The biggest problem with creating the “socially and morally productive” digital experience you describe, Pete, is that in the end, it will still be a game. This interactive digital medium is still relatively new and has not yet commercially explored any mode of experience other than ‘playing a video game.’ One of the fundamental characteristics of “play” is that it is distinct from the seriousness of real life. Is it fair to think a video game could possibly try to simulate the reality of life in the ghetto without being able to offer the seriousness of that life’s consequences? The digital transference of real-life consequences into a game severely diminishes their impact on the subject. Take dying for instance – the final real-life consequence – which is used in almost every video game. When a player dies in-game, it usually only stands as a relatively minor inconvenience, forcing him or her to start from a previous save and retrace his or her steps. How fun would a shooter be if when you were shot once, you could barely move if you didn’t die immediately and the game simply ended? Not fun at all. You have to tweak the rules of real life in order to make a game that is fun, which further defines the separation of play and real life. This is why I find difficulty in the prospect of translating situations that are usually devoid of all fun into a ‘game,’ which requires it.
This brings me to a second obstacle in designing such a simulation: the tastefulness in recreating traumatic life experiences. Games’ simulation of situations inherently diminishes their seriousness, which would be arguably inappropriate for replicating, say, the difficult life of an impoverished urban child. Along the same lines, take the Six Days in Fallujah controversy. What are the moral implications of replicating an actual military assault in Iraq for a paying audience? Designers argue that it realistically portrays the struggle of modern warfare while parents of deceased soldiers cry foul. Would there even be an argument over a game about trying to survive in a Nazi concentration camp? If gamers were to come across – not a ‘game’ – but such a video project, what would require them to discern the seriousness of the content from any other shoot-em-up? Recreating almost any situation in the virtual sphere could transform it into an act of fun, when the actions themselves would hardly be considered fun in real life. Take any FPS as an already existing example. Imagine having to take seriously the casualties in a game like Battlefield or Call of Duty – no gamers sign out of their server wondering about the families of the soldiers they just killed. They don’t have to, and they’re not supposed to – they are merely ‘playing’ soldier.
I think GTA is a more productive game than most people outside of the gaming community give it credit for. It balances the vast difference between the street ‘game’ and the video game, offering some of the seriousness of the situation it portrays while keeping it fun by letting you escape from the cops and run over innocent bystanders. Granted, these methods of fun would only be fun in real life if you were batshit crazy – but that’s part of the video game experience, living out impossible and sometimes twisted fantasies, which starts another whole conversation. But the types of experiences we’re talking about probably should never be considered fun by anyone and would have a difficult time finding their place in game form.
You can imagine the inner struggle I have while I relish the gory mowing down of virtual bodies despite my real-life pacifism and ideals of non-violence.
Killing Spree!
Alan
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Games For Justice
I had this thought a number of days ago and had to jot down the loose ends of it in my notebook. Accepting that video games can be used to simulate or create art (and we'll talk about that ad nauseum), why can't we use this same medium for political activism or social justice? There must be a way to create a game, let's call it The Ghetto, that simulates every hard decision a child faces growing up and surviving in deprived high rises on the south side of Chicago, or wherever they may be struggling. To get it right - I mean, to truly nail a project like that - could be such a fascinating effort in meshing playability with the brutality and borderline impossible challenges that are derived from those living conditions. Gangs, drugs, lack of education, deadbeat parents and crack addict friends... can you imagine crafting game mechanics around overcoming these obstacles?
But the point would be to immerse you in the character's perspective, removing you from your comfortable suburban living room and start making you think like a twelve-year-old who wants to live to see thirteen. Growing up with our media as it is today, even a child of ten would piece together than slinging drugs on the street will probably get you shot. This further complicates the aspiration for true simulation, because short of random drive-by shootings that prematurely end your game without reason, the point is to create a cause-and-effect linkage between your actions and negative outcomes. Making a digital environment that encourages you to make money through dealing drugs while retaining your own moral repercussions might be an insurmountable challenge.
I feel like the thought has some merit. If we can program 'games' like Kodu that are interested only in teaching kids to program, why can't we write a game that forces a suburban child to think like one who never takes a day for granted? It's certainly a compounding thought on the notion that games only rot a child's mind (yeah, my ass), so why not make them socially and morally productive instead of the prostitute and minigun free-for-all that is GTA?
Where do you weigh in on this?
Peter
But the point would be to immerse you in the character's perspective, removing you from your comfortable suburban living room and start making you think like a twelve-year-old who wants to live to see thirteen. Growing up with our media as it is today, even a child of ten would piece together than slinging drugs on the street will probably get you shot. This further complicates the aspiration for true simulation, because short of random drive-by shootings that prematurely end your game without reason, the point is to create a cause-and-effect linkage between your actions and negative outcomes. Making a digital environment that encourages you to make money through dealing drugs while retaining your own moral repercussions might be an insurmountable challenge.
I feel like the thought has some merit. If we can program 'games' like Kodu that are interested only in teaching kids to program, why can't we write a game that forces a suburban child to think like one who never takes a day for granted? It's certainly a compounding thought on the notion that games only rot a child's mind (yeah, my ass), so why not make them socially and morally productive instead of the prostitute and minigun free-for-all that is GTA?
Where do you weigh in on this?
Peter
Fourth Time Around
You know, it's fitting that after completing a second time around the block with the entire Half-Life 2 experience (Main Story, Episodes 1 and 2), this project is about to officially begin. Alan, my good friend and fellow gaming aficionado, and I are teaming up to make this website a reality. We both share a love for gaming, but perhaps more than that, we both take it seriously as a unique and legitimate artistic experience.
This is why the timing is appropriate. I have yet to hesitate with my affirmations that Half-Life 2 is the best-crafted video game in electronic history. Sales numbers aside, it succeeds in every way. Valve solidified their penchant for the revolutionary with the original Half-Life, leaving only enough room to be outdone by themselves. And that's just what they did. By integrating fresh in-game sequences, an unparalleled knack for storytelling, memorable characters, and airtight first-person mechanics, Valve rose to heights few developers can even dream of - a tier reserved for those who treat the digital experience as something more than just a 'game.' Never before had a game come so close to replicating that special 1:1 ratio of sight to experience. In many ways, HL2 impresses upon the player the same phenomenon experienced by moviegoers and theatre junkies: a willing suspension of disbelief. Except this time, your experience is particularly intimate because it's a universe you personally explore.
But I'm not here to preach about the glories of Half-Life 2, though I could for hours. HL2 is just an example of the types of prompts Alan and I wish to explore. The questions that are much harder to answer, perhaps impossible in fact, yet they linger well after you hit the power button. They're also a lot more fun to try and answer than, "How many stars should The Bigs 2 get on a scale of one to ten?" We're shooting for a new kind of digital journalism, closer to academia, but without the high brow bullshit that keeps us all from digging deeper towards the ultimate ponderance: Can video games be art?
It takes a nation to define a movement sometimes and that's where you come in. The only way this can work is if Alan and I aren't the only two asking the questions. We want this to be a community and we'll do everything we can to supply the tools to communicate. As we get rolling, though, chime in, leave comments, write us an email, and we'll see where a great many curious gamers can get in defining the future of digital experience.
Peter
This is why the timing is appropriate. I have yet to hesitate with my affirmations that Half-Life 2 is the best-crafted video game in electronic history. Sales numbers aside, it succeeds in every way. Valve solidified their penchant for the revolutionary with the original Half-Life, leaving only enough room to be outdone by themselves. And that's just what they did. By integrating fresh in-game sequences, an unparalleled knack for storytelling, memorable characters, and airtight first-person mechanics, Valve rose to heights few developers can even dream of - a tier reserved for those who treat the digital experience as something more than just a 'game.' Never before had a game come so close to replicating that special 1:1 ratio of sight to experience. In many ways, HL2 impresses upon the player the same phenomenon experienced by moviegoers and theatre junkies: a willing suspension of disbelief. Except this time, your experience is particularly intimate because it's a universe you personally explore.
But I'm not here to preach about the glories of Half-Life 2, though I could for hours. HL2 is just an example of the types of prompts Alan and I wish to explore. The questions that are much harder to answer, perhaps impossible in fact, yet they linger well after you hit the power button. They're also a lot more fun to try and answer than, "How many stars should The Bigs 2 get on a scale of one to ten?" We're shooting for a new kind of digital journalism, closer to academia, but without the high brow bullshit that keeps us all from digging deeper towards the ultimate ponderance: Can video games be art?
It takes a nation to define a movement sometimes and that's where you come in. The only way this can work is if Alan and I aren't the only two asking the questions. We want this to be a community and we'll do everything we can to supply the tools to communicate. As we get rolling, though, chime in, leave comments, write us an email, and we'll see where a great many curious gamers can get in defining the future of digital experience.
Peter
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