Shooters and Sims: Testing Our Assumptions about Video Games
January 8th, 2003
Course materials for this topic:
First Person Shooter (videorecording). Dir. Robin Benger.
Congent/Benger Productions with CTV Television Network, 2001.
Grossman, Lev. "Sim Nation" Time.
17 Nov. 2002. 25 Nov. 2002. http://www.time.com/time/sampler/printout/0,8816,391544,00.html
Lecture: Lauren Cruikshank - lrc@yorku.ca
Video Games… Who cares?
- the video game industry is massive and quickly
growing
- games are becoming richly influential upon the style of other
media
- the popular beliefs we hold about video games are important
to test and challenge
- not much study has occurred in this area
Brief Backstory
- First Video game was Spacewar created in 1961
by student Steve Russell at MIT.
- First popular video game was Pong, offered in 1972 arcade
machines by Atari.
- With Donkey Kong in 1981, a character named Jumpman is born,
later renamed Mario, after the Italian landlord ofNintendo’s
Seattle warehouse.
- Console wars took off 1980s, spanning the decades since with
big players now Nintendo, Sega, Sony, and Microsoft.
- Most popular types of games now include: action/adventure,
role-playing, war games, sports, flight simulators, and strategy
games.
First Person Shooter
Toronto father Robin Benger & his son Griffin,
who plays Counterstrike
Benger’s concerns:
• exposure to violent content and consequences
• addictive qualities of gaming
• violence to players' bodies
Talks to
• teenage players
• parents
• industry representatives
• designers
• academics
• anti-violence activist groups
Sim Nation
• Discusses the “most popular computer
game of all time”, The Sims, its inventor Will Wright and
the recent launch of The Sims Online.
• “The Sims is a cross between a doll house, a Tomagotchi,
and the television program Big Brother… I refer to it as
the Ikea game” (Pearce).
• Originality of game: no win-lose, no end to game, over
half of Sim players are women in a male-dominated medium, appeal
not obvious… Grossman calls it “the most boring video
game possible”.
• Suggests that The Sims Online could be a “daring
collecting social experiment that could tell us some interesting
things about who we are as a country” (US).
• “might be exactly what America needs right now:
a virtual sandbox where we can play out our fantasies and confront
our fears about what America might become”
Assumptions about Games: The Perceived Perils
and Promises
Are games the "Dark side of the information
age"? (Benger) Or "just what this divided nation needs”
(Grossman)?
• Representation
• Violence
• Physical Impact
• Social Impact
• Addiction and Immersion
Representation
Samples of prevalent stereotypes used in games:
• Racially typed terminators (Asian, African-American,
Native)
• Hypersexualized females as fighters
(Girls with Big Guns)
or screaming victims Ex. Custer’s Revenge (Atari)
Violence in Video games: breaking down the issue
•Violent skills – game use in army training
suggests games give players realistic simulations of firearm
use (Lt. Col. D. Grossman)
•Violent emotions - results are mixed: Aggression found
to rise after game play in some studies, but not in others.
Some suggest catharsis effect (Robischon).
•Violent mindset – need to question whether video
gamers perceive reality as antagonistic, violence as a tool
for successand war as a game without important political / social
contexts and consequences. (Benger)
Real or Virtual Violence?
“I’ve covered the front lines of
four wars and I’ve seen more people murdered on this floor…”
"No! You haven't seen a single person murdered on this
floor. You've seen animated pixilated characters disappear on
a computer screen. That's not murder"
(Benger in interview with Doug Lowenstein from IDSA (Interactive
Digital Software Association)
Debating violent content
“Virtual violence” view
•Violent incidents are just play in a fantasy context
•In no way threatening to mental or physical well-being
of those involved
•Meaningless symbolic exchange
•ludicrous to suggest restrictions
‘Real violence’ view
•Vicious assault and bloody murder occurs on mass scale
in games.
•Threatening to a gamer’s mindset and other people
they may interact with.
•Strong desensitization and violent skills training
•fair and important to restrict access
Physical Impact
• Concern for violence done to the body by
prolonged game play including eye strain, repetitive strain
injuries, seizures and sedentary risks.
• Some studies suggest that there may be physical benefits
to game stimulation, including increased hand-eye coordination.
• athletes of the cyberage? (Benger)
Social Impact
• Isolation of activity, potential neglect
of other social opportunities, family strain.
• Community and culture of gaming can provide rich and
rewarding social interaction.
• With move to MMORP (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing)
games, social interaction becomes integral part of play
Immersion and Addiction
- As technology becomes more “realistic”
and multi-sensory, immersion become more intense
- Realism is "the holy grail of games" (Hunteman)
- Benger says son addicted, Griffin says no.
- “These (game rooms) are the opium dens of the 21st century,
an electronic hook deep in a brain soothed by the balm of bloodless
killing” (Benger)
- Everquest known to gamers as “Evercrack” for its
addictive play.
- Games like The Sims can be “ferociously addictive”
(Grossman)
Suggestions for the appeal of a “people simulator”
(The Sims)
Suggestions for the appeal of a “people simulator”
(The Sims)
• Replacing “real life”
• Escaping “real life”
• Perfecting or controlling a cleaned-up “real life”
• Imagining and experimenting with new ways of living “real
life”
*Rifkin article next*
Other sources cited
•Game Over: Gender, Race and Violence
in Video Games. (videorecording). Dir. Nina Huntemann. Northhampton,
MA : Media Education Foundation, 2000. (Available in York Library)
•Jensen, Jeff. "Videogame Nation"
Entertainment Weekly, December 6, 2002. #685 New York, NY. 20-29.
•Kent, Steven L. Ultimate History of Videogames.
New York: Prima, 2001.
•Pearce, Celia. "Towards a Game Theory
of Game" 2001. Available online January 2003 at http://www.cpandfriends.com/writing/first-person.html
•Robischon, Noah. "Head Games".
Entertainment Weekly, December 6, 2002. #685 New York, NY. 36-38.
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