Video Games and Placing Blame!!!

I am not an avid game player nor do I pride myself on being able to kill as many aliens as I can, but having studied video games in a textual studies perspective and having studied them neutrally, I must say that it is interesting as to how the media has not only misrepresented the role of video games in society but has lured players into news channels so they may openly blame these game players. Today, on CNN Chris Mathews, asked the gunman's roommate from Virginia Tech about the lifestyle that his roommate lived. And in a series of questions about his personality, the first thing Chris Mathews said was "Is there a gaming culture on campus? Are there a lot of people interested in video games and do they play them seriously?" I was shocked at how random but cleverly placed the questions were and how calculated an effort he made to get this roommate of the gunman to say "Yes we play video games and e want to kill people." But this was not the case, and in actuality, Chris Mathews was clearly disappointed when the roommate said, "Some people like the games and others don't its not a big issue or anything on campus." I really understand what the class was speaking of when they discussed the ready blame that was being placed on video games for violence and what the group on Racing cars and simulation was exploring in terms of game play aggressive and real life aggressive. I observed this same stigma for video games amongst the new genre of upcoming South Asian themes games where religious leaders claimed that if children learn in their teen years to blow up "Mother Kali" and ancient Hindu temples, as they do in Ashoka and Hungama and Animex which got me thinking of how these players both in America and in the South Asian sub-continent would react to such strenuous comments. This incidence took me back to our Speaker's comments about powerful people's invested interests but in this case I never saw it so real as I did today.

Slipper Slope Argument

Listening to the guest speaker's talk today, I found the concept of what we call in Ethics the "Slippery Slope " Argument very relevant and interesting when connected to the idea of textual studies within the genre of video games. The basic idea is that of one action that is borderline to something else and causes controversy will eventually lead to an action of a higher degree or next level. For example, if one says it is alright to test embryos in stem cell research then is it also alright for one to test infants? One may ask Where do we draw the line? And that is the concept of the slippery slope where one thing may inevitably lead to another which is much worst. Our speaker discussed this slippery slope concept as argued by the media and how the violence in video games will eventually spill over into real life and how that is an argument many hold to be valid within the political and social sectors of the world. To think that those groups all have a vested interest in making the argument changed my perception of violent video games and the actual act of playing as well. It makes one think twice of how the Calvinistic way of thinking has become so automatic in our heads that if an activity is considered idle we think of it as immoral or at least very close to that. I wasn't aware of the concept of an alternate reality that we create for ourselves even as children in which we create those acts that we desire to do but cannot in the "real" world because of social limitations. It almost makes me think that is players wouldn't rid their aggression in video games then maybe they might build up frustration an dwho knows what that would lead to. This might be too extreme a thought but it does make me think of video games as a mode of releasing violence safely and venting rather than traditionally presented by the media as violence builders and increasing violence in society as opposed to acting like a filter and maintaining the sanity of players.

Rejecting Reality

After spending some time with FACADE and our online class on Friday I began to think about the implications of such games which provide a setting and history but then allow you to create your own. In terms of Resistance, I would compare it to reading the background notes that come up right before every level but then having the option to go through the notes, rewrite the history in terms of the main character and also the armed forces at a large ,and then go in and play the game each time with a new plot. That is almost exactly what these games allow for they provide the option to reject the already created reality by automatically using your actions to decide a new game type without which the game cannot go on. The difference I see between these games and First person Shooters in terms of plot is that there the action occurs after the plot methodology is decided, for the armed forces need a reason to fight, whereas FACADE is more creative and less reactive which means one is able to create one's own world and allow the plot methodology, but not the plot itself, to alter for the goal is to unite the couple at the end. Though i must mention, I am very skeptical as to the level of freedom that I have heard other reviews overestimate regarding these types of games as "a future canvas for players" for there are a limited amount of reactions that can be programmed. This leads us back to the same question about how "real" first person shooters are for they too have a programmed set of ways the enemy can react in terms of the players actions. I found that after a few movements, if one chooses a different route, such as going around a car or under a flight of stairs, the inevitable contact with the enemy occurs as a result of the setting eventually leading you back to where they are waiting to fight. in that sense, one may feel that there is much freedom in these games, but once again, our freedom as players is limited by the imagination of the programmers for they predict a list of our reactions and they ALLOW us to perform those actions in the game so the false sense of freedom will soon, I think, be treated like all other games that we've had in the past as limiting and our desire for "more reality" will continue.

Diaspora of Games within South Asia and their Future

http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/dec2005/id20051213_158208.htm

The link above is an article to Business Week Online regarding developing video games within India and a recent game and concept that is growing within South Asian computer gaming genres, which is "Indian themed" games such as Emporer Ashoka. This game is about a centries old ruler who united the Indian subcontinet under his rule and is known for his bravery and valor. The problem I see with this type of developing genre is that it feeds into the stereotype of westernized video games and though it may be a successful marketing scheme for already developed nations who might feed on their notions of what is Indian, it definetely is a step back for introducing active participation in mass numbers within the Indian population itself. The concept of historical contextual games which involve active learning of history is an interesting concept but I don't feel that the country is prepared to accept the conept of rewriting history with every unique gaming experience. As far as histry goes, Ashoka has always won and fought with great success in terms of killing men and attaining land, whereas within the game, the outcome is dependent on the player which may make sense as the player will take on the role of Ashoka while fighting, but as I mentioned earleir, even the creators of Resistance made the conscious effort of rewriting the history back to 1892 and in terms of aliens torecreate the context within which the players face. To blatantly allow the recreation of an Indian ruler in a false manner may turn off a lot of potential players within the market of upper middle class Indian city high schoola nd college students who are spending more and more money on entertainment, according to the report. Especiaslly, with the use of the Hindu goddess Kali as a character within the game is a clear statement from the creators that thi game is intended for overseas only and cannot and will not be considered a stepping stone for textual studies within video games for India. The erotic depiction of women within these games has definitely spilled over to the deiction of Kali and her role as villianess will definitely cause strong opposition if released in Indain markets. To place things into context, we haven't seen any games within Unites States which present Christ in an erotic and violent manner without context or within. The interpretation of Kali as violent is analagous to limiting Christ in the figure of the angry teenager who turned over the tables of the sly tax collector as a teenager. Though I understand that mrketing is for overseas, I feel the company is creating a barier betweent itself and the huge market waiting to be profitted from within India itself. The Creators are looking for quick money from where it already exists and not tapping into unknown teritorries where much oppurtunity lies and to be so insensative to the textual value of history and interetextual quality and correctness of the game will defintely effect the company in the future when the genre becomes more specific to Indian games for Indians and they will have to endure much criticism for what South Asian players will see as a compromise of ethical standards for quick money.

LOST...not the show

Understanding Gaming culture is as complicated as programming the games themselves and one of the biggest obstacles in aquiring knowledge about video games and studying the intertextual and peritextual elements of the field is the gaming tradition which is deep rooted in years of experience and breeds generatons of experts and dialogue. Especicially, the current young generation of college and more importantly post graduate students who have began there interaction with video games with the original Nintendo circa 1985 and continue on with their experience with the Nintendo Wii. Their are 22 years of developpment of games, versions, consols, characters, and players, all of which are subject to familiarity as either mentioned directly or indirectly within other games or media types such as cartoons or TV shows. This may be one of the reasons we have finally turned our attenton to textual studies within video games becasue of the numerous years of changes and recorded games and its "accessories" or the peritextual elements which document a developing gaming culture which adds to shaping current social elements and is also a result of today's values. For example, now that the Holocaust is over and even native Germans who once supported the Nazi regime accept its immorality, games like Resistance have come into being. I was first introduced to the game as "it's like WW II except the Nazis are now aliens and the American regiment left but only one troop got left behind." Textually speaking, this refernce may be nothing but a foundation upon which the creators formed their own plot line but when one views this game it is ignorant to ignore the issue of its nature, first person shooters and with that one is automatically linked to the chronology of development of first person shooters and in comparing the old to the latest to the future, a level of familiarity along with DETAILED experience is needed to mention not the obvious but the subtle changes throughout the games as a result of years of tracking these kinds of games. The issue I wish to surface here is the availbalilty and accessability of textual studies of any text in terms of their dependence to the actual work themselves and how such an esoteric group can be prevented from becoming elitists as we sometimes see Shakespeare scholars segregate themselves. There is a potential of a generation of uniqe first time experts on video games to slowly come into being and it is important to be as inclusive as professionally and productively possible to generate meaningful and relevent dialogue to the audience of the textual studes within a specific field as video games to prevent the displacement of the majority of the next generation of players who wil not be familiar with the earlier versions of games or consols and may feel lost in a hopeless effort to reconnect to the foundation of games.

Arcade Adventures

Having studied Arcades this entire week, the group decided to take a field trip to Gameworks and submerge ourselves in that very arcade-like atmosphere to recreate the experience discussed in class, as it had been quite a while since any of us had been to an arcade. The atmosphere of Gameworks had drastically changed from its original modest layout to a full fledged pool area, restaurant, reeption table, and an entire hall reserved for parties and events. This new version of an arcade was short of a country club in the day and after 9:00pm, it was short of a full fledged bar as all children under 21 had to leave the arcade. That very policy guided me to the thought that arcades are no longer for only children as they have generations to enertain. The players of today wait in line with their parents so that both can play the arcade games, as I saw everyone from middle school kids to a senior citizens. This generational inclusion of gaps and thereby removing those gaps is a direct result of arcade culture. Almost every line I was in, there were younger and much older adults and while playing, all seemed to coexist as players surpassing the issues of age. The games had changed but many of the older games were still there and since accessability was there for both generations, there was a sense of familiarity for all players allowing them to bond in a shared experience. Strangers reacted to the scores of people they didn't know and stood behind looking over the shoulders of other players. There was a shared experience made commercial at the arcades and it was evident through the addiction of consecutively swiping cards with points, that players craved that group experience on that larger scale and were willing to continue at any cost. Although, one drawback to the gaming experience was the commercialization of the games which I must note, can only extist in a large group caught in the moment of the game, for the higher level of obstacles and impossibiliy of the games for beginners is remarkably high and the quality of the controls and their lack of precision play a key role in requiring more swipes as well. This I noticed because there were many players, such as Dan and Ryan, who despite their success at these games at home, had much difficulty at Gameworks. I thought I'd use them as relaible references as my gaming skills would not be very telling of the level of difficulty in any of the games as expereince is a prerequisite for succeeding in arcade games. Yes, one thing I learned from this trip is that Arcade games are different than games played at home because, though the same characters and titles, they are more difficult and their accessories of guns and triggers alter the gaming experience entirely. Thus, I motion that arcades belong in their own genre when discussing the sociological context of games as they are a specific location whose sole purpose is to make money via the shared expereince of players.

A New Experience

Playing Devil May Cry 3 was an interesting experience in that I had never played an interactive game with a Rumble Pack which altered my gaming experience in a very dfferent way. I had played games on the Nintendo where pysical involvement was very much a part of the experience but those games functioned as a result of my activity outside in terms of the physical actions I performed on the running pad or shooting gun but this PS2 game did not rely on my physical activity to provide the experience, rather I ended up relying on it's physical activity in terms of the rumble pack to provide the reality experience to me. The exact timed reactions of the controller made me feel like I was doing a lot more but also that a lot more was happening around me as the controller reacted to the situations around me. I was placed in a world which was physically engulfing me and in which I really had no control of the environmental experience. How much I actually played within the game felt like a very small part of the experience which is quite different from my experience with Resistance where one deosn't feel the power of experience as much due to the lack of the Rumble pack. I found this similar to when I am reading texts and the way either I take ownership of the text while reading or whether the text take ownership of me. What I mean is the level one is willing to surrender to a particular textual reading is dependent on the interest and interactiveness to the reader. I am not that interested witin games so I am less willing to surrender to the experience but I do enjoy thrills so the rumbler ack was a successful mediator between my resistance to the experience and the game's attempt to engage me. I found this out while playing the game and then reading a text on Mahatma Gandhi which automoatically commands my attention due to interest. Thus, I accredited not the text but my level of willing surrender which if great enough can create an alernate reality which exists for the time that one is a part of it. Today was the first day I was able to compare gaming to reading, one step closer to viewing these games as texual studies in th eliteral sense.

Reality and Duality

The familiarity one gains after the initial experience with Resistance is really a Pandora's box. Investigating one issue or concern within a level leads to many other questions you didn't even know existed. Last week I asked myself what was the challenge, the task, or the goal of the game? Today I realize that the game simulates a type of duality with aliens as the enemy, substituting the Nazis, and maintains a sense of the reality as well in terms of the dynamics of the war. I was so engulfed within the requirements of the game that I realized that all I new was to kill the aliens regardless of where I am or what level I'm trying to get to. At this point, I wondered, "What role do the other soldiers play in killing the enemy? Do they actually kill or are they simply for decoration or simulation?" As I was so involved in the experience of Resistance that I had to step back for a moment and realized how a real soldier in a real war, perhaps those in Iraq, deal with the confrontations with enemies compared to the game. It was then that I became a part of the "reality" of the game and realized that my duty was to kill and I was more concerned with my duty than the other soldiers because in a real war, every individual that is on the other side of the line is an enemy and neglecting any of them for a split second could be the cause of my own death in a battlefield or in Resistance. It was that moment that I realized the reality of the experience and how the creators go about personalizing the experience by singling out the player from the rest of the soldiers so that we may not rely on the others for support while there is shooting, as in a real life situation, the game requires our full attention and presence at the time. Though, after a couple of failed attempts at a level, we know where the aliens are coming from, the fight is renewed each time and requires the same level of intensity and alertness. In that sense the duality of Resistance between the game world and the reality of the war experience is successful and I feel the transition from shooting Nazis to aliens is an easy transition for the player and the creator as it is an easier concept to grasp in that there are less obstacles in forming the game into a reality since it doesn't move too far from a war that actually existed, at least conceptually. It is almost as if the game exists in two worlds, that which exists outside the screen and that which exists within the screen resulting in a reality within a duality.

In Search of the Game

Having my first experience with a PS2 was not only confusing but also frustrating. I felt archaic and outdated in my knowledge of the game Resistance as well as my inability at surviving let alone succeeding. Much of the frustration and sense of helplessness came from the search for the challenge. Having been used to playing with the first version (1985) of Nintendo with Duckhunt and Mario Brothers, I was conditioned by those earlier games to follow instructions to succeed whereas Resistance actually requires creative and self motivated searches to seek the thrill and find the challenge. I almost felt like the child whose mother left him at the grocery store for the first time and said, "Go get all the ingredients to make a cake," sure I knew what a cake tasted like and I even had a vague idea of how its made but having to go through all those isles wandering off felt wrong in a sense. I knew that I was given permission to wander off but having been taught my entire childhood to stay close by and not get lost, I felt paranoid. I felt just as odd while playing Resistance because as I was playing with someone else, I was caught up trying to stay close to my fellow fighter. It was very easy to get caught in the moment of staying close to your comrade as well as looking for the Nazi aliens. The limitations of the game due to the suspense of the enemy's whereabouts and the freedom of mobility worked closely and played off each other rather quickly and continuously making the gaming experience not only intense but very engaging. Where two hours had gone, I had no idea. In trying to find the aliens and not getting killed, I felt there was a strong sense of involvement and awareness which Resistance required for one to go on to the next level. The added dimensions provided the aliens one more direction to attack from making me very paranoid. All in all, I really enjoyed the game in terms of its features and the qualtiy of involvement as it has increased from the first version of Nintendo to PS2 and I can only imagine beyond. It will be interesting to see what reactions and experiences I have once I am over the system and able to pay closer attention to the game itself. That might take a few more tries, but I do feel that the form the game is played in is a very crucial aspect of the experience so in that sense I feel privelgaed in my ignorance to be able to evaluate the the system as its own entity and provide the game its own evaluation as an independent creative source.