Literature, Warfare, Omelas, and Rain

A New Literature

J. Hillis Miller: "The end of literature is at hand. Literature's time is almost up. It is about time. It is about, that is, the different epochs of the different media" (On Literature, 1). This is true, for the death of the Author would inevitably lead to the death of literature, an appropriation of the narrative by the audience in the absence of authorial command and content. The phoenix of literature and narrative will break outward, explode, while, because of its age and its culture, implode. Hamlet: "This is the imposthume of much wealth and peace,/That inward breaks, and shows no cause without/Why the man dies..." (Hamlet IV.iv). The deterritorialization of modernity and postmodernity can no longer insist on definitions, no longer conscript meaning within the purview of the hegemony. Narrative qua narrative, literature qua narrative--this is the game, the reterritorialization of the audience as author. The old death of the Author, with reader response and deconstruction, must capitulate to the new death of the Literature as the game moves outward, expanding into and exploring the form of what it means to be.

Theory can predict in loose outlines the path the game must take, but the game itself is powerless to take any form and any path independent from the gamer. Theory can sketch the outward forms, the inward importance, of the game, but the game itself must take the gamer to those signposts. Yet the gamer misappropriates power, assuming that the game exists for the outward expression only. Or the gamer misinterprets the narrative, assuming that the game's story speaks for the inward exploration only. The gamer is always already outside the game--literally and theoretically. The game exists without the gamer, but without the game, there is no gamer. The ideal contingency of what is transcribed within the algorithm has context only based upon the unideal within the gamespace, the reality of the world perceived.

The game points to the Enlightenment more forcefully than other media, as it stands alone in being the unreal responding to the real, a bundle of secondary qualities that can only operate through a medium of something with primary qualities. The oral history (and live performance) is transient and remembered only, incapable of being relived. The novel (and writing) is static and permanent, incapable of adapting to new times (rather, the times must readapt to the novel, for there is too much of worth to abandon the novel, despite the way the world advances). The film (and television) is static and capable of being relived, though what it relies on heavily is the spectacle of itself (much less than the game, yet still in a way that betokens the ambivalence of the medium). Al Gore: "Individuals receive, but they cannot send. They absorb, but they cannot share. They hear, but they do not speak. They see constant motion, but they do not move themselves" (Assault on Reason, 16). Thence comes the game in its ideal (the ideal of an ideal). The game is dynamic and capable of being relived, though its reliance on spectacle and its greatest strength (interaction) also weaken it to a point far from transcendence.

Modern Warfair

War has changed. In the digital, as in the real, there are rules of engagement. Some are unwritten and unsigned (don't camp; headshots get extra points), while others are unflinchingly imposed (Geneva conventions may be ignored in Abu Grahib and Gitmo, but no gamer can usurp the authority of the algorithm). The war outside of the game and the war inside of the game are inversions of each other. For the real soldier, there is no health pack, recharging of shields, or respawn point. For the virtual soldier, there is no politics, past life, or outside considerations. What preoccupies one does not preoccupy the other. The virtual soldier cares about reaching a checkpoint to prevent a loss of progress. The real soldier cares about reaching a safe haven to prevent the loss of life. The terms of the two represent each other only superficially, for the death in the game is immaterial, frustrating the ludonarrative impulse alone. Death on the battlefield is material and ambivalent, for the real soldier who dies does not know it.

Hence there is no playing at war, for war is not fair. The most skilled do not 'level up' or even make it home. Just war theory bears this out, as the premise for conflict is circumscribed by conditions that do not gel inside the new unreality of the game. Games such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Brothers in Arms, and the Halo franchise do not at all represent war. Even the in-limbo Six Days in Fallujah cannot make a game out of war. The lines are too dissimilar within. Yet the superficiality of the game and the war allow for parallels that bear analysis.

• Example: Those who are denied the right to play and the right to war are given to complaining (with forums, petitions, and creation of new accounts for the unreal, and forums, petitions, and creation of new laws for the real).
  
• Example: There are ethical dilemmas that, upon completion, may warrant awards (positive/negative karmic trees for the unreal, and positive/negative press for the real).
  
• Example: Those who participate in the game and the war are of a volunteer ethos, and both have a duty imposed by the exercising of volition (no one is forced to play Ghost Recon 2, and there has been no conscription to the armed services in America since 1973).
  
• Example: The use of violence will resolve the conflict, even if the conflict is, itself, violence.
  

Violence par excellence is promised in both, but the delivery is distinct. The game strips away the inconveniences of the war, creating a condensed experience of fighting, with bloodbaths that pause only long enough for the next level to load. The daily grind, hours of vigilance, endless heat, perpetual stress of being in a war zone comprises the majority of many soldiers' lives. This discrepancy, long leveled at books and movies, now takes aim at the video game--and the charge still stands. The violence of the real battlefield is tangible in all the ways that the digital is not, driving a wedge between expectations and results.

None of this is to say that the games do not lead some to think of war. No reflection of humanity is truly complete without a component of the violent and the dark. The holy books of the three major monotheistic religions of the world all discuss violence as a part of reality, and every derivative and inferior narrative that stems outward from such books must, at the very least, take it as implied that violence exists in the world.

On Omelas

"The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas", a marvelous short story by Ursula K. LeGuin, describes a utopia that may be. People are free, happy, and capable of pursuing destinies of their own choosing. Holidays and work are enjoyed in equal measure, people are not puritanical nor licentious, but instead all live in harmony. In the depths of a closet, however, hidden deep beneath the city, a single child suffers and moans in the privation of its soul, caked in filth and starving its life away. Every person in Omelas knows about this child, and all know that it is because that child lives and suffers that everyone else can enjoy the life they have. Some few people feel that there is something inhumane about this, and choose to walk away, abandoning a life of tranquility bought with the suffering of an innocent for a life that they live independently.

This may very well be a story, not of those rejecting a potential utopia in favor of an unknown world, but instead an allegory for the thinking gamer, one who, rather than reveling in the utopia of the ideal made unreal and accepting it as such, instead turns his back on the pure ludological appeal of the gaming world and wishes to explore outward to additional lands and narratives. The price of playing is not as dramatic, but the effects are similar. Much is sacrificed for the ludic, and it is important to respond to what is being offered outside of the game. Hence the banality, futility, and idiocy of the phrase, "It's just a game." Yes, there is much in the game that is ludological, schediological, or narratological. These are the pillars on which the game itself rests. But there is much outside of the game that provides the context to what is being played. No civilian can play a soldier like a returned veteran can. No child can play a parent like a father or mother can. The context of the real is what allows the unreal its freedom. To those who cannot walk away from the game to see the world beyond--nor see the world beneath, the deeper signs and signifiers of the game--then there is a distinct loss. The context of the real makes the impossibility of the unreal conceivable, believable, and worth desiring.

The fear of how obsessive some people are over video games (above and beyond writing a book of essays about them), the constant, almost desperate attempts to link antisocial, violent, or aberrant behavior to video games, the imposition and regulation of video game sales, and all attendant disinformation about the medium, now comes into sharp focus. Those who look inward at Omelas will see one of two things: a world of bliss and understanding; or a world built on what they cannot accept. Those who only see the former are blinded by the brilliance of what the game can do; those who only see the latter are confident that all within the walls are benighted devils deserving of censure and reproach. Neither attitude serves the reality of what the game can be. And little wonder: there are precious few examples of that in the gaming world.


The Heaviest of Rain

Quantic Dreams has taken the narratalogical and schediological challenge of moving the video game into Hillis' "different media" with their brilliant and horribly undervalued Heavy Rain. The ludological component is somewhat lacking, proof that the industry is not quite capable of fully utilizing the game on its own terms. But there is much that works in the game; so much so that it overcomes its ludological shortcomings beautifully.

Heavy Rain relies on the same thing that thatgamecompany's Flower attempted (successfully) to invoke: emotion.^* The characters of Heavy Rain contain almost every necessary component for well-rounded and fully realized fictional beings: believability, sympathetic flaws, and honesty. Heavy Rain also handles mature issues well, performing the story for the audience, rather than pandering to it. The main purpose of the story is to allow the gamer to get to know its main protagonists. It is this level of detail in the mundane that works strongest for--and against--the game.

The tiniest minutiae--brushing teeth, shaving, playing with one's children, trying to work as an architect--push the gamer more and more heavily into the character's shoes. When it works, it is phenomenal. The empathy and care that is generated in the gamer can only be felt via this constant presence and control. It is here, however, where the ludic fails, as many gamers, so attuned to the spectacle of gaming and the type of response that they demand and are accustomed to the controls, cannot engage in the story to the correct degree. It is, as it were, too steep of a learning curve. The QTEs that play a predominant role in the control of the game are not tiresome, difficult, or poorly done; they are simply a more overt showing of what the controller normally does. It is a complex piece that must be sight-read as it is played, rather than a memorized ditty that can be rattled off like a thirty-lives code. This complexity offends the gamer who is more attuned to playing by rote than by improvisation.

Still, despite this minor setback (and it is minor), Heavy Rain stands far above other narratological media. It is, within the boundaries of the story, two-way. It gives possibilities, closes doors, opens windows, unlocks treasures, and refuses to let the ineptitude of the gamer halt the progress of the story. Rarely will a game allow such freedom with the choices in an almost genuine way. Unlike sandbox games that provide the greatest, most hollow promises of freedom, Heavy Rain allows the gamer to manipulate not the world around the character (an impossibility in the real world that is actually matched in the game world), but instead the story itself. The possibility of the death of the avatar is real, but the idea of not finishing the game is impossible. This allows the story to be told according to the whims of the game and the gamer, a symbiosis that is as beautiful as it is difficult to articulate.

Heavy Rain is not a game that should be precisely emulated. It must be expanded upon. The idea of sitting down with this game to 'play for a few minutes' is absurd. It is not that kind of game. It does not need (the laughably ubiquitous) multiplayer option. It needs a greater control option (perhaps it will be achieved with Move) and greater appreciation from gamers. It needs to be used as a model of what is possible, and an inspiration to push games toward what should be.

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*While Quantic Dream's masterpiece pushes emotions of fear, anger, stress, and empathy, Flower instead focused on emotions of tranquility and calm

Death of the Avatar

NOTE: This one is best read as a follow up to the one about violence and the one about the next level of gaming. I am, admittedly, rather disappointed in this particular essay, but I want to see what others think before I scrap it entirely. Particularly the end—it smacks of being too preachy. You tell me. Also, there is a footnote. Just FYI.

Death of the Avatar

Roland Barthes in 'Death of the Author': “Writing is that neutral, composite, oblique space where our subject slips away, the negative where all identity is lost, starting with the very identity of the body writing” (Image, Music, Text, 1977). Replace 'writing' with 'gaming', and we have a new instance of death within video games--indeed, may very well be the only death within video games that matters. “[Gaming] is that neutral, composite, oblique space where our subject slips away, the negative where all identity is lost, starting with the very identity of the body [gaming].”

Much has been said about the almost irrelevance of dying within a game. At most, the gamer loses an hour or two of play time--but what, really, has been lost? Time spent in the forum of entertainment is, by some counts, a zero-sum game anyway. To the noncritical gamer, it certainly seems worse: full perdition of digital goods, experience, attainments. Catastrophic loss, perhaps, of a corpse that wasn't looted soon enough, as though the unreal has full bearing on the real. (Perhaps that's the line of where unreality and reality truly converge; when one cares enough to emote over the unreality, it has become a type of reality...even one of worth?) Even critical gamers suffer frustration, irritation, and disdain for 'wasted' time in the game when the avatar's death damns the progress, despite knowing that the original intent of the game was to do what so many poorly-trained apologists and conversation stoppers claim its purpose is: “It's only a game. It's for fun.” (A trite phrase that effaces importance and gives a false sense of purpose and completeness; in reality it does nothing but provide saccharine-coated justifications.) On the earliest level of meaning, the video game is for fun. And on that same level, death is designed to be a minor setback to the goals of the gamer.

Other articles and thoughts about gaming as a design concept have belabored the point of death being a difficult part of the game creation process. When looking at the tripartite theory of Stephen Dinehart and dramatic play, it becomes apparent that there is a need to consider death on all three levels:

• Narratologically: The death of the avatar is/is not an aspect of the narrative. Generally, this is frowned upon, as the death of the avatar results in the end of the gaming structure, and the (sometimes too) well-known 'Game Over' screen breaks over the gamer. Metal Gear Solid 4 manages to allow the screen to be a recapitulation (in the form of brief screenshots) of aspects of the recent narrative, though the end result is the same. The hero dies; the story ends tragically.
• Ludologically: The death of the avatar is/is not included in the way of play. Generally, it is what should be avoided, an obstacle that ought to be eschewed. Occasionally, a game will allow a restoration through mini-games (Prey, Batman: Arkham Asylum), animations (Prince of Persia), or respawn points (BioShock) obviating the nuisance of the 'Game Over' screen. The hero dies; perhaps this can be fun? More often, it's a punishment for a failure on the part of the gamer.
• Schediologically: The death of the avatar is/is not designed as integral. Beyond the 'Game Over' screen, the death is little more than a brief step to the GUI urging a reload. Many RPGs and action games (Devil May Cry, Final Fantasy, Fallout 3) suffer from limited schediological intent, sometimes giving scant seconds of 'death animation' before allowing the gamer to select the desired load slot or reloading the last checkpoint.

On just the surface, then, death has an impact on the gamer that is likewise superficial. Taken in context of Dinehart's tripartite theory, it could be argued that dying may be a crucial hurdle that must be overcome before a game can truly be overcome.*

Heidegger and Death

German philosopher Martin Heidegger, in Being and Time, argues that death is intensely personal--the most personal thing, since one can only die once. But the avatar can argue differently, since the death is not only immaterial to an avatar, but even more temporary than its existence--the precise opposite of the gamer holding the controller, whose brief existence will inevitably end in a permanent death (depending on one's religious beliefs). The ontological crisis of the avatar is dissimilar from the ontological crisis of the gamer. For the former, the greatest annihilation stems from the power switch, the permanent ejection of the disc. That is the most permanent of an avatar's temporary death (resurrection can occur with the flick of the selfsame switch, or be permanently instilled by loss of the disc or outright ignoring of the avatar by the gamer).

Example: By the second act of Metal Gear Solid 4, Old Snake has gained an additional expert on the other side of the codec--Rosemary, a character who first debuted in Metal Gear Solid 2. Rosemary can be contacted whenever the gamer needs additional information about how to best survive the trying circumstances that the aged Snake has to endure. Of particular interest here is a dialogue, rendered after dying and continuing without leaving the game in between. Snake opens up the conversation by saying that he has this feeling, like he has 'died once already.' Depending on the mode of death (gunshot, explosion), the dialogue will vary a little. The same approach comes from the analysis that Rosemary puts on the experience, chalking it up to Snake's instincts trying to preserve him in the battlefield. She even points at the distinct connection between the gamer and the avatar, asking Snake what he would do if he saw a teammate acting recklessly. “I'd tell him not to get himself--or me--killed.” She insists that “There's another 'you' inside your subconscious...” (or, more accurately, inside a living room) that doesn't want Snake to die. Again. In another conversation, Snake comes to the conclusion that his 'dreams of death' that have been plaguing him of late are showing him being shot, and he should be careful not to repeat the same mistakes that got him killed in his 'dream.'

Example: In Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, the Prince can--and often does, depending on the skill of the gamer--make a fatal mistake. One of the schediological imperatives of the game is the capacity to rewind time, to redo and make accommodations to rectify any mistakes that lead to the demise of the Prince. If, however, too much of the time-warping sand is used, the Prince will meet a more final death. The narrative intersects with this nicely, because the voice over that comes on the continue screen reports a number of variations on the same theme: “That wasn't what I meant. Let me try again.” The avatar reasserts itself as the narrator of the game, explaining away the mistake not as an error on the part of the gamer whose skills have failed, but instead by asserting a narratological explanation--that the Prince, who is narrating the game, accidentally made up a story in which he dies.

These two examples are rare exceptions to the idea of how the avatar responds to death, and though they are interesting counterpoints to the general movement of death, there is another avenue that should be explored.

Violence and Death

My thoughts on violence within the game already partially explained, I want to push the overarching theme of games as the ideal that Wark proposes in Gamer Theory as a deeper exploration of what death may mean.

Herein lies another aspect of appeal that the game has within an entertainment-industrial complex (and Wark's military-entertainment complex being another tone on the same topic) such as the one that video games enjoy. Heidegger argues that death 'limits possibilities', a type of curtailing of what could be--and that, he posits, is what we hate and fear of death. But in the game, that limit is erased. There is almost endless possibilities, if not in a single game, then certainly within the genre as a whole. Possibility after possibility, each one being a new quasi-life, a new chance at rectifying past mistakes. This is the ideal into which the gamer wishes to tap, the recycling not of lives (though there is that, too), but of life, that the avatar can overcome what has only been beaten by the greatest of gods and heroes before. Perhaps that is why the Hero's Journey is such a predominant theme within the game, for it is taking Homer's Odyssey and letting each person participate as Odysseus, rather than simply hearing of him. When Odysseus crosses the river Styx in an attempt to learn how to return home, he journeys to the underworld--a place, almost by definition, the quickened cannot enter--before coming back to the living. This impossibility is made possible by the narration, and so for the gamer it is made possible vicariously through the game. There could be no leaders on the leaderboards were each death a permanent strike against the avatar. The perpetual respawning of avatars, particularly in FPSs, allows a perfection at a secular resurrection that is participatory and superficially permanent--though, in reality, it never lasts longer than the time of the match.

Death is cheapened (in both its positivity and its negativity) in games. There is a deterritorialization between the living analog and the 'living' digital, and the gap is never greater than when the latter shows its unkillableness--and, perhaps, superiority--over the former.

Death's Power

The last concept stems from this same idea, but on the inverse. The power that comes from being able to take away the 'life' of another is one that is rightly forbidden in society, yet arrives as the purpose of play within games. Michel Foucault is not alone in noting the ways that power becomes the very motivation for everything that humans strive for: power in work, in home, in conversation...and in play. The idea of being able to participate in the 'harmless violence' of the game, while simultaneously imbibing on the nectar of greater power (and significance?) is simultaneously addicting and eroding. The gamer needs more power (and thus levels up or somehow sharpens the necessary skills), all with the danger of letting what occurs become desensitizing, demoralizing, and devaluing. If anything, a recognition of the power of taking life should be a prerequisite for understanding the game.

*Not all games require death, just like how not all games require violence. However, the concept of a success/fail binary is locked within games. It is this binary that has to be the focus of the decisions on the game. What happens to a Sim in Sims 3 if food and sanitary conditions are refused? What happens to a Nintendog that is neglected? What happens to the avatar when the proposed objective fails? Those questions are the same that are explicit in the most basic concept of death in video games.

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.

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*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.

An Assay to Essay

I wanted to shoot this off ere I read one of the chapters in one of the new books I bought (don't laugh...too hard), The Undead and Philosophy: Chicken Soup for the Soulless. Okay, so it's a little bit gruesome, but you know what they say about judging a book by its cover. Also, this little book has a bit of a past with me: I am part of an intelligent and helpful writing group, the members of which spend a good deal of personal time shifting through my drivel and telling me that they like it. One member even takes time to peek in on this blog, which is probably indicative of a type of literary masochism. I don't know.

Anyway, one of the authoresses of the group was/is writing a vampire novel (think Twilight for grown-ups...and better), and I noticed the aforementioned philosophy book at Borders. I flipped through it and laughed, thinking that Bekah could really benefit from some of the essays about vampires that the book has to offer. I put it down, told her about it, laughed, and forgot.

Then, in (large?) part because of the release of Resident Evil 5 for the PS3 and Xbox 360, I came onto another zombie kick. I've always had a fascination with zombies, which is a little double-standarded (real word?) of me, since I don't watch rated-R movies and generally skip over parts of super explicit violence in books. Some video games I won't play because the violence is too extreme (Dead Space and Grand Theft Auto IV spring to mind, though the latter title has additional content that I find unappealing). Because of this persistent interest in the undead, I have even concocted (read: stole) an idea for a fun thought excersize that I do with my students at school. So I have zombies on the brain--though not eating them, fortunately.

When I was at Borders recently picking up a copy of Paradise Lost, I stopped in the philosophy section, as I normally do. I noticed the Undead... book and thought, Hey, this could be interesting! I looked at it again, less to see if it would work for Bekah and more if it would work for me. Sure enough, it is filled with fascinating discourses into what philosophers think about the kinds of stigmas that are attached to two particular types of undead: Vampires and zombies.

Cool.

With my teacher's discount, I get anything from Borders for 25% off, any day of the week.

Double cool.

So I picked it up and have read three or so chapters. It's really good, which isn't a surprise. Most of these 'Pop Culture and Philosophy' titles are well done, so I'm content with my purchase. One of the chapters that I noticed touches on a theme I've wanted to develop, so I thought I'd better write down my own ideas before I get infected by the other author's thoughts (an apt image, considering what we 'know' of zombies...)

Evil in Residence

First of all, a quick bit about my history with the Resident Evil titles. When I was in 9th grade, my almost-next-door-neighbor Mark bought a copy of RE2 for the PlayStation. We played that thing so many times I can't even count. It was probably a nightly thing for us to be blowing away zombies, lickers, and other sundry monsters created by the Umbrella Corporation. It was, frankly, an integral section of my childhood (and, parenthetically, one of the reasons why I refuse to believe that video games are leeching children of valuable childhood experiences; but that's an essay for a different time).

So I've been a victim of the T-Virus since 1997 or so. I own a number of paperback novelizations based upon the games, a number of the games themselves, a tee-shirt, and countless drawings of zombies in various states of second-death at the hands of a smoking gun, all of said drawings coming from me. Gruesome.

But I've grown up. Violence for violence's sake no longer attracts me to a title as it once did. I am glad to be able to say that, by the way. However, one of the things that has been persistent in my following of the Resident Evil series is the entire subject that the game was originally based upon: Fear.

Fear of Extinction

My good buddy Chris once confessed that he slept with a stake next to his bed while in junior high. Why? In case of a vampire's attack, of course. He didn't want to play the Resident Evil games (or even Castlevania, if I remember correctly) for a long time because they scared him. And it wasn't just the fear of blood-draining or flesh-eating that frightened him: it was the loss of his identity.

When you're bitten by a zombie (or vampire, which is an interesting correlation, too), you may as well consign yourself to one of two fates: complete death by lobotomy (the brain scrambling can be done in different ways, but the end result is the same); or undeath by reanimation (the body then doing everything it can to feast on flesh). Whatever may be what you consider you will be irrevocably gone.

Okay, so there are arguments about what constitutes the self anyway--that's part of what the Undead and Philosophy book explores. But let's just go with our typical, instinctive reaction to the idea of becoming a 'monster,' and point out out that that is what frightened Chris. And, frankly, that's what frightens me.

Yes, it's terrifying to conceive of being cannibalized, but survival of a zombie attack could very well mean that what you once were is completely gone. It is the fear of extinction--a complete ontological evaporation--that creeps about in the dark alleyways of your mind.

On Resident Evil

The fifth Resident Evil game came out in March. Gayle and I played it all the way through in 10 hours or so, and have made significant progress through it the second time (this time with infinite ammo!). It plays similarly to RE4 in that the controls are familiar and the action is pretty incessant. It's different in that the entire game, you are no longer playing alone--there is always someone there to help you out.

I won't review the game here, though I will say that it stands on its own merits very well, deserves its place in the Resident Evil canon, and is a LOT of fun to play. Instead, I want to focus on how the Progenitor Majini and Las Plagas Ganados (from RE5 and RE4 respectively) work toward the same goal as the zombies from earlier titles.

Essentially, the fear that I have going into 4 and 5 is not as powerful as going into the remake of the first game, or Zero for that matter. The tension, atmosphere, and overall impossibility of the situation is lost in the later games. In short, it's the superficial, "Anyone can be scared by this because the monsters jump out at you!" type of fright.

Resident Evil 5 seems to push it into a much more subtle and nuanced type of fear--a shift that, predictably, pushes less-observant gamers away. This is the fear of assimilation. This is a fear of nihilism. This is a fear of permanent loss of selfhood, the kind of ontological shock that can actually cripple a person who is afflicted with it. Instead of being the revolting type of scary that most horror (books, movies, games, you name it) try to foist upon you, the type of fear in these games probes deeper.

Here's where the problem lies: You have a lot of ammo. Literally, you have hundreds--thousands--of rounds to dispatch anything that moves. When the ears are ringing with the dead echoes of fired bullets, and the screen shakes with the force of your punches, and the righteousness of your quest to find your fallen comrade overrides your authority's commands, all of that nuance is lost. In the sensation overload of the game, the quiet whisper of a dead man's call is lost. You fail to hear what it is you're fighting against, for you are too busy fighting against it.

This applies to RE4, though the palpable fear is amped up by isolating the player, putting a box around normally social creatures. Leon has to brave the endless hordes of Ganados by himself; Chris always has Sheva there to keep him alive.

Another point surfaces here: The quantity of enemies (and, you might argue, the quality, too) in the last two games of the franchise is much higher. In Resident Evil 2, you could go for upwards of an hour (or more, if you got lost) without firing so much as a single bullet. With the limited amount available, that can be a good thing.

Similarly, the fear of extinction still abides in the previous titles--when dealing with the undead, the terror of a self's dissolution remains. As I said before, the earlier titles of the franchise play more with the mood of the gamers by using atmosphere, lighting, music, and camera angles to create the effect. In a sense, these techniques served as a mask for the true horror that the game explored.

When Resident Evil 4 came out, it was (rightly) met with almost universal acclaim. Not surprisingly, however, there were a remote few who panned the game--most notably for the lack of zombies to destroy. Replaced by smarter, tool- and weapon-wielding Ganados, the gamer was forced to take extreme measures to ensure survival. These smarter enemies--who infected the Majini in 5--strike a chilling chord into what being an individual constitutes.

Evil in Name Only

On a spectrum of selfhood, a continuum of identity, we would have on one side the dead (no consciousness, no capacity to choose, no ability to move). On the other side is the living (consciousness, free will, mobility). Somewhere in between that are the typical undead (no consciousness, no capacity to choose, yet ability to move--and eat). Now the lines of what it means to be alive or dead get blurred. That's (one of the reasons) why they're scary.

Then we get the Majini (a Swahili word for 'evil spirit') and Ganados (a Spanish word for 'cattle'). The line between undead and living suddenly gets blurred. On the continuum, the Majini are conscious, have no capacity to choose, and the ability to move. Even additional criteria point toward the idea that Majini are still alive--they are infected with a parasite that then controls them--yet they don't necessarily die, much like the undead. All definitions of living and dead are skewed and skewered by the psuedo-intelligent Majini.

This leads me to my last point: the name of the series. In Japan, Resident Evil was originally titled Biohazard. In fact, it still bears that name. It is a fit title, considering that all of the action happens because Umbrella Corporation has a biohazardous leak of its lethal, zombie-making viruses.

But when we stop to consider what it is that we consider evil, the more we may start to hold the zombies and Majini and Ganados blameless for their actions. It seems to me that one that has no consciousness can't really have a conscience, and that it would be inaccurate to label a conscienceless creation as 'evil.' The evil in residence is not the endless horde of flesh-eaters--it's the fear already within us. It's the question of nonbeing.

Ultimately, Resident Evil 5 asks us the question that mankind fears the most: Am I anything at all?