operating budget by $65 million—a 21 percent cut, down to $244 million from $309 million last year”. This would mean that not all the funds can be spent solely on upgrading the subway system. Also there seems to be a budget cut to the MTA, why is that the case? This just keeps the MTA system from getting improved.

If I may, I’d like to recommend the time from 11:30am-5:30am you can have workings implementing the new CBTC system. This may put some riders in a predicament of traveling but that time are odd hours where there are not a lot of riders. They will have to deal with those changes so that the future of the subway may be improved for the rest of the riders who take it in New York City.

From,

Erik yan, a concerned rider

Source

Gordon, Aaron. “Meet the Century-Old Technology That Is Causing Your Subway Delays.” Village Voice, 7 Sept. 2017, www.villagevoice.com/2017/09/07/meet-the-century-old-technology-that-is-causing-your-subway-delays/.
Offenhartz, Jake. “Report: MTA Is Years Behind On Desperately Needed Signal Repairs.” Gothamist, 14 June 2017, 9:35 AM, gothamist.com/2017/06/14/subway_signals_mta_repairs.php.
Rivoli, Dan. “NYC Subway Relies on Decades-Old, Outmoded Signals, Switches and Track Equipment.” Nydailynews.com, 22 May 2017, www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-subway-relies-decades-old-outmoded-signals-switches-article-1.3184666.

Unit 4 Proposal

Erik Yan

5-6-19

Eng 1121

Professor Hall

I think for unit 4 I am considering revising my paper about women in video games. I plan on changing the audience who are going to read it. I kind of want women who don’t play video games to read it. I might also change some of the evidence I used in that paper. I’m not sure what else I can do to revise the paper about women in video games. I’m not exactly sure what genre I want to change it to. I’m maybe considering changing it to a comic but the thing is, I’m not sure how I’ll be able to convey my message and evidence for the reader. Maybe I might also consider a letter to a video game company to convince them to change how women are portrayed.

Video Games Taught Me More Than School Ever Did (Revised)

Erik Yan

Dr. Carrie Hall

Final

4-29-19

Video Games Taught Me More Than School Ever Did

School taught your basic subjects of math, reading, and writing but it was always through textbooks and listening to the teacher. I think the best way to learn is to make the process fun and relatable. Something that made learning fun for me were video games. Video games do not look like they would teach you anything that is taught in school but they instead, teaches you social skills that school just doesn’t seem to teach.

Playing video games has taught me a handful of things. I think a game that taught me a lot is Rainbow Six Siege. My friends and I would play this every day. There are times where not all my friends are able to get on to play for whatever reason, which forces me to play alone. Playing Siege alone was difficult due to Siege being a team oriented game where having intel and communicating it to the rest of the team is key to winning. Since I was just playing with random people when my friends weren’t on, I didn’t really talk to any of the people on my team. I kept seeing my teammates getting killed but I was busy dealing with my own enemy, but once I was done with my opponent, my teammate’s enemy stopped fighting with them and decide to go finish me off. With the lack of communication, I didn’t really know and I get killed because I was the last one alive in the round. It went on like this for the whole game and in the end, we lost the game. The next game, I tried giving callouts to my teammates and we actually won the game without the other team even getting a chance to win a round. The fact that we are all strangers and were able to come together to win forced random people and I to have to talk and interact with each other. As strange as that may be, this can be carried over into the real world. Such as if I am working on something with a group of classmates or coworkers, I can communicate with them effectively to complete our task.

Since playing video games have gotten more complex than in the past, majority of games filled with so many things to do. This also helps improve multitasking skills. In Siege you have to worry about all kinds of things, such as the enemy team, traps, and if the game mode is hostage then also that. Hostage is a game mode where the attacking team is tasked with either grabbing the hostage and bringing them back to any flare outside of the map or they eliminate the whole defending team. You also have to worry about the time and your teammates. I say teammates because in this game your team can technically kill you, it is strongly recommended not to by the game but, that doesn’t really stop people from doing it, so it is good to watch out. Having a team member kill you, whether it is an accident or not, it puts your team in a disadvantage because the other team has to deal with one less person. All these facts forces you to have to multitask. This has kind of improved my multitasking skills because it forces me to finish a certain task within a given amount of time. The timer in the game is probably the thing that helped me the most in multitasking because you only get three minutes a round. Sometimes you lose track of time when you are worrying about your own life in the game. The traps in the game can take down a significant amount of health away from you and can give away where you are to the enemy team who can just come out of nowhere and kill you. This is relatable to real life because you can have a ton of assignments due and if you just ignore one, your grade for that class will take the hit and lower. This helps me to work on all the assignments making sure that I don’t forget one.

Decision making isn’t really taught in school from my experience, I think I’ve felt more of a decision making in video games than in school. As I have said before about how you have to multitask, you also have to decide how you want to approach things and how you want to do it. There have been moments where I had to decide whether I had to get into the objective or kill the last guy on the other team because time was ticking. The objective was basically this little container in a room that you are supposed to stay in without anyone from the other team being in the room to stop you securing. This taught me about making the important decision and how it will impact the final moments of the round. In school, I’d get choices but I felt like it didn’t really matter which one I chose, the results would generally be the same. While on Siege, If I did not go into the objective while the time almost hit zero, I would have lost the round and our team would’ve been put at a disadvantage.

The most important thing I think I’ve learned is probably patience. There are times in Siege where you have to wait for the other team to come at you so that all you need to do is kill them. If you go rushing in, the other team will be ready for you and catch you off guard. School never really taught me patience because I’d get homework or other assignments due the next day so I never really put much time into the work. The work wasn’t straight trash but if I had more time, I’m sure the assignment would’ve been better.

Having an objective to accomplish in a video game brings together everyone that is playing. You won’t really find the kind of teamwork in videos in like school or somewhere else with people that do not know each other. It also taught me how to multitask better which school kind of helped but it didn’t really feel as impactful as learning it from playing games. Decision making and patience were things I felt like were something I’m glad I learned because there are a lot of decisions to make in life and some things in life can’t really be rushed so having patience helps. I find that learning these values from something other than school is more interesting to me because it is more of learning from your own interests and not having information just shoved in your face. When you learn from your own curiosity and interest, you feel more invested in it than someone giving you information. I always felt like school forced information into my brain that I was not really invested in. This led me to remember the information for that school year and then forget about it when the next year came. Learning skills at my own paced helped me to retain those skills and use it in school and work.

MTA Signal Memo

Erik Yan

Dr. Carrie Hall

Eng 1121

I found 3 articles discussing the signals used for the trains by the MTA. The first article I found was from nydailynews.com and I found that the MTA subway system is using signals and switches from 80 years ago. In the article, they talk about how the MTA replace and repair the old components used for the train signals. They have not yet upgraded to something more modern. The article also brings up the cables in the tunnels are covered in 70 year old cloth which can have the problems of catching fire and water damage. The train dispatchers had to manually write down when the train entered the station. The way it is displayed is on a blackboard with small lights to represent each station. These are too outdated for today’s modern technology.

The second article I found was from Gothamist.com and I found that the MTA is in need of funds. They said the signal upgrade for the 7 line was originally estimated to cost $140.1 million but it actually cost $405.7 million. They discuss more about how MTA still needs a lot more money to upgrade it ancient subway system.

The third article I found was from villagevoice.com and I found that they talk about the history of the signals used by the trains. The subway signals we are using now is called a fixed block system. Each signal shows the status of the track. They said it is a system that works but if something goes wrong, it really bad. The article also talks about how the fixed block signal doesn’t really tell the train operator much information besides that the rail is blocked or not. Without any more information than that, train operators cannot really do much but play the safe game. They cannot go faster because they may hit another train which is not a good thing. This train signal issue also kind of creates the overcrowding issue because there may not be enough trains. Whatever trains are at the platform will get filled to the brim and become overcrowded too.

Gender Inequality in Video Games (Unit 2)

Erik Yan

3-9-19

Dr.Carrie Hall

Most video games you go and play, you’ll find that you are a guy and he’s buff and super strong. You’ll also find that the women in the game have barely any clothes on and really large breast. This is quite common and has been this way for a very long time. This has become an issues because that’s not how women really are in the real world. This is why I am writing this paper. Too many games today misrepresent how women are. I am hoping that this paper maybe able to sway gamers and game developers into having more females represented in a better way in the games they play and develop.

How many games can you name with a female main character? You’d probably be able to name one, Lara Croft. Who is the oh so popular archaeologist and treasure hunter. She is one amazing example of a female leader but that’s also a pity because she’s the only one people would think of. A ton of people play video games with male leads but not so many female leads. Female representation in the game industry is terribly low. This would mean that majority of the industry are male dominated and appeal more towards the males that play games.

There are a lot of popular video game titles such as Master Chief from halo or Nathan Drake from Uncharted. As you can imagine, most of these popular heros are all male characters. The disparities between the gaming industry and females in them have led to female misrepresentation and harassment. This would probably be due to the lack of females in courses related to video games such as computer science. Since there isn’t really many females in the development of games, there is no input from them either this would lead to male creators making the characters however they want. This has led to a lot of games where women have been sexualized. Some examples would actually be Lara Croft. The original iteration of her was portrayed as having large breasts and a super skinny waist. This portrayal of Lara Croft appeals to the male masses. This can also lead to false representation of women in the real world. This stereotypes women in having only large breasts and a slim waist.

The video games that do include females have them in a supportive role or a damsel in distress role. This would making portraying women as weak and having to rely on the male main character to assist them. A great example would be Mario. Mario is Italian plumber whose main goal throughout the multiple Mario games is to save Princess Peach. This is the most iconic damsel in distress example. Every version of Mario, you have Mario trying to rescue Princess Peach from Bowser who is the king of the koopa race. The koopa race are basically a turtle like race. Princess Peach is always getting captured by Bowser and Mario is always saving her.

Video games also do not portray women in an accurate manner. Women have been over sexualized more than men in video games. For example, “Regardless of primary or supporting role, research continues to support previous findings that women are portrayed in a sexualized manner more often than men(Zorilla)”. This would mean that when you pick a male character, he’ll be an average guy but when you pick a female character she’ll be super sexualized. A good game that shows this issue is Mortal Kombat 9. The character, Raiden, who is a thunder god but when you see his character, he is not bulked up and super muscley. But when you choose a female character like, Kitana, who is the princess of an alternate realm called Edenia; When you pick her in game, you see that she is barely wearing any clothes. Her front of the body is exposed and not covered at all. This is the perfect example of how the game developers are sexualizing the female characters which appeal to majority of gamers who also aren’t really saying much to this issue. This enables game developers to keep up what they are doing because the gaming community aren’t saying anything.

I think there are some ways of fixing this issue. One would be to change the education process. What I mean by that is that schools today do not really encourage females to get interested in majors that are needed to create video games such as computer science. For example, Chella Ramanan quotes Dr.Richard Wilson on saying that “The video games industry depends upon highly skilled, highly talented and highly qualified people to create games. Typically, 80% of the workforce is qualified to degree level or above, but the proportion of women studying subjects such as computer science or games programming courses is low. There is only a comparatively small pool of potential female employees available to work in the games industry”. This would mean that the gaming industry needs people who major in computer science but the thing is majority of them are males. Which leads to the companies hiring males over and over again. If schools are able to encourage more females in computer science this would lead to companies hiring females and they can give their input on how a female character should be.

I believe that this is gonna be a change that will be soon to come because there are already some great games that have come out that oppose the normal video game girl stereotype. Some examples are Mirror’s Edge and Uncharted:The Lost Legacy. These two games both had female leads and they did not have the females leads wearing super revealing clothing or super large breasts. Also both of the female leads are fully capable and are just as capable as regular male leads in other games. If we can create these two great games, I don’t see an issue with creating more games like that.

Cut scene of Kitana from Mortal Kombat 9

Mentor Article:https://www.radford.edu/~mzorrilla2/thesis/gamerepresentation.html

Ramanan, C. (2017, March 15). The video game industry has a diversity problem – but it can be fixed. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/mar/15/video-game-industry-diversity-problem-women-non-white-people

Mentor Article

I think my idea for my paper is to use evidence to show the disparities between women and men in video games. Based on some evidences given in my mentor article, it brings up how not a lot of females are encouraged to work in fields such as gaming, which would mean that more males are in that profession. I think some difficulties I might have are getting good evidence that kind of support my point. I think my audience is kind of gaming companies and anyone else who wants to read it. I think I want to use casual language because it doesn’t make it too serious or too boring.

Gender Disparity in Games

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/mar/15/video-game-industry-diversity-problem-women-non-white-people

Erik Yan

3-9-19

Dr.Carrie Hall

Pop Culture Response

I read Hilton Als’ response about Beyonce’s Lemonade video is that it is almost like a guideline for female empowerment. On the last page Hilton said ” Instead of diving deeper into her art, Beyonce gives the world formulas”. This leads me to believe that Beyonce is trying to empower women but they can only do that themselves. She is just laying the ground work for them to actually bring about any kind of change. Hilton also kind of brings up how in this current generation it almost seems like we have “forgotten” about our past. On the fourth page, Hilton brings up how Beyonce’s opening in “Formation” is a call back to Messy Mya and how it kind of brings the song back to southern roots. We kind of are moving on in life so past traditions get left behind. Beyonce is trying to grab at those past traditions and bring them back.

Author: Erik Yan

Artist Statement

Letter to Video Game Companies (Unit 4)

Letter to the MTA (Unit 3 Redo)

Unit 4 Proposal

Video Games Taught Me More Than School Ever Did (Revised)

MTA Signal Memo

Gender Inequality in Video Games (Unit 2)

Mentor Article

Gender Disparity in Games

Pop Culture Response

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