On Violence

NOTE: This is a long one. It's also a lot more theoretical than conversational. If you have a question, please feel free to post so that I can try to be more clear.

There is little debate on what the greatest debate is when it comes to video games: Does the imaginary violence of the game translate into violent behavior in the real world? It seems to be very much a 'depends on your point of view' type of argument. Not only does it depend on one's point of view, but also the particular study itself, what it focuses on, and how well it's managed. It is also important to note the rhetorical tricks of the debate*, since most of the data are coming from second or third sources. But I am no statistician, so numbers do nothing to help me to understand the issue. In fact, numbers about this argument are superfluous, since the entire point of gaming (whether the gamer/designer/critic is aware of it or not) is the individual as the ideal. Let's look at violence, then, shall we?

Violence Within the Digital

The 1980s and early 1990s: Within the dark cave of the video game arcade comes the perpetual sound, flashing lights, and endless shouts--a child-sized spectacle. Skeeball, Whack-A-Mole, and Ticket Wheels are relegated to one corner, the 'child-friendly,' benign entertainment that provides the paradigm for gambling in later years. This is the Big League Chew of Las Vegas, the innocuous imitation of a larger social entertainment, one that is arguably destructive in and of itself. This is the addiction of the game but with bumpers and rounded corners.

Separated from the rest of the glitz are the free-standing black boxes with instantly recognizable controllers, molded plastic that is shaped to look like an uzi, a sniper rifle, a hand gun. Sometimes they're painted a pastel pink or a boyish blue to disperse the judgment that the toys are really trying to imitate what's outside the walls of the arcade, that instead they are pain free, consequence free, and repercussion free--all for the price of a quarter.

The decades shift; the games find a new home at home. No longer is the violence isolated, no longer kept within the cave of the arcade. Like MMA and UFC, the fight has lost its law, every hold is allowed. The possible perniciousness of what violence argues, what it demands, what it is can now be viewed and seen and felt endlessly. Even the price of the quarter is swallowed up in the overall price of the console system. Violence has come home to roost--more chillingly, perhaps it has simply come home.

The vulture of violence is perhaps what is most to blame here. Violence has long been embedded in us. Humans killed, kill, and will kill again for as long as they are humans. Wars have progressively sought to establish a type of order, a type of reality in which what was done within the war became right. Interpersonal, domestic, and civil violence has always been propelled by this same urge. Perhaps it is intrinsic--if so, how does one exorcise it? Perhaps it is extrinsic--if so, why has it yet to be fully censored? Violence, a malignancy and a virus that simultaneously debases and empowers those who use it, is indeed vicious, indeed necessary. Violence overpowers and destroys so that reconstruction can come. Destruction is the fertilizer for growth--or so the animal kingdom operates. This argument is part of a mask, an attempt at abdication for violence's heavy claims, a deficit-spending model of meaning. While it may be true that violence is inherent--perhaps even inherited--it does not make it right.

Rationality is of no use against violence bent on expression. There is no recourse in words when actions are given full sway. The world itself, every life lived, suffers a type of violence--language, relationships, eventual death. Violence can lead to death, but it isn't violence's fault. Death does not lead to violence per se; rather death is violence par excellence. And if ever there is something that the West wants, it wants it par excellence.

Perhaps the focus then is Westward. Perhaps it's part of the American way of thinking. 'Go big or go home.' 'Don't mess with Texas.' The idea that the rightness of one's cause is directly proportional to one's mightiness may be an indicator of why violence is prevalent. The simple premise of many war games helps to underscore this. When a problem arises for the gamer, the response is unequivocal and uncompromising: violent retaliation. Often, games will invoke a 'first-strike' mentality, or take any slight hostility as purposeful. Accidents happen in real life, but not in games. Attacks against the protagonist are wrong because they are wronging the gamer, not because of a moral 'wrongness' to them. Any assault upon the avatar is grounds for total war, in which the end result will be a pile of corpses left in the trail of the protagonist. Like the movie Iron Man, the insult of abduction of a rich white American male is grounds for utter obliteration--done thanks to the endlessly superior technology of America.

Accidents happen in real life, but in the game they are ignored or never forgotten, nothing in between. Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion has the option for the gamer to sheathe her weapon and attempt to open up a dialogue in the case of accidentally striking a benign NPC. Full forgiveness; insult forgotten. Resident Evil 4 has no apology feature for having accidentally knifed Ashley--the Game Over animation bleeds across the screen, the insult of violence utterly unforgiven. Diplomacy rarely rears its head, almost never inserts its rational approach to potentially violent situations. No ambiguity remains, for in a digital world where everything is ultimately encoded in a yes or no answer, there isn't space for diplomacy and shades of gray.

Hence war as spectacle and war as drama and war as theater and war as game. Ambiguities become irrelevant when the war is a just war (if there is truly such a thing). Resistance and Halo provide the gamer as the victim first, the victor at any cost. The body count rises based upon the gravity of the original insult, the original attack. War as game has pushed into history, recreating the wrongness of Nazism for its perpetual destruction (Wolfenstein); war as a spectacle has been explained into existence thanks to technology, allowing it to become a blood sport that ends in no lives lost (Unreal Tournament III). Violence has become something else, no longer outward across social lines but inward through personal boundaries. Jean Baudrillard: "A whole other violence appears today, which we no longer know how to analyze, because it escapes the traditional schema of explosive violence: implosive violence that no longer results from the extension of a system..." (71-72) But new systems come to mold this form, new systems that go by many names: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii...

Still, there is a shadow of a mask on the face of this argument--a reflection of reality is claimed, yet it's argued that it can only flow one way. Violence is absorbed into the game from society through a type of conscious osmosis, but proponents argue that society doesn't absorb the violence back from the game? The question then becomes whether or not violence and art (or violence in art?) can be reduced to a one-way valve, like the chambers of a heart. Does the traffic flow from society and into games where it pools and festers? If this is so, then the game is the paradigm for release, purely emancipatory and escapism in every significant way. All attitudes, all mores, all restrictions should be challenged and given over to play. If all negative humanity can be released and expressed in a game, then all games should be given. Religions of every type should lose sacred space to the game, for the rebellion of them in the digital does not translate to the analog of reality. All that humanity holds as being of value--from priceless works of art to even the fragility of the human life--must end up on the screen. For me, these things cannot be. Erotic games, getting so much press as of now, raise questions about what the difference is between play and reality. Should such games be banned? Not if the traffic flow is only one-way.

Complete social reduction into games can only be answered if violence has finally found a resting place inside of the digital, a place where it is infinitely confined by the delimited storage of hard drives and networked servers. If the answer, however, is that violence is nature and it will, as Dr. Malcom quips in Jurassic Park, "If there is one thing the history of evolution has taught us it's that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, expands to new territory, and crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously." Violence contained? What naivete is this? By its very nature violence breaks free--much like life. To assume that the game is the haven of violence is to assume that the game provides a simulacrum for violence, putting it into a constant self-refferential loop that prevents it from harming anyone or anything. With such destructive power, it doubtless will shatter its bounds and push outward both painfully and dangerously. And yet the game is necessary.

Baudrillard brings this to light indirectly with his comparison of remainders to mirrors. He says, "Perhaps only in the mirror can the question be posed: which, the real or the image, is the reflection of the other?" The real life violence or the image of violence that is contained in the game? This is the 'chicken or the egg' question of the digital age, and it is to the digital that we must look.

Shrugging away the violence portrayed within many games is not the correct response to the question. Pointing out comparisons to other recreations (hunting, high-impact or extreme sports, gambling) does little to clarify the responsibility that games have to society and society has to games. Monocausational accusations will do little to correctly respond to the question, too--bad parenting, violent video games, too much caffeine, and any other lazy label to explain human behavior will never do. Viewed as a whole, we must consider whether or not violence is permanent, if it is worth accepting, and what it shows of humanity.

Let us ask: Why does violence matter? Is it natural? Should it be avoided? Even if we take the claim that violence is a part of being human, we fall into a worry when it comes to games. Games participate in a type of 'harmless violence,' as McKenzie Wark argues in Gamer Theory, "[F]or here is violence at its most extreme--and its most harmless." (23) Hence the problem with video game violence: It is new. Because it is new, the tools to analyze it are lacking. The idea of a game becoming an indicator of violence is real: The recent case of Daniel Petric and the murder of his mother because she took away Halo 3 has provided a post hoc fallacy for anti-gaming proponents. (I most wonder: What if Petric's parents had taken away his copy of Nintendogs or Animal Crossing? Would there be as much of an uproar?) The tragedy of this is less that Halo 3 is maligned and more that within Petric the violence swung from its most harmless to its most extreme. When it comes to violence in games, understanding whence the violence comes makes it all right (capitulatory) and right now (instantaneously), though hardly right.

Explored well enough violence in its negativity, is there any positivity within interactive violence that makes participation therein worthwhile? Admittedly little, it seems, for the very reason that Baudrillard states: We do not have the tools with which to analyze the problem. We can dismiss it or defend it only partially.

Natural appeal: Violence has always been part of human- and animal-kind. Classical appeal: Ancient poems retraced the daring-do of heroes, sometimes describing in graphic detail the results of the battles and fights. Commercial appeal: Action movies frequently make significant money through box-office revenues (and, unsurprisingly, they cost the most, too). Imperial appeal: Wars fought to ensure the proper spread of civilization--usually a group that claims to desire peace. Patriotic appeal: Because of revolutions against despotism, the world we enjoy now was created.

No matter how we reshape the idea, we are always left with the rank hypocrisy that mars all of the current wars: war on terror (when war is terror); war on drugs (to prevent the violence inherent in illicit drug use, we will use force); war on gangs (lest youth lead astray by gang teachings react with violence...); war on the family (a war of words, yet incitations to great violence against abortionists and those of different sexual orientations).

From destruction some creation occurs, and from that comes a large justification for the violence that games embrace. We will never know if reality would have been better if the world had grown without bloodshed. We do know it would be different. Because of the game, the harmless violence of the digital can be experienced and learned from. Further, the impossibility of knowing what a world would be like without one of mankind's greatest vices (violence) can be briefly simulated: When Master Chief lowers his weapon, the Covenant wins--violence upon the avatar is guaranteed. Perhaps the reason for violence in a video game stems just a little bit from the desire of the gamer to be recognized as having worth--a worth that is worth defending.

------

*In a simliar vein, the USA Today posted a story about video games being addictive, and that there is actually a percentage of children who can become addicted to video games. Its statistic is "8.5%" or, as the opening paragraph states, "Nearly one in 10 kids" has an addiction to video games. Looking closely at the verbiage, it could just as easily be said "less than one in ten kids" or "less than ten percent" of children have an addiction to video games. More optimistically: "More than 90% of kids do not suffer from video game addiction." The oft-quoted statistic of divorce being somewhere in the 50% range should be a greater worry for the children. I would much rather have a class where 1 in every 10 students struggled with something as crippling as addiction, rather than 1 in every 2 students suffering with something as difficult as their parents' divorce.

Further: the idea that games are inherently addictive is often used to enforce the anti-gaming violence argument, though the idea that kids could be addicted to something else with that sort of consistency is apparently unthought of. A casual Google (and Bing) search for the phrase 'how many kids are addicted to sports' pulled up, on the first page, a number of stories reporting the same statistic I mentioned earlier--about video games. It's an unfair comparison to put sports and other recreation against video games--they are different things, and no one needs an 'apples to oranges' accusation--but it should be kept in mind that the studies have their inconsistencies, too.

On Prince of Persia

NOTE: If you haven't played the most recent Prince of Persia games, please be aware that I will not tell you when spoilers erupt from the essay below. This blog post is full of them. Also, the formatting in this blog is different from how I actually wrote it. Don't worry about the lack of italics or bold or whatever. It just doesn't matter enough for me to change it. Also, there is a footnote at the end of the essay, but it is not hyperlinked. Chalk it up to laziness.

Blast From the Past

I have a distinct memory of my first experience with Prince of Persia. It was the original Apple II game from 1989, developed by Jordan Mechner. In it, the gamer controls the dynamic hero through a set of fiendishly difficult traps in an attempt to save the princess. Standard fare, by all counts. My memories are a bit blurry, in part because I was still very young. I don't think the game was new when I was first exposed to it, but even then I can't be sure. I do remember this:

I was at my friend's house. His dad was a casual gamer of the late '80s, and was instrumental in introducing me to a number of classic titles, including an animated 3-D chess game, an updated version of Pitfall (released for the Windows 95 OS) and the original Wolfenstein. What was remarkable to me, though, with PoP, was the difficulty I had (when I tried it) of simply playing the game. Jumps were tricky, requiring precise timing and endless practice.

There was a brutal time limit counting down, adding to the stress of the situation. Worse than that, with a keyboard full of potential buttons, I never knew what to press when stuck in a fencing match with one of the poor guards who was forced to keep me in my dungeon pit. I remember watching my avatar crouch over three possible vials, not knowing which one might be poisonous--and invariably finding that one, instead of the 'full life' vial I had been searching for. More than anything, though, I remember watching my friend's dad's hands tremble on the keyboard (he has a type of palsy that makes his hands twitch--it wasn't because of passion for the game or anything). That image has taken up a permanent residence in my mind.

Now, two decades later, I have just finished the latest Prince of Persia, a very interesting addition to the franchise. (This, to be clear, is the one that was released for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC in 2008.) Though not as difficult as previous titles, I did find that my hands occasionally trembled on the controller--more from incontinent rage about 'the computer cheating' (an accusation that I level frequently at the PoP games) than anything else. Still, I found PoP to be fulfilling and worthwhile from both a ludological and narratological point of view.

Digging Deeper Through the Desert

There is a missed opportunity within PoP that bears reconciliation. This isn't accusatory, for the narrative told was told this way for a reason. Still, the possibility of what it could have been--indeed, the ghost of every murdered choice haunts us in this as in real life--should be considered.

Secondary NPC, primary character, Elika is the love interest, the moving force, and the exhausting gimmick of the game. As an NPC she is pure utility--useful for propelling the Prince as much as the plot, but little else. As primary character within the narrative, she is the motivation for the wall-runs and the numbing battles. As love interest she falls into a cliched deontological paradigm of being worth the sacrifice of the entire world. As the moving force, she operates as the encyclopedic expression of the diversity and richness of the world now Corrupted. As exhausting gimmick, she circumvents the conventions, providing a 'life-animation' instead of a 'death-animation' when the gamer fails.

The game's eponymous Prince has a past that is loosely described by him, yet fails to reveal--either in the main course of the game or in its overpriced epilogue--how the game should have derived the Prince of Persia title. Granted, the land is barren and desert-like, reminiscent of the Arabian Nights. Yet any mention of Babylon or Persia is missing. The Prince's past is best explained by the manual, in which it says that he is prince "in name only." Though he is prince in name, he is not in the game. With an obvious refusal to acknowledge his royalty within the confines of this first installment, the game would perhaps be better called Elika, for she is what, in the end, matters in the game.

Herein lies the missed opportunity. The game has already eschewed the logical connection between it and its predecessors, an opening that allows growth outward in an industry that seems to fears intellectual expansion almost as much as it craves audience expansion. With this gap available, why make the Prince the playable character? Why have Elika be relegated to a 'damsel in distress' stereotype only slightly fractured by her useful and necessary role? She is no Ashley Graham (from Resident Evil 4), but she is no Lara Croft (from Tomb Raider) either. With a possibility so broad, why ultimately regress into standard gender roles?

Lara as a Leader

The idea of Lara Croft being what the Prince calls himself (a 'tomb raider') may be a slight explanation for wanting to avoid casting Elika as the main character, but comparisons between the two dry up rapidly.

Lara Croft is buxom (always, though the degree has changed over the years) and oozes a latent sexuality in every animation. This very characteristic of hers was capitalized upon by casting Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft in the movie offshoots. Elika, conversely, though aware of her femininity, does not use it as a tool to manipulate the Prince (he does it to himself by falling for her). She is--for a video game character--modestly dressed in her default costume* and recognizes that, despite the Prince obviously sending out signals, she is focused on the task at hand.

Lara is also extraordinarily proactive (a natural extension of being the playable character), a trait that plays well into her abilities as an avatar. Elika, on the other hand, is passive almost to a fault, only stepping forward when it's to save the Prince from death. Every other action she does only occurs when the gamer (via the Prince) presses the Assist Button.

Lastly, the motivations that drive the two characters are about as opposite as possible. Lara's long history has also lead to a lot of retconning of her past, her family, and why she does what she does. Yet it all started with a tank-top, short-sporting should-be model shooting exotic animals and solving centuries-old puzzles inside of tombs. Her motivation is similar to that of Indiana Jones': Go on adventures because it'll be adventerous. The higher motivations failed--in part because the idea of deeper complexities within a character had yet to be recognized within the gaming form. Elika intially rejects the Prince, trying to push him away so that he would not get harmed by assisting her. Her goal is to undo the terrible damage that she is indirectly responsible for, an atoning action that forces her every step of the way--to the point that she ultimately abandons the Prince at the end of the Epilogue, knowing that what they have done is an irreparable harm to the world she sought to save.

Still, the comparison still fits in that both women are intelligent, capable, athletic, beautiful, and other important characteristics. Nevertheless, there is enough difference between who Elika is--gameplay mechanics and visual style aside--that sets her apart from her longer-lived sister. Wanting to avoid comparisons to Lara Croft could never be a justified reason for pushing Elika into her subservient role.

But aside from this juxtaposition, how else is Elika slighted by her stance as secondary character? It is notable and lamentable that the story served the Prince more than the princess, but even within the confines of the game and its story there is a subtle statement about worth. Not only is the Prince essentially invincible (in a fight, even if the gamer fails to execute a QTE command properly, death is not the result; instead, the opponent is forced back by Elika and heals back some of its lost health), but Elika, quite pointedly, is not. In fact, she dies twice, before the beginning and at the end. Life for men, it seems to insinuate, is endless, but the life of women is transient, fragile, throw-away.

This type of comment is probably rejected by most readers, and the developers certainly weren't thinking about making a statement about the worth of women's lives over men's. And I do not think that the game ultimately argues that. It should be pointed out that this woman's life is of such great worth to the Prince that he undoes everything that the gamer has done throughout the entire game! In a more literal sense than Metal Gear Solid 4 could ever hope to do, the Prince takes Prince of Persia and brings it back to zero. All effort, all violence, all near-death experiences are rendered void for the simple expression that is most frequently sung about and most rarely understood: love.

Elika cannot be the main character when the story's exploration is about how a man who has never cared for much (save 'carpets this thick!') now cares more than the world for a single woman--who may or may not reciprocate. The unrequited love theme is a trope, is an archetype, and is enhanced by the way this game plays.

When looked at from one angle, it is because of how important, subservient, and 'pushed back' she is that the Prince begins to understand how deeply he needs her. At the very end of the game (not the Epilogue), the Prince has to destroy the four trees that he and Elika have spent the entire game ameliorating. Without Elika, the process of climbing up to where the trees are is more laborious and requires additional innovation. In other words, her absence makes life more difficult. This realization pushes the Prince to do the unthinkable; it seems to provide a counter-argument to the idea of the worth of Elika's life.

What Works, What Doesn't

As the gamer moves the Princely avatar from one Fertile Ground to the next, performing acrobatic feats that would green any parkour runner with jealousy, a sense of immortality arises. This comes, in no small part, from the fact that Elika is always there to save the Prince. Any misstep, failed jump, or poorly aimed run will result in an instant 'respawn' at the last flat surface--carried out by a brief animation of Elika reaching down and plucking the Prince from doom, their hands clasping together as she carries him to safety. This is part of the redemption of the religation to subservience that Elika suffers--though she is not the one in control (nor being controlled), she is the only one that is capable of completing the task. She may not be the titular character, but she is the only reason the game works.

As I said earlier, this is not necessarily an attack on the game. It wouldn't work if the roles were reversed, in part because natural archetypal baggage is at play within the game that allows the gamer to take mental, narrative shortcuts. (Princess-in-peril: this provides an easy reference for goals that the gamer should already know, a shorthand that gives the story a mesh of preconceived narrative bits, ideally allowing the story to move forward without scaffolding additional background motivation.) More than that, however, the Prince in this game is much more helpless than he lets on, which allows Elika additional expansion as a character.

The Prince is pointedly ignorant of what is going on--done so that gamers have a relatable character with whom they will learn about the world they now inhabit. Thanks to his naivety, one of the important steps in developing video game narrative is exposed: plot progression at the pace of the player. The gamer is allowed to reference Elika for hints, recommendations, and backstory. This is accessed by speaking with her (pressing either L button), and can be done at almost any time. Those who are interested in learning why Ahriman is eroding the world are welcome to hear more; those more interested in the next wall jump can proceed immediately to it.

What works is the concept of control; the gamer is allowed to control the quantity of story that is fed in--whether it be much or little. The dialogue also furthers the relationship that the two have, the way they learn to trust each other, and an understanding of the Prince's interest in Elika as a potential love interest. All of this compounds together to enhance the storytelling, a beautiful execution and acceptance of the paths that interactive storytelling provides.

There is a flaw in this, however. Despite the fact that when the story is revealed, it still, of necessity (it seems) breaks into brief cutscenes, during which time only the slight manipulation of the camera is possible. When Elika is explaining about the Corruption that's infesting her home, the gamer cannot be simultaneously exploring it. This is for the best; the story would be lost in the spectacle of incessant bounding and climbing. However, it has again fallen into the trap of traditional storytelling in an untraditional format.

Lastly, there is an issue with the necessity of the Epilogue to describe what actually occurs within the story's architecture. The game's ending fits the game, the Epilogue provides enough closure to allow for patience until the sequel is (and should be) released. But what is most important for the Epilogue is establishing the fractured relationship that Elika and the Prince now share. She had knowingly sacrificed herself to prevent a worser evil, but the utilitarian philosophy that she espouses grates against the more deontological view that the Prince adheres to. This fundamental difference provides a lot of growth (narratively) for the characters, but also exposes the rationale that the Prince uses for justifying his actions of releasing the Dark God. He claims that her death is precisely what Ahriman wanted, since with her death so dies any chance of resistance. Yet the attentive gamer can't help but feel that he felt guilt for having not fully performed his duty toward her in protecting her from Ahriman, while simultaneously coming to grips with the love he feels for her--a love that she has essentially expressed as being one-sided.

The Epilogue pursues these threads fairly well; the price tag for continuing not even 2 more hours of the game, however, is a little steep. Monetary gripes aside, the Epilogue ultimately ends up being an essential part of the experience, as well as providing the wanted closure that keeps the game from suffering from the Assassin's Creed syndrome.

Closing Thoughts

Prince of Persia has moved video games forward, I think, in some small but notable ways. But, as will always be the case, the characters' depth and complexity, their burgeoning respect and (possibly unrequited) love for each other making for a more vested interest in the game. The mechanics are wonderful, the levels brilliantly designed, and the semi-open ended approach is a refreshing take on the franchise. More than that, however, there is a sense of wonder at the world that was explored, a sentiment of awe that provides the best kind of games--the type that live in the imagination and memory long after the disc has stopped spinning.

*Bonus content: One of Elika's alternative costumes is a remake of the outfit worn by Jade in BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL, which casts a very strong, independent, and un-stereotypical woman in the leading role. Jade is strong, smart, and resourceful--the same as Elika--but she carries the title, rather than Elika's religation to the back seat.

Of course, it would be remiss not to mention that Farah, the silk- and scantily-clad love interest of the earlier PoP games is also available for Elika to wear. This only further emphasizes the arguments in the essay.

Snippets of Thoughts

Two little things to contemplate:

Thing First—

Having muscled my way through the majority of Simulacra and Simulation by Baudrillard, I am excited to say that there are some amazing things that this text will be bringing to Press Start (by the way, I just took the time to Bing (not Google!) Press Start and I think I'll need a new name. Well, that's why it's just a working title). I read it to Gayle, geeking out all the while. She nodded and said it sounded good. Anyway, here's the quote. I know it isn't in full context, and you have to know what simulacra means (the OED defines it as "something having merely the form or appearance of a certain thing, without possessing its substance or proper qualities; a mere image, a specious imitation or likeness, of something), but I'm excited about it:

simulacra of simulation, founded on information, the model, the cybernetic game—total operationality, hyperreality, aim of total control.

This is, in my mind, the theory behind the game, summed up in (for once) an easy to understand phrase. It is what Baudrillard calls the 'simulacrum of the third order', or most detached and aloof of all simulacra. More than that, this piece (written in 1981) predicts how games are a false reality—though he uses the more generous term of hyperreality—and the necessary foundations of the game: Founded on information (not just the information that the computer decodes and encodes, nor the binary that provides the digital DNA, but even the information that the gamer has to have in order to operate the game itself), the model (character models are an essential aspect of the overall look of the game, from the most minimal to the most complex), and the obvious concept of the game being a type of cybernetic interaction. Of course, the final three clauses (total operationality, hyperreality, aim of total control) have great import as well, since those are the three goals of the game.

Complete prediction of what the game is, decades before the game could become that. It's even more interesting a bit later on in this part of the book, because he confesses his inability to even anticipate what could be an example of this third order of simulacra. Well, it's the game.

My book should show how.

Thing Second—

The next part intersects interestingly: I was looking up some sites that Bing and Google pulled about simulacra, and I happened upon this site, called the Simulacrum. It's a place for DLC of the original The Sims game. In a sense, it is its own simulacrum, but that's neither here nor there (as Shakespeare—and, since Othello came out, countless others—once said).

The reason this pertains is that my wife just informed me of a church meeting that her parents attended the other Sunday. In it, the well-intentioned teacher went on a diatribe against The Sims as not only a black hole of time, but also a satanic game because it blurs the ability to recognize the value of having what all mortals—theists and atheists alike—have yet Lucifer does not: a mortal body. Because, went the argument, we have bodies and Satan does not, he insidiously inspired the creation of The Sims to corrupt the youth into thinking that incorporeal existence is as worthwhile and significant as corporeal existence—you don't have to have a body for life to be good.

The likelihood that I am misquoting or receiving a misrepresentation of the story is high. But the crux of the idea is worth pursuing, and I'll dedicate the rest of this blog exploring it (this might take some time. If you've got something better to do, feel free to do it.......You back? Ready? Okay, good.)

Satanic Subterfuge or Simply Sims?

For the nonce, let's put aside the overtly religious hostility to hobbies and pastimes. There's ample to analyze there, but it often sounds sanctimonious and condescending, so I'll avoid it for awhile.

Instead, let's focus on what is being argued: We'll grant that being embodied is better than being unembodied, that having this perception of reality filtered through our brains via the sensory input is greater than the alternative of complete annihilation and sensory deprivation. Does The Sims argue to the contrary?

Every iteration of The Sims is focused largely on the third of the goals that I listed above: total control. As technology has advanced, so too has the capacity to control your individual Sim. Sliders, the almost ubiquitous way of fine-tuning your avatar, are increased in their specificity. Not only is height, hair color, and general disposition malleable, but its capacity has deepened in the latest version. If you were so inclined, you could create an evil kleptomaniac that has a penchant for clumsiness and a horrendous beer gut. Control, it seems, is almost limitless.

With this kind of possibility, what is left for the human behind the avatar, the god of the game who will control the life of the Sim in a myriad of ways? What is the game communicating to the gamer while the gamer is communicating to the game? Is it preaching a message of corporeality (or its lack thereof)? Is it arguing that the life of the Sim is superior to the life of the gamer?

In answer to the last two questions, I would argue no. It seems ludicrous to think that the game itself is preaching either posit. For the former, The Sims is more interested in letting avatars reflect their own lives as quasi-autonomous 'lifeforms'—and letting the gamer inject her own preferences within that life. What it is doing is allowing what cannot be controlled—you can't fight your genes, after all—to become subservient to the gamer in a fictive world. If anything, it should be that that alarms us, not a diabolical distraction that assaults one's perspective of the body.

As for The Sims being superior to real life, I think I will capitulate to Robert Nozick for this one and his thought experiment of the Experience Machine. If you're not in the mood to read through Wikipedia's explanation of the experiment, let me give a brief sum up insofar as I understand it: Pretend you have the option of being plugged into a super computer that, like the movie The Matrix, implants all of the experiences you've ever wanted to have straight into brain, letting you 'remember' experiences that you only think you've had. Ever wanted to hike Mt. Everest? You can implant the memory of having done it, without leaving the full virtual reality seat in which you are sitting. Want to have the highest score on Rag Doll Kung Fu? Same thing; just plug in and it's yours. The question, however, is, do you personally plug into this machine and gain false memories? If you do, what's the difference between those memories and the ones of your real, true experiences?

My answer: (1) I don't know yet. I haven't thought about it long enough. (2) Yes. There is a very important difference—for me, it's one of honesty—between the real experiences and the real remembrances of a false experience. It is subjective.

Back to The Sims. Is the life that the Sims show on the screen superior in some way because of the control it provides? My answer: No. The aspect of control is also (perhaps tacitly) a part of the Experience Machine. Once you've experienced everything—once you've been in control of everything—what else is there to do? If you plug in all of the time and eventually go through every man-made simulation, what would you have left? Nothing, really. And the same pertains to The Sims. If anything, the game is arguing that prima facie unlimited choice is actually limited—perhaps not by the game itself, but by the limited mortal using it. If anything, the game is preaching that what we have as real humans is superior because we have it. It is not the predestination of an algorithm that controls a human's life, but one's own free will and choice. Contrary philosophical arguments between fatalism and agency aside, this is what the game is saying to me.

More Questions, More Answers

The idea of what the game is communicating fascinates me. I am not so alarmed at the possibility of an insidious eradication of personhood as I am at the quasi-hedonistic celebration, the bacchanalian embrace of unbridled avarice and blatant consumerism that the game endorses. I will agree that The Sims 3 gives unparalleled possibilities for user-generated storytelling, the passing of the narratological baton to the gamer. That cannot be a step backward (though I will not go so far as to say that it's a step forward, either) for a purely narrative sense. However, the context of the game is one of pure and simple acquisition, insatiability, and constant desire of what is not (not theirs, not available, not cheap enough...).

There is a bizarre relationship between designers of the game and the consumers of it, and it seems like a simulacrum of the third order with a heightened irony that a game can be sold to a gamer who will in turn take his Sim and make him into a consumer—and, if so desired, let the Sim become a gamer as well. (What will the Simgamer do to his Sims? Make another microcosm of Sims, one of whom will be a Simsimgamer? And more after that?) This takes the idea of Wark's military entertainment complex to a disturbing and pervasive level. If ever there is something to boycott in The Sims 3, it is this: letting anyone play a game that echoes life so fully—for if they think of it as a game, how in the world will they be able to take it seriously enough to participate in endless consumption in real life?

Closing Thoughts

There is a post hoc fallacy running through this Satanic-argument that is part of the fear that hegemonic society has towards video games. The idea that one thing, because it precedes another, is the cause of it is inconclusive at best, and fallacious at worst. Simply because there is time invested in a game like The Sims does not necessarily mean that it is time that is spent pushing an unembodied-is-better-than-embodied agenda any more than sending text messages is doing the same. (Though it can be argued, using this same train of thought, that it is; after all, a text message is not hand written—it's purely digital, completely removed from 'natural' forms of communication. No voice is heard, no face seen. Text messages are endorsing the diabolic dichotomy that not having a body is better than having a body.)

There is a valid fear about what games can do. There is genuine and valid concerns over the addictive properties of games. Let's discuss those in a rational light, and leave out inflammatory, fallacious rhetoric, shall we?

Tutorial

NOTE: This is the rough draft of the intro to Press Start to Begin. It is supposed to provide an outline for me as the writer and you as the reader. It should be giving you a bit of the scope of what the work will entail, thus preventing anyone from getting the wrong idea of what the book will be about.

Feel free to comment below.

Tutorial

Welcome to the the tutorial. This is the area in which no lives are lost, ammo is infinite, and the result is taken from here and into the game. This is an area that is as picture perfect as you could hope for, a hold-my-hand, spoon-feed-me-the-answers section.

It won't last long.

What you have here is my own personal vindication, apology, and analysis of video games as an interactive form, an artistic experience, and (to quote Shakespeare's The Tempest) a 'brave new world' of narrative. It will expose and explore what it means to be a gamer in a theoretical sense, one based upon theories and responses, personal experiences, and a subjective view of why games matter.

This is not designed to be an entry-level book to critical theory, nor is it meant to be wrapped within the dense language of typical theoretical expression. Rather, I hope this to be an insight for the uninitiated, a justification for the devout, and mentally expansive for all.

Good luck.

Tools for the N00b

In the following pages, you'll see a number of words that are perhaps used differently than what you're accustomed to. This manual will help to explicate some of the terms; feel free to refer here often.

Gamer: The thinking player who manipulates the controller. {I feel that 'gamer' and 'player', while synonyms, have a distinction that I want to preserve. In particular, I see the 'player' as the one who is invested in the machinations of the ludic aspect--the fun, playing part. The 'gamer', on the other hand, should be understood as the person behind the player, the thinker, the human.}

Ludic: The playable aspect of video games. {Early video game theory circled around the concept of 'ludic' versus 'narrative' interpretations of a game; that is, how 'fun' is it versus how 'story-centric' it is. This book will explore and explode the binary.}

Narrative: The story aspect of video games. {Narrative is all about exploring a story and is one of the fundamental ways of human communication. Nevertheless, within the game it is often violently usurped, convoluted, or ignored.}

Avatar: The on-screen character that the gamer manipulates. {There are convincing arguments for a distinction to be placed in between 'playable characters' and 'avatar', with the latter maintaining a level of customizability that is not present in a 'playable character'; however, the concept of a narrative character--as opposed to a playable character--is referred to in the book as, simply, a 'character'. To prevent confusion, 'avatar' is used specifically as defined here.}

Seizure Disclaimer

This book is academic in that it is designed to appeal to those who wish to follow gaming as the latest narrative evolution, of understanding a uniquely digital exploration of the human experience. It is not meant to be a definitive treatise on the industry, nor is it based upon academia's current trends of thought on the subject. Instead it is my own explication of why gaming matters to gamers, and it is filled with personal anecdotes, extrapolations, and interpretations. I have relied on certain texts, not the least of which being Jean Baudrillard's Simulation and Simulacra McKenzie Wark's peerless Gam3r 7h30ry, to help expand and/or lift off my thoughts. Endnotes have been assembled to give appropriate credit.

Level Map

This book is broken into three main levels:

Exploration:

Dealing with the major themes of this book, Exploration is designed to familiarize you with the concepts that are at play, what is being pursued by the gamers, and what import it carries. Here are the foregrounding, developmental theses that provide the foundations off of which subsequent interpretations are based.

Experience:

Within Experience will be numerous essays about video games, with close, analytical expressions about each. The main points of these essays are all loosely assembled within the Exploration level. Every game says something about us and our society in some way--often, it's something that has been said in another place by a different game. Rather than trying to point out which game said what first (or better), I have instead focused on the games that I personally have found compelling. Some essays are autobiographical in tone--they reflect upon gaming experiences that I have had throughout my years as a gamer. Others are deeper paths that pull heavily from theoretical texts and discuss abstract concepts. Consider this a permanent spoiler warning, however: Any and all games discussed in this book are considered from a narrative whole, and no piece will be hidden for the neophyte. I will talk about the endings, beginnings, and everything in between wherever I see fit.

Exit:

Final thoughts, explanations, and examples will be found here. Think of this as the 'last words' section before the credits roll. The major thrust of this book is comprised in the first two sections of Exploration and Experience, so this last part of the book is notably smaller. Much like the denouement in literature should be similarly brief, this exit is perfunctory and, in a sense, valedictory.

Personalizing the Character

This is an individual work, in as much as any writer's work is 'individual.' Still, I take full responsibility for thoughts, connections, and assumptions made within this text. I do not pretend at any greater understanding of video game design, production, distribution, or interaction than what is contained herein. As a long time gamer and enthusiast for the pastime, I feel that this is a natural extension of what I have experienced throughout my life. Again, this book is part autobiographical; that is part of its tone. I have refrained from revealing any personally identifying information about any of the people mentioned in this book, though any and all cited texts, insofar as available and possible, have been noted and listed in the 'Works Cited' portion of the level Exit.

Foregrounding

Before we begin the analysis of the video game as a new zeitgeist, we'd be well served to create our own fictional avatar. Rather than selecting any one particular game, this imaginary game and avatar will prove useful in allowing us to apply different thought exercises to the same symbol-an intersubjective agreement of the highest magnitude.

The character's name is "Petitor", a small sounding name for a small character. You can picture him how you like; I think of a boy dressed in sandals and ragged robes, dirty with too much exploration. A short sword girds his hip. Dark hair dangles in his face. The world in which he lives is littered with different types of cities-modern, classical, Victorian, postmodern, futuristic. There are sprawling landscapes, endless lands of dust and scrub grass, barren rock formations. There are jungles, lush and verdant. There are dark caves (of course-what game can escape the Cave?) and dungeons and sewers. There are pinnacles that Petitor can ascend, vehicles to control, people to interact with, and games to play. It is everything that an avatar could want, a PlayStation Home that is beyond the plastic beta: it's an avatar's utopia. The world is called "Mendax."

I won't pretend to great depth with the chosen names; anyone with high school Latin (or a ready internet connection) could look them up. Petitor means 'seeker' or 'one who strives for [something]'. Mendax means 'deceitful'. These names are powerful and important, as will be discussed later on. For now, let them be the imaginary game in which these introductory essays take place.

Rough Draft

In light of the recent 'announcement' that I will be writing a book of essays about video games, I've decided to 'publish' the rough ideas I have a la McKenzie Wark and his Gam3r 7h30ry. The idea is to get other ideas based upon what I've written here—show me where my logic lapses, what I'm missing, what's too obtuse, etc.

Please, please, please comment on any of the subsequent blogs. I will be tagging them as "Press Start", so you'll know in particular which pieces are actually being drafted for the book.

Thanks to all!

Rage Against the Video Game Machine?

NOTE: If you haven't read the 'Foregrounding' blog post or the one entitled 'Rough Draft', please do that first. They're both short, but they matter a lot for what you're about to read. Okay. Done.

Enjoy.

Zach de la Rocha: "On truth devoured/Silent play in the shadow of power/A spectacle monopolized/The cameras eyes on choice disguised." Rage Against the Machine's single "Guerilla Radio" from their Battle of Los Angeles album is a reaction against the political circus and faux-choice presentations during the 2000 elections. The quote is not in full context (it is much more political than theoretical) here, but it provides a powerful starting block. A little bit of re-punctuation will help to clarify the thrust: "On truth devoured, silent play in the shadow of power [is] a spectacle [that] monopolized the cameras' eyes-on choice disguised." Line by line, we see parallels between how video games are perceived outside of aficionados, the reason for their strength, and the pitfalls of the game.

On truth devoured

At its most general, truth is subjective, reliant upon the interpreter to understand and decide what is or is not real-and, arguably, what is or is not truth. Tautological, this line of thinking is, in some senses, crystallized by the game. The truth of what the avatar Petitor sees in any game and the truth of what the gamer sees are separate. "There is no spoon," a popular Buddhist axiom, is the reality of reality for Petitor. There is no spoon, just as there is no 'ground' on which he walks, no 'sword' for him to swing, no 'enemy' to kill; the 'truth' of the avatar is simply a copy without a true original-a simulacrum.

But is not the game a reflection of reality? Is not the world of, say, Motocross based upon real life locations? Or any number of sports games that are representatives of the actual franchises? In a word: Yes. And that proves the point. A simulacrum, in one of its many senses of the word, is the idea of a replicated piece without the original being present. This is only achievable if the original is by its own construct outside of its copy; that is, that the analog is, ultimately, incompatible with the digital. There is no real Madden if Madden is real.

Hence is truth devoured, consumed upon its own tautological impulses and paraded in front of the gamer's eyes at 60 frames per second.

Silent play in the shadow of power

Both poetic clauses underscore the basic impulses that propel and compel gamers. The first is silent in metaphor only-anyone who has played Rock Band 2 or been to a party with Dance Dance Revolution on the screen knows that gaming does not necessarily preclude noise. What has become silent in the play is this removal of the gamer away from society and into a new sphere of relationship, one that is simultaneously broader and more confined than the one that it is usurping. This silence is one of significance, not volume. What words mean, always already corrupted by a self-referential cycle, is being oppressed by the spectacle.

It's important to note that the play has a locus: in a shadow of power. This concept will be more tightly detailed in the consideration of Metal Gear Solid 2, but here it has pertinence, too. If we assume that Petitor is conscious, he might realize that he is being controlled by a being perpetually beyond knowing, beyond understanding. In the blurred shadow of the Other side of the screen, the manipulator would be all powerful and always unreachable. The most chilling thing for our self-aware avatar would be that the play that it was being forced to endure was done in silence-and crippling, decisive power.

A spectacle monopolized the cameras eyes

Marxist theorist Guy Debord is best known for his work Spectacle and Society, and defines his meaning of spectacle in many ways. The one most useful here is this one: "The spectacle in general, as the concrete inversion of life, is the autonomous movement of the non-living." It seems as though this quote is written specifically to describe the over saturation of our society with movement that goes nowhere, an unending cycle of consumption until even the truth is devoured. Further, Petitor's autonomous movements-called 'animations' within the industry-are indeed perpetrated by a non-living entity: himself. The camera's eye follows him; the gamer's eyes follow him. Every movement of Petitor's is watched, controlled, responded to. His fate is not his, but instead he is put on as a spectacle, one that monopolizes the cameras in all areas and all movements.

How frustrated can a gamer become when the 'camera is broken'? How difficult is it to complete a game (and the accusatory finger is pointed at you, early-versions-of-Tomb-Raider) in which 'blind fighting' occurs more often than not? 'I can't see what's going on!' shrieks the gamer, knuckles whitening about the controller in frustration. What rage builds when a monopoly is broken?

On choice disguised

My wife and I build a (in my opinion) fun level in LittleBigPlanet using the custom level creator. In it, the little SackPerson must topple a mighty green dragon in order to proceed through the level. As we tested it, I realized that tackling the dragon was superfluous, despite the fact that we had spent a great deal of time (and level space) on its creation. The reason? The bridge on which the dragon lived had no gate at the end. In effect, the dragon guarded an unlocked entrance to a tower, meaning that the gamer could safely and quickly bypass the 'boss fight' and move on sans difficulty.

To force the gamer into battling the green behemoth, we created a gate that could only be unlocked with a key. The key's path to the key was blocked by the foot of the dragon-a gate that is impossible to open unless the gamer defeated the dragon. Choice, here, is disguised; the illusion of being able to bypass the dragon is pushed onto the gamer. In order to succeed, choice-or rather, non-choice-must be disguised as volition.

Spectacles and Fear

Combine all of these analyses together and you'll get the major response to what there is in gaming that terrifies legislators and galvanizes parents to disregard the First Amendment: there is a monopolized spectacle, a fully controlled scene of non-living, autonomous motion, masquerading as meaning, that is drowning the 'real' world. This combo amplifies with each preceding scandal and shocking (though frequently banal) expression within the video game industry, a type of points multiplier that works against the gamer and the industry-another type of simulacrum.

Perhaps the most pointed argument, however, is the assumption that the following quote is inherently wrong, bad, wicked, or frivolous:

"We live in a spectacular society, that is, our whole life is surrounded by an immense accumulation of spectacles. Things that were once directly lived are now lived by proxy. Once an experience is taken out of the real world it becomes a commodity. As a commodity the spectacular is developed to the detriment of the real. It becomes a substitute for experience." -Larry Law

We'll come back to this later, but it is important to note two fundamental things: (1) Our society as a whole is participatory in a spectacular (that is, dependent on spectacles) way of life, a never ending barrage of visual stimuli, raped of meaning by repetition and dilution. To place video games in a special stratum because of its relative newness to our society is flawed and fallacious. (2) The concept of an ideal world represented in the game turns this concept back into itself-a commodity becomes an experience of a would-be ideal world. This inversion is important to keep in mind, for it flies in the face of logic of those who fear games and their power. It is also a crucial way of understanding games and their power.