Tag Archives: Seekers

Video games can teach morality

http://www.vgchartz.com/article/82421/can-video-games-teach-morality/

While many of us have spoken about how video game violence can be immoral, few have pointed out the ways that video games can improve morality. While there are games like Grand Theft Auto that clearly glamorize crime, there are also games like Red Dead Redemption that both penalize players for immoral action and reward them for moral action. For example, players are rewarded for helping other characters in trouble and penalized for spurring their horse too much. These games go back to the days of Super Mario Bros and The Legend of Zelda, where the goal was to defeat evil and save the kidnapped princess to return home as a hero.
It is in the best interest of video game developers to create moral video games, as these will appeal to a larger audience and parents more. As the graphics resolution of games has increased, so has realism, which may contribute to the relatively recent outcry against video game violence. The same violent action that has been in games before suddenly becomes more graphic, more realistic, and therefore more disturbing to the viewer. But even this can be used as a tool to help the player understand that there are consequences of our actions, even in the imaginary world of video games. Games like Darfur is Dying teaches the player of the consequences of actions in the real world by showing foreign conflicts through the eyes of the victims. So, before anyone cries foul against video game violence, especially those that judge without seeing actual game play, keep an open mind and find out how the players are affected in practice, rather just in theory.

Super Columbine Massacre RPG!

http://kotaku.com/171966/columbine-survivor-talks-about-columbine-rpg

“I think that ultimately a videogame is just another medium for artistic expression,” says Brian Crecente, a victim who was paralyzed from the chest down after being shot by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold at Columbine.

Super Columbine Massacre RPG! offers a retelling of the Columbine Massacre by using what Bogost calls an ‘operational reality’.  The videogame recreates the Columbine shooting in a 16-bit world, holding onto the historical record as tightly as possible (including even the dialogue about God in the library), and forces its players to take the role and perspective of the gunmen.  As controversial as it initially sounds, however, the videogame offers a lot of insight on the Columbine shootings.  It allows its players to not only learn more about the event, but also about why it happened and why Eric and Dylan felt the way they did—a perspective that is hard to sympathize in other mediums.

Brian Crecente agrees, Brian talks about how the game can get people talking about the Columbine shooting again without ‘glamourizing’ the tragic event (questionable).  My favorite idea from Brian is, “You play as these cartoonish characters doing horrible things but the impact gets sort of lost after a while.  Until of course, you actually see what really happened.”  Brian talks about how the game introduces real life photographs after the gunmen killed themselves in the game; the player is taken out of a fictional realm and put into an exactly similar realistic realm—effectively showing the players what their cartoon characters have actually done in real life.  Brian lists many other interesting perspectives on the game that I did not expect from a Columbine victim, especially after seeing the responses from a similar game, JFK Reloaded.

Videogame “Docudramas”

A docudrama is defined as a “fictionalized drama based on real events” (dictionary.com). The past few classes we’ve been focusing on what we’ve categorized as documentary style games, but I think that it is important that we differentiate between the documentary games and what I would view as these “docudrama” style games. Although they seem rather similar, I think that the implications that they have can have very different impacts. Molleindustria, who created some of the games that we have played, such as Unmanned and Phone Story, take on this idea of a docudrama, in which, they create very real scenarios based on actual events. In Unmanned, the soldier doesn’t necessarily represent one soldier in particular, but rather one who represents all soldiers and their struggles in everyday life. Documentary style games I think are more like the JFK Reloaded game in which the historical details are finely tuned and paid very close attention to.Take for example however, the Flight to Freedom game. This game is a direct representation of a narrative of a fictional, although very realistic character, attempting to escape slavery in America. In this game, one of the characters is a true historical figure who actually lived and aided in the freeing of runaway slaves. This game blurs the distinction between actual historical recreation and a dramatization, and thus documentary and “docudrama” style games.

The reason I find it important to attempt to distinguish between the two is to understand the impact that these games can have that are different from one another. “Docudramas”, much like the ones on TV and the like, can give us an idea of something that is occurring, or has occurred, without taking us there necessarily. One great example of this that I’d like to introduce is Food Force. This game occurs on a fictional island, but presents all of the ideas that are crucial to our society in this time including civil war, famine, and global warming. However, it doesn’t take place in a real environment. Darfur is Dying however, informed us of the actual crisis going on in Darfur by placing us in that location, although with a fictional family. I think the fundamental distinction between these two games is their ability to make these locations real in our consciousness. Without the realism of location or storyline, it’s hard for the games to have the same impact in making us concerned or aware of the particular issue as it is meant to be viewed.

Monotony as a form of Meditation

In Tuesday’s class we obviously focused extensively on the Relaxation chapter of Ian Bogost’s book. Part of the discussion that caught my ear was the way monotonous tasks can induce relaxation along with the introduction of “meditation” games into the videogame genre. The article I found talks briefly about how monotonous tasks increase the alpha activity of the brain. This phenomenon of increased alpha activity has also been seen in the early stages of meditation. Essentially, this means that simple monotonous tasks, such as clicking a mouse repeatedly, can in some way induce a state of relaxation or even meditation.

Using Video Games to Socialize

Re-posted from earlier but to the right place this time.

 

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/video?id=5826748

 

Much of the discussion in class has been about what video games can do for people.  When playing the game “Passage” in class, I found it interesting that if you picked up a wife it would then be more difficult to do more things in the game, such as navigate around different obstacles.  While we all made the obvious metaphor that having a wife can hold one back from fulfilling other goals in life, I looked more deeply into the thought that being entangled in video games lead to a less social aspect of life, or not picking up your wife to be able to navigate around more obstacles in this case.  However, contrary to the ‘stereotype’ of gamers, playing video games is a useful tool to socialize these days.  In fact, 97% of teenagers are considered gamers, whether it is casual or intense role-playing games that take up many hours.  So if you want to fit in, it seems that you need to play video games (not really).  But thinking as to how video games has been a topic of social discussion in my life, I have found more often than not that video games has been a social tool to not only meet, but further a relationship with other individuals.  A common example that many can relate to is Pokemon.  If you walk into a room and ask who likes/has played Pokemon Red or Blue as a child, the chances are most people have and you will immediately share something in common with that person.  I think it’s important to keep in mind that while we talk about how we can use video games for our individual gains, such as visual aesthetics, music or pranks, the interactive nature of video games be useful as well.

Seeker: Assassin’s Creed and Reverence

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaPONUm9K14&hd=1

This clip, from the highly popular Assassin’s Creed series, combines a lot of the aspects of videogames Bogost describes in the introductory chapters of his book.  The protagonist, Ezio, stands atop one of Rome’s most famous buildings, the Casetl Sant’Angelo, looking out over an artistic computer-generated rendering of Renaissance Rome.  The city glows with light despite the dark night sky and subtle, but emotional music plays in the background.  This is art, in the sense that art attempts to capture aesthetic beauty.

Reverence also plays a major role in this scene, as it does throughout the entire series.  Ubisoft, the game’s developer, has put a lot of effort in creating believable open-world models of famous cities, including Jerusalem, Venice, Florence, Istanbul, and Rome.  This process of rebuilding a period-accurate and fully explorable representation of cities and their major landmarks has been a trademark feature of the Assassin’s Creed games since the beginning.  It is this feature that gives the player a chance to become intricately familiar with many of the world’s most famous landmarks.

Lastly, there is even an achievement for parachuting off the top of the Castel Sant’Angelo, something that is likely only possible in a videogame.   The name of the achievement is a reference to a song by the Steve Miller Band, “Fly Like an Eagle,” a sort of easter egg prank much like those Bogost describes.

How Popular are Casual Games?

http://casualgamesassociation.org/press.php

The idea of hardcore versus casual gaming motivated me to find out just how popular “casual” games are. Of course, I see people waiting in line or sitting in class playing Angry Birds or Temple Runner all the time. However, are there more than just bored college students that play these games? The answer is definitely yes. I stumbled upon an organizational website designed to help casual game developers. The site also lists a few interesting facts: budgets for internet casual games are usually around %100,000 to $500,000, more than 200 million people in the world play “casual” games, and in 2009, casual games made over $3 billion dollars in revenue.

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/

Music as a Game-Changer (better late than never)

Music in video games can not only enhance and a game’s experience and the player’s level of involvement, they can also change it entirely. In the recent 3rd person adventure/combat game Dark Souls, music is used mostly in the traditional lets-be-epic-as-we-kill-stuff manner with choirs, orchestras, etc. See the below video for an example:

(Spoiler Alert) But there is an unexpected twist in the final combat sequence. The mood of the music is completely different–a solitary piano carrying an almost wistful theme throughout the combat. In the game’s story, this final boss is one who’s once good (I think) power has become corrupted, necessitating his defeat and perhaps even the re-ordering of the world (player’s choice). The music seems to denote sadness over the magic that is being lost in the death of this boss–almost as if it were saying “we wish we could have saved it…” See the clip here:

Apple Working Condition Protests

This video reports on mass protests against Apple for the poor working conditions at their supplier, FoxConn. Many online petitions have gained popularity, with millions of supporters, but this protest is notable because it’s a global, physical protest. Protesters took to Washington DC, New York City, San Francisco, Sydney, and  Bangalore. However, it is important to note that there are many other companies using FoxConn as suppliers for their products. These companies are not being protested, largely because Apple has a larger public image with a bi-sected love-hate following. It could be argued, however, that because Apple has such a globally known image, the company’s actions could influence other, smaller companies to follow suit.