Last Thursday I had the pleasure of attending Professor Call's lecture on games and video games, and I was extremely impressed with his research. His analysis of a new media form, which is quickly becoming the most abundant in the world, was both enjoyable and critical, and invited further questioning and speculation.
Professor Call began by establishing the parameters of his research. He is not trying to argue that video games are art, as the art community cannot even agree on a definition for art, so there is no sense in trying to include video games in a canon of work that cannot even be defined. Professor Call is concerned with how we analyze games. Other media forms, such as literature and film, have established a vocabulary of terms through which the form can be analyzed. Video games have yet to reach this point, but as the amount of Americans who play video games rises over 50 percent, it is high time that we started thinking about what this form of media is saying.
To help get a grip on the world of video games, Professor Call turned to another branch of his study, which is board games. As board games have been around for a much longer time, anthropologists have already established a few ways of interpreting them. The French intellectual Callois created a few terms(agon, alea, mimicry, and illiny)which analyze a game on its level of competition, its reliance on luck, its ability to mimic real life, and its ability to physically excite or stimulate. Just as these old ideas of luck and strategy are easily applicable to games like Monopoly and Settlers of Catan, the same principles apply to video games. Many video games have high levels of competition, like Super Smash Brothers, involving multiple players who must actually eliminate others to win, while other games like Little Big Planet have a lower level of competition, as players must work together to work through puzzle presented by the game. Alea, or luck, is low in such games like Call of Duty, where maps are pre-determined, with predictable outcomes, but high in games like Mario Kart, where question mark boxes will equip players with randomized weaponry. Mimicry is perhaps most easily recognized, not just in hyper realistic games like Grand Theft Auto, but also in games like the Sims, which do nothing more than try to mimic everyday life. Video games have always had an aspect of physical excitement, through the use of buttons and joysticks, but this level of involvement has only been heightened through the invention of the Rumble Pack, the Wii, the Kinect, and most recently, the XBOX 1's triggers, which adjust the amount of pressure required to push them down depending on the challenge of the task in the game.
It is also important to analyze the ideologies represented in games. Though games like Call of Duty: Black Ops and Grand Theft Auto have taken a good deal of the flack in this department, it is important to analyze other games which at first sight, may seem more benign. Even Settler's Of Catan present a problem for the Western World, with its blatant exclusion of natives on the habitable land. This type of game represents a dream of the 'perfect colonization' where there is no pre-existing culture to deal with, and resources are free and out there for the picking. Issue of race and sex are easily recognizable as the canon of video game heroes is examined, and the scales tip drastically to the side of white athletic males.
Video games are the fastest growing media form in the world, and they can simply not be ignored. Just as film went through a time when it was considered a passing fad, only for youthful entertainment, and corrupt and dangerous for kids, video games is has passed and is passing through those areas. Video games have reached the studio stage, where they are marketed by massive studios, but as programs like Steam and XBOX's independent game program flourish, the day is not far off when video games will join film, in passing out of the studio age and into the auteur arena. Yes. whether they are art or not, video games can simply not be ignored. In the next twenty or thirty years, Professor Call has suggested that the question will not be: "do you play video games?" but simply: "what video games do you play?"
Also, this lecture inspired me to take Professor Call's class this spring all about games and game theory. It is called IHUM 280, and it will be taught on Mondays and Wednesdays from 12:30 to 3:00. Anyone interested in coming would be welcome company!
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