Today's presentation got me thinking a lot about the concept of representation in videogames: that is, how the same physical (or i guess virtual) act can be represented differently from game to game to produce different visceral effects. One example I talked about with Bryan after class comes from Wii Sports.
In the training function of the bowling game, there's a mode in which one can practice 'power throws.' In this mode, the point is to throw the ball as hard as you can without curving the ball off one way or another without trying (or, at least, that's how I think about it). As a player progresses through this stage, the game adds more and more pins so that, in the end, the player is trying to knock down as many as 91 pins. The game rewards a player for bowling a strike by doubling the points awarded on that level - in other words, if you bowl a strike on the last level, you will be credited 182 pins to your total score. In addition to the score booost, however, there is a visceral reward in seeing the ball you "threw" smash nearly 100 pins into oblivion. Often when I play with my friends, the score is viewed as secondary to this second type of reward. "Look at how you made those pins explode!" is not just something we say to a newbie friend to make her feel better about not hitting many pins - it's a genuine reaction to how cool it is to see one really charged up pin take out 10 or 15 others. (For a demonstration of Wii Bowling, click below.)
The Ultimate Powerthrow - The best bloopers are a click awayThis part of Wii bowling sounds very similar to the crash mode described by today's presentation group. If I understand correctly, in this mode the player's car can be seen as something of a Wii-bowling ball: a player charges it up as fast as he can, rams it into any other cars as possible, and then waits for that big, gratifying explosion at the end. To me, the difference in the acts is negligible. But because this later example performs that act using the representation of vehicles (and humans, by implication) rather than a ball and pins, people - especially critics - react differently.
At this point, I think the question becomes more a matter of what, exactly, it is that we respond to in videogames. Do people respond to acts of human-on-human violence in gameplay because the person is genuinely seeking human blooshed? Or is it somewhat more innocent than that - something that would be equally satisfied (if not in exactly the same way) by ball-on-pin violence? It seems to go back to the quote we heard earlier in the semester:
...gamers are dismissive of the ethical implications of games--they don't see "get a blowjob from a hooker, then run her over." They see a power-up. (Koster Fun 81-85
)I'd be interested to see what everyone else thinks of this - the question lends itself to a discussion of gaming sociology, but I think there's also an aspect of literary criticism in there somewhere. After all, we have much the same types of problems when discussing novels and plays - context and characterization often make all the difference in the world when we form our opinions about the persons in a work of literature. To what extent is this true in the world of videogames?
Our playgroup got together today to discuss our upcoming presentation on Diablo, and we came up with some really, really great stuff (so get excited!). The paratextual elements that go along with Diablo are just fabulous. I'm especially looking forward to approaching 'The Bard's Tale,' which appears to be a (snarky) action RPG about action PRGs. It brings to mind a discussion we had in Crime, Deviance and Despair in Early Modern Drama, about the question of paradigm versus parody. A game like Diablo has certainly had its share of emulators, but just how (self-) conscious do these games appear to be of the conventions and stereotypes of the action RPG? And how do they approach them? I think that this question will help a lot in reading these games and classifying them, as well as in constructing a critical literary analysis of the action RPG genre.
