Too Real

Technology enframes us not necessarily liberating us (Heidigger 1979). We envision in life we can do anything but we can’t in the same way we think anything is possible in video games and it isn't, but at least we can do more without having to worry about consequence. The only solution for this is to create more games that allow us to experience more, but this also might be a slippery slope for if we envision a world similar to that of the matrix where all human life is mediated through a game we would have travelled full circle and the freedom we had created would need regulating as of the sheer enormity of the player base. The more things change the more they stay the same.

“A sense of pleasurable control implies some modicum of separation: you are apart from what you are controlling” (Poole 2000 Pg 77)

You want to be a part of games but at the same time you want to be separated enough so you can make choices you wouldn't necessarily make in real life. You don’t want it to be real because that would make it boring or terrifying or painful. You want to be emotionally attached to characters in games so you care about them but you don’t want to be hurt by them.

 The idea of video games is to offer us tainted realism, we want to be able to do the impossible in a possible scenario or place and vice versa, we want a realistic fantasy. It's why games like Call of duty don't do anything for me because they're too real, it's like making a game about working in an office, it's a realistic premise set in a realistic world. In the same instance you wouldn't want a game about a piece of toast that could fly and shoot hamsters out of a hamster cannon because it makes no sense we need some sense of realism so we have a point of reference. Whereas Bioshock is also a First person shooter but it takes place in an underwater city populated by genetic enhancement junkies and you yourself can alter your dna to shoot bees out of your hands. It's real enough in the sense that bullets come out of your gun and people fall down when they're shot, it's realistic enough so it doesn't become farcical but it's utterly mad, which is why it's great.

So in terms of consoles like the wii where they try to involve the player more in the movements of the game with a motion controller this is an attempt to draw the player further into the game world physically. This in my opinion reaches a point where it gets ridiculous why would you want a really realistic bowling video game when you can just go bowling without the expense of buying a wii? The whole console is just a novelty, I don’t doubt that it’s changed the culture of gaming forever in terms of expanding the fan base of gaming but is that a good thing or will games become more generic trying to pander to more markets alienating hardcore gamers? What we need to be focusing on is making the stories more involving not the control systems.

I remember walking into a Gamestation and seeing a middle aged woman and I thought to myself; 'She must be lost'. Not long ago the only people that entered Gamestation or any game shop were spotty teenagers, mostly boys, mostly single (Me included). To see an adult who didn't work there usually meant they were stepping into the dangerous territory of buying a game for their child/grandchild/captive and they needed help. On the other hand this person was in fact purchasing a wii with wii fit and as I stood in ear shot I heard them say; "It's better than the gym innit". A cold sweat came over me as I realised that this place was not a sanctuary for lonely adolescents any more, it had become just another shop. The wii has made gaming a norm and now no one is excluded there are games about cooking and caring for pets, dancing, flower arranging... working in a funeral home, lots of things along those lines. The wii sort of opened the world up to gaming and whether that's good for games as a media or bad for them as an artform only time will tell.