The Window to the World: What Video Games have Taught Me.August 21st, 2008 by Suzie
Del.icio.us | Digg | Technorati | Reddit | Stumble Upon
For me, video games occupy a space somewhere between total downtime and work. Since starting to blog about games I have found myself analyzing them with a thoroughness I used to keep for English literature class. Gender politics, social implications, reflections of the current zeitgeist… Games are a significant media, if a frequently downplayed one.
And yet, as this week’s Round Table points out:
There is a commonly held belief that videogames are not the equal of literature and film. One conservative acquaintance of mine on Facebook doesn’t even consider them on par with “public speech and music.” On the other hand, we have anti-video game activists claiming that video games have the power to train children to be emotionless assassins. Even within the video game community I’ve often heard the reaction, “they’re just video games.”
Well, I am here to say that video games can teach us, make us feel, make us cry, make us laugh. That they are easily the equal of film and books (as are music and public speech on occasion - I have a dream, anyone?)
It’s easy to point to how they teach us explicit lessons. There’s any number of DS games that purport to teach you how to cook, how to design clothes, how to get fit, how to remember things better, or just how to think more efficiently.
But what about the other lessons? The unconscious ones, the ones that slowly shape our world view, the ones that affect how we interact and talk and think and live?
As babies, we come into the world with a muddle of DNA, and a wide-open mind. Over time, our parents, our friends and our teachers fill us full of ideas, knowledge, opinions, traumas, happy memories, fears and neurosis. Add to the mix films, games, getting drunk at 4am by yourself and reading House of Leaves, divorcing the person you thought you’d be with forever, or getting your first pet - and various other experiences, and you wind up with a person. A living, breathing, complex person like you. Or me.
Games don’t influence us in some brainwashing capacity, stepping into our brain and re-wiring it to believe that murder and mayhem is a good idea instead of a bad idea. To suggest they do is a huge disservice to the minds ability to reason, to differentiate between reality and fiction, and to leave no room for the looking glass world of social criticism.
However the opposing view - that games are harmless toys that have zero impact on anything - is just as simplistic and false. The human brain is mutable. It does get affected by fiction, by dreams, by the twilight zone of abstracts and concepts. Yes, I cried when Aerith died. She’s just a collection of pixels, a poorly translated, blocky character that I could still emphasize with. Death is something we all have to deal with. We can connect that death, that fictional, meaningless death, with all of our own losses and we can grieve for her.
Video games take us into an interesting world. A world where we can experiment. A world where losing isn’t so bad. Want to try creating an anarchist haven? Create an MMO guild, let it run on anarchic principles, and see what happens. Want to rigidly order every last detail of a city? Load Sim City, and see what happens when you do things the way you always thought they should be done.
What have multiplayer games taught me? That people are people, wherever they live, whoever they are. You get the same drama, the same friendship, the same falling in love and falling apart that you get offline. Every guild is a hotbed of lost love, betrayal, revenge, war and loyalty. Move out of the way, daytime TV.
What have FPS games taught me? Apart from the fact I am a terrible shot, they have taught me that some people can take their skill to a prodigious level. That a person who dedicates themselves to something, who practices and learns and applies what they learn, can rise to stunning levels of skill. There are guys out there who are the olympic athletes of the FPS world, and they should be honored for their talent. After all, getting 100 headshots in a row is no more relevant than being able to run 100 metres really really fast.
What have RTS games taught me? That I love them, that I love the patterns that they make, the deep relaxed state they take me into, the way playing them always makes me feel more alert, more intelligent. That, much like a game of Go, once you move past the learning stage you enter a world with no limits. I love the focus, the awareness of every unit, every piece, how everything is connected and yet always moving and changing. Video game zen? It’s there, that state of mind. And I can carry that with me, view my life with the same strategic brain.
What about artistic games? Funny games? Small, abstract games? The world of video games is as varied, as intense, as fractured as any other media. I can peek inside another person’s creative vision, and see - in a distorted kind of way - their joys and hopes, their fears and visions. Is that brooding, claustrophobic tunnel design not a piece of art in itself? Did the designer not call upon old childhood fears of dark, closed places, of being alone, of being scared? And those rolling psychedelic landscapes in platformers - is that not a dream world on a par with anything written about by an opium addict with a pen?
Human imagination is an unbridled, rampant thing. You can’t box it up with neat little parables, or easy conversions. Witnessing a kiss in Crysis is not going to turn someone homosexual. But it reminds someone, however briefly, that homosexuality exists, that people are all different, and yet all similar. That every relationship is different and unique, and yet we can still emphasis with them all so easily, if we can just drop the prejudice for a little while.
Games let you look at the world through someone else’s lens. They let us paint the world, break it, build it up, reshape it and then share our creations with the world.
This is why I love games. This is why I keep buying and playing them. Because nothing else is so visceral, or marries an alien view-point with your own actions so decisively.
August 21st, 2008 at 3:25 pm
I find the phrase that “Games are art” to be a misleading art. Games have the potential to be art, of course, but this phrase somehow implies that EVERY game is art in some way. As much as I want to believe this, I know it’s not the case.
Yet it is this very same notion that makes an emotive game more effective than a work of art. You go into a gallery EXPECTING to see art, to observe every painting with the open mindedness needed to experience what the artist intended. With a game it’s different. You go in with the intention of having a good time, and then when a game does illicit an emotional response you’re unprepared for it, and it’s much more effective as a result.
“nothing else is so visceral, or marries an alien view-point with your own actions so decisively. ” - A million times yes, best way I’ve ever heard this said.
Thanks for the post.
August 21st, 2008 at 3:28 pm
Oops typo, first sentence should read “I find the phrase “Games are art” to be a misleading one.” Sorry.
August 21st, 2008 at 4:03 pm
@Jon - it depends, I think, on your definition of ‘art’. Which is so tied up with culture, and highbrow critics versus mass consumers etc etc it gets quite tricky. I don’t think you can say that any game completely lacks any artistic elements - even if the game as a whole is incoherant and crappy.
I agree that we don’t expect to have an emotional response to a video game though, and yet they are one of the most powerful mediums for delivering one (since we emphasise so closely with the central character).
I’m glad you liked the post
Thanks for reading!
August 21st, 2008 at 7:51 pm
I really believe that Imagination is the key component in enjoying video games. Those of us who spent our childhoods as Batman, Davy Crocket, Luke Skywalker, etc. and spent hours at a time setting up epic battles with our army men (sorry I don’t have any girl examples), have an easier time seeing past the reality of what our video game characters actually are — elegantly displayed 1s and0s.
August 21st, 2008 at 11:08 pm
*cheers* *applause*
(such intelligent feedback, I know)
August 22nd, 2008 at 1:06 am
On the top of my head, the most important life skill I can attribute to video games is 3D spatial awareness, which helps me in driving–especially in tight corners. This skill isn’t something that one is born with and it takes a while to develop. You see, motorists don’t usually have this ability when they start out.
That of course is just one skill that I’ve learned.
Aside from aesthetics, video games can be used as a powerful tool for education. We’ve all seen how video games are used for teaching kids basic lessons, or how flight simulators train pilots.
Let’s not worry about the medium’s detractors. The future leaders of the world are gamers that play Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto. When the old die out and the young become the old, video games are just going to be one of those things that the “oldies” would look at in fondness, as the youth of that age are debased by a new medium that we gray gamers would view as corruptors of innocence.
August 22nd, 2008 at 10:03 am
This post gave me warm fuzzies
August 22nd, 2008 at 10:21 am
@ Mr Anderson - I agree, bringing able to bring a certain level of imagination to the table helps a lot. True of any media I think - the ones who role-play as the characters afterwards will get a lot more from it than the ones who don’t!
@ Katharos -
August 22nd, 2008 at 11:29 am
@Suzie - I’ll agree that every game has artistic elements, but then these make up a very small part of what the entire game is. A character model in a game may be art in the same way that a physical sculpture is, but no one would call a character model a “game” would they? It’s for this reason that I believe not every game is art, but all contain artistic elements. For every Shadow of the Colossus or Fahrenheit there’s a million Fifa’s and Gran Turismo’s and whilst they may be beautiful in a way that a film or painting is beautiful, the act of experiencing the game through playing it is not emotive in the way art is.
August 22nd, 2008 at 3:51 pm
That was a great article, I wish more people who are against games would read this.
BTW, what is the name of the game you have a picture of up there?
August 22nd, 2008 at 4:45 pm
@GEN12: That’s Every Extend Extra Extreme, for the XBLA. :]
Also, Suzie, this was a fantastic post. I really enjoyed reading it…you should write us a whole book of these kind of things.
Congratulations also on the EA thing! <3
August 22nd, 2008 at 6:23 pm
Brittany, the irony is that she nearly did have a book deal until it exploded
August 23rd, 2008 at 9:02 am
Omg this was an amazing article!!
Simply amazing!!
This should be published in your local paper or something.. my goodness!! =]
It really did make me feel all warm and happy.
I wish those video game haters would read this and think twice.. and just open their minds a little more..
August 23rd, 2008 at 9:23 am
Great article!
August 23rd, 2008 at 11:22 am
Thanks for all the positive feedback on this article!
August 23rd, 2008 at 6:40 pm
*Joins Katharos in cheering & applauding*
August 24th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
Wow, Congrats if you ever finished reading House of Leaves, especially if while intoxicated. I found reading it sober was a confusing enough experience
Great article btw
August 25th, 2008 at 2:51 am
Great read, thanks for submitting it Suzie!
@Jon So you’re presupposing art needs to be emotive in order to qualify as art? I would argue that the entirety of choices made during the development of any game pretty much qualifies it as art–from the models, textures, lighting calculations, to the mathematics governing drift in a racing game.
Besides, you and I may not have an emotive response to Grid or GT, but I know a lot of people who do.
August 26th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
The most pleasing aspect in gaming to me is being directly involved in a story. Unlike books or in movies where you merely watch, in RPG games like Final Fantasy and Gensosuikoden you take a part in it directly. Your mistakes in the present will affect your future, like in real life. This is the one aspect games have that beats things like books and movies. Eventhough books have game books like ‘Lone Wolf’, it isn’t as interactive as a game.
What’s nice to me in RTS gaming is the constant concentration needed, especially in games with units where you cannot afford to lose like Warcraft III, DOW Soulstorm and Starcraft. Rampantly getting your units killed will affect your overall performance, unlike in Red Alert II where you can easily churn out an army.
This is a very nice article, made me smile amidst my boring class where the lecturer is mysteriously missing.
*Joins in the cheering too*
September 12th, 2008 at 8:55 am
@Corvus Yes, I would say that the very definition of art is that it’s emotive. All the model’s, texturing, graphics etc. are artistic yes, but artistic in the same way that a painting is artistic. If I take a beautiful screenshot from God of War that doesn’t make the game art, it makes the graphics art.
Who are these people that have an emotional response to racing games? I want to meet them. If by your statement you mean happiness as an emotion these games evoke, surely it would follow that something like paintballing is art?