Marathon and Masculinity

Going into Marathon’s release, I hadn't played a PvP shooter in a very long time. I'd played games adjacent to it, like an occasional dip into Destiny 2 or the odd firefight in DayZ. It had been over 10 years since I'd played a pure PvP shooter like CoD or Battlefield. 

So it was very unnerving, when playing Marathon, to start having moments where playing the game made me feel like a Man. I don't really tend to have experiences like that in my life, in fact a lot of the time I don't feel gendered (which may very well be an AMAB privilege thing) so it came as a bit of a shock to me as a queer nonbinary person, plunging myself into masculinity after so long away. 

Marathon is a game about extracting profit. Load into a map, grab as many valuables as you can hold, and exfil without dying to wandering AI, or other people doing the same thing. There are sometimes missions, there's a plot if you look pretty hard for it, and a hint of gambling with how expensive your loadout is. But mostly, it's a lot of dying. So how do you learn to be good at the game? Well, the game teaches you how to play it. If you play badly, you die. If you play well, you live and make money. There’s more to Marathon than just a single player experience, however. Through interactions with other players, you also start to learn a little more. Eventually, you’re bored at work and have the bright idea to search Marathon on Youtube, and a whole world opens up.

The common thread through all of these experiences, is that they have made me feel like a Man, in ways I haven’t felt in a long time, and in ways I don’t like.

How other players teach me to play

“What the fuck is wrong with you?!”

I was looting some tunnels, and heard gunfire from the POI above me. I slowed down and got quiet, and eventually heard footsteps approaching. I got in a corner and waited for them to run past. When they did, my adrenaline got to me, I emptied a clip around them, and got knifed to death in response. In the seconds between being downed and being executed, he hit the proximity chat button and screamed, “What the fuck is wrong with you?!” and I went back to the loading screen, losing 5,000 credits. 

I contemplated what is wrong with me? My aim is bad? I was camping in a weird spot? And then I realized, I scared him and he wanted to make me feel bad. He felt he could because he had “dominated” me. 

“How do you like that, baby boy?”

I had a good run, killing a couple other players and gathering an inventory full of loot. I decided it was time to leave. Secured the area around the extract, and activated it. It takes about 30 seconds before it opens, and another 10 to actually leave. Meanwhile, the entire map can see the extract beacon, so I found a spot to hide, listen, and wait. 30 seconds later I ran into the extract to begin the 10 second countdown. Someone was waiting on a nearby roof and gunned me down. There was still a chance to escape while downed, but he decided to hop into the extract and execute me, and he was able to exfil, but with no time to take any of my loot. 

I flailed on the ground, and hid from his shots. He ran over, flipped me onto my back, and drove a knife into my bionic heart while I helplessly battered with my bloody hands. 

While he did it, that's when he spoke over proximity chat, “How do you like that, baby boy?” I went back to the main menu, losing everything. He got home safely, gaining seemingly nothing from my death. 

This was a moment of intense violence, it happened over the course of 10 seconds, and he had enough time to hit the button and say something sexual, denigrating, and domineering. Imagine the amount of conditioning that went into him to make that 10 seconds possible, a kind of a horrific sublime of patriarchy. 

Well, I can't really say I liked it. 

Being a man is about dominating.

“You guys looking for pvp or do you just want to loot?”

I play a lot of solo games, I find playing like a rat more thrilling. Sometimes, I do dip into squads when I want to shoot something. 

I find every rando squad game starts with an implicit negotiation, and in this case a teammate made it explicit, “You guys looking for pvp or do you just want to loot?”

Do you want to play the game, or do you want to play the game? 

Do you want to hunt down some other people and take their shit? Do you want to invade their secured location and dominate? Do you want to go do the work of clearing out AI and sifting through the loot, or do you want to go murder someone that's already done that work for you (the absolute fool! Chump! Sucker! Idiot! PREY!! WOMAN!!!!!) and REAP! REAP! REAP! LET THE FOOL SOW!!!!!!!!

We ended up focusing on our teammate’s quest. No pvp, only a little loot, a successful run. We played the game well, but did we play it right? I found myself asking this question, even though it's one I abhor. It was a good run, lots of teamwork and a fun experience. But I could’ve walked away with more cash if we had squared up against some opponents and proven ourselves superior. If we had been stronger men, we would’ve made more profit.

Being a man is about dominating.

“Please can we talk this out?!”

 

My squad got decimated in Cryo Archives by another group. The last of my teammates, downed, yelled out as he got executed, “Please can we talk this out!?” The other team laughed as they began looting.

What do you do in that brief period between losing and dying? Most people take the loss stoically and don’t make a noise. You can beg to be spared, and its funny. People have also screamed in horror, that's also pretty funny. Then there’s trash talking, but trash talk coming from a loser is lame, so you should only do that if you’re really mad and want the other guy to know.

Being a man is hiding your emotions with a mask of indifference or humor, or exploding with rage.

“You know what you're doing, want to run with us?”

A successful run. Lots of loot, lots of kills, my team extracting with full bags and empty mags.

From the guy who guided us through the game, “You know what you're doing, want to run with us?” A great offer, as teaming up with friends rather than randoms gives you an edge over nearly everyone. Running with a crew means you’re going to communicate better, and that is the most important thing in a firefight.

And here it is, the final goal of manhood: to be accepted by other men.

So, what did I learn?

1. I need to dominate others. Kill without remorse, kill with skill.

2. Taking from others is the most efficient way to win.

3. Don’t emote, its weird. Only rage, indifference, or jocularity are accepted.

4. If you follow the previous rules, you’ll get invited to a group that will give you power.

How the internet community teaches me to play. 

“The Most OP Gun in the Game”

“How I Took Over Marathon’s Hardest Map”

“The Best Way to Play Marathon”

“DOMINATE Cryo Archive”

“Rooks to Riches”

I was going to talk more about these vids, but after watching them all it turns out the titles are way more clickbaity than the actual content. They mostly consist of clips of white men being really good at the game. The most interesting thing about them is the way they frame themselves as instructions on how to be good at the game, even though the majority of the videos are non-instructive gameplay. In the lens of how you’re taught to play, it is very interesting that all of the most popular videos have some sort of framing that is instructive-teetering-on-selfhelp and have skilled white dudes providing examples. So it seems like the internet community wants you to watch people who are better than you, and put together what you’re supposed to be doing.

How life has taught me to play.

Two acceptable forms of play for me as a child were video games and sports.

Video games are easy to explain. Call of Duty was popular with friends, so that's what I played. Those other men that were in those lobbies provided pretty much the same social experience as with Marathon, except they spouted a lot more vile shit than I hear today. Marathon also allows for a lot of interactions that have direct consequences on the game, rather than just trash talk.

The same people I played those video games with were the same people on my football team. Instead of strangers on the internet teaching us to be men, it was older players and coaches. Their methods for teaching were just about the same, except this time it was face to face, and on top of the threat of emotional pain, physical pain was also an option. 

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/805725 talks about how sports and video games are linked via the violent performances of masculinity. It focuses on physical pain, but emotional pain is also hugely important. 

Where coaches could punish you with grueling workouts or excess hitting drills, they could also punish by calling your manhood into question via insults or challenges and it was up to you to respond. Skill, or effort, or brute strength could all work to solidify your standing, but only until the next time it was challenged. 

We went home, and with the anonymizing arena of video games, were able to practice those same acts against strangers. No threat of physical harm, and no measure of success other than skill, so that those without endurance or strength had a chance to dominate. We practiced the same things our mentors taught us. 

Could Marathon exist without these experiences?

I don’t know.

Someone might say that these experiences aren’t part of the game. I would argue that the devs of Marathon fully expect most players to use chat and the internet to learn about the game (not to mention the ARG’s) so that counts as play. These experiences may not be in the code of the video game, but they’re part of the game.

All of these interactions happen before I even speak. It's assumed I'm a man. I'm sure it's assumed I'm white. 

I could turn the audio off, but that would put me at a severe disadvantage. I could only play with friends, but that's difficult to do every time. I could never watch a marathon video again, but how will I learn about the arcane raid mechanics.

I should also talk about gambling loadouts provides another platform for masculinity to take hold, but I'm running out of steam. 

I'm not really sure what to do at this point. I imagine women and POC have a lot worse experiences, and have seen this shit countless times before. Maybe I'll try to be more friendly to randos. Maybe I'll start carrying self revives to give out to Rooks. Maybe I'll refrain from killing players extracting. Maybe small kindnesses are all lost under dominating patriarchal-colonial-capitalism, but maybe they aren't.