Author Archives: Autumn Brennan

Before I took this class,  I may have completely agreed with Gonzalo Frascou’s article, “Videogames of the Oppressed”. Throughout the article, he describes why videogames cannot be an integral part of social change. When asked if it is possible for social and personal change to occur through videogames at the end of his article, Frascou simply says “no”.

 

Due to not being the most avid videogame player, the only games that would have come to mind would have been games such as “World of Warcraft” or “Call of Duty”; games that don’t particularly encourage personal or social change. However, through this class, we’ve played games such as Dys4ia, Spent, and ImmorTall; games that, to me, can inspire these changes that Frascou disagrees with. He states that while games and narratives share many elements,  a narrative is  a “fixed series of actions and descriptions, videogames need the active participation of the user not just for interpretational matters” (Frascou). While this is true, a narrative also requires user participation of a certain sort. If one reads a novel, such as “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair, but doesn’t interpret the meaning of the novel or even attempt to, then the narrative of the story is wasted. Videogames are very much the same, especially, in my opinion, Dsy4ia and Spent. For me personally, both games made me rethink certain elements of my own life.

 

Frascou also states that “videogames are not a good choice for historic or characters making moral statements” (Frascou). For certain events, such as Anne Frank as he uses as an example, I agree, because they are too controversial, even for certain writing, movies, and other forms of media. However, the game we played, ImmorTall, used the alien character to make a statement of war without explicitly saying so within the narrative of the game.

 

While Frascou makes good points, I think that with technology and globalization paving the way for the future, he has outdated ideas. Places such as Facebook and even, within recent years and the expansion, videogames are becoming important ways to spread moral statements, ideas, and proponents for social change. People use these and other parts of technology every day and traditional methods of communication are becoming less used. While these games we played in class are not very well-known, are there any recent games that are popular in our culture that can be viewed as vehicles for social change or how can they be changed or modified in order to do so?

Pranks in Videogames

I also was drawn to the fact that the majority of the posters’ blogs and comments were about music and art within videogames. Although I do find those subjects fascinating, I was particularly intrigued by the chapter on Pranks in “How to do Things with Videogames”. The chapter references the UK version of “The Office” and parodies such as “The Colbert Report”. Pranks are an integral part of our culture, for example, the upcoming “April Fool’s Day”. Within the work place or in casual settings, pranks are played on a daily basis as a sign of affection and seeing how far one can take the joke. To me, pranks and hacks within videogames serve as a sort of tribute to the games and a sign that the creators of the games are human. The “Easter Eggs” discussed are created by the designers of the video games without actually harming the integrity of the game; these people are just finding fun within the more menial part of their jobs. It is meant to find entertainment and maintain interest in something, such as hitting the question boxes in “Mario, that can be monotonousness.

However, the main point I took away the article was how cheats fit into videogames. Every one of them has them. I remember when I was younger and played “The Sims”; “rosebud” and “cha-ching” were the only ways that my Sims actually had a chance of survival. Cheats are a type of prank in a game, but can they be in the same category or deserve their own?

The “Columbine theory” of realism in gaming

In our reading for Thursday, the issue of realistic video games was discussed in depth. How realistic or how much of the “mimetic” aspect of a game is too much? An event that usually is referred to is the Columbine shooting from the late 90s and the subsequent shootings (one that is recent is Virginia Tech) at both high schools and colleges, that have occurred afterwards. Galloway chose to only to briefly mention the topic because of its controversial nature, however it brings up the question of how much do video games affect the public. With increasing quality of graphics in video games, video games appear more realistic with each passing year and more “real” subject matter rather than fantasy, such as World of Warcraft.

The realistic violence in video games is normally the scapegoat for increased aggression in adolescence and as a reason for the shootings mentioned above.  I put into Google, “Columbine theory video games” and found a recent blog post about the very thing discussed in the essay. The blogger states his thoughts on video games being blamed for these shootings and this demonstrates Columbine’s relevance even now, since the shooting happened in 1999 and the post was from this year in February. Although the blogger does not cite “quantitative facts” from studies and the like, he does bring up the good point of how much blame can be cast on video games. The same argument that “Doom” and the Columbine RPG game caused the urge to shoot people can be applied to Mario saying that creates the urge to jump on turtles. Personally I think that the Columbine RPG game is a little much, but are the realistic subject matter of video games the cause of violence in the world or it is the media’s scapegoat?

 

http://www.screwattack.com/news/columbine-doom-theory

 

The link for a documentary discussing the Columbine RPG game referenced in the blog post.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1147621/

“China Blue”

The material we were presented for today’s class had a different theme than those we have read before. Previously, the emphasis was on the history of the first video games and what “play” is. However, we were shown a theme that is hardly ever focused on in the popular media, but is a part of our, those who reside in the “first world” countries, daily lives. This theme calls attention to where our technology and other cheap goods come from.

When I was in high school, I watched a documentary called “China Blue” on a similar topic: the production of jeans. The lives of several of the young Chinese girls who worked in one factory in an increasingly urban area of China that created one of the namebrand jeans found across the world. These are the stories we rarely ever see in the media except for events such as suicides in the Foxconn factories discussed in Joel Johnson’s article. However the story of what is occurring in China, India, and various other third world countries has happened before. They are classified as countries undergoing their industrial revolutions.  The United States during the late 19th century underwent its industrial revolution and many of the stories we hear about factories in China and other countries occurred during this time. The poor work conditions, disregard for the worker’s happiness and health, etc. If the United States and other first world countries underwent their industrial revolutions without any restrictions to be as wealthy and “developed” as they are now, should China and other developing countries be restricted and be denied the opportunity to become a first world country themselves? Or now that we have seen what has happened in the past and what is going on in said countries today, should we try to prevent the mistreatment of workers as “enlightened” consumers? Is that our responsibility and could we deal with the subsequent inflation of prices in all the goods we love to purchase?