The game industry is linked to two powerful industries: Medias and entertainment and information technologies. With the convergence of media, a history is now made to give at the same time birth to a film, a video game, a TV show or a blockbuster book. At the benefit of a perfectly marketed vision of the cultural good. On the other side, lots of scientific innovations dedicated to the war machine are tested and made popular by video games: simulation, virtual reality, motion tracking, etc.
Beyond the already very famous example of the game America’s Army, used by the American Army to enroll future soldiers, those two powerful industries can meet on the same playing field as shown by the researches lead by the Institute for Creative Technologies, created in 1999 on a partnership between the University of California, the game and film industries and the American army. The goal of ICT is to consider the potential of simulation and artificial technologies combined to game and narration, in terms of education and training for the army. This gives birth to virtual human beings, army trainers or to learning the methods to behave well with hostile populations.
In the middle of these two industries, several generations of individuals meet: those born with the first video games and those born within the digital era, for whom interactivity, ubiquity or multimedia are a way of life. For some of them, video games have a predominant place in their personal development and in their life in society. The game is not only a question of entertaining, but intervenes in the construction of their imaginative faculty and in their way to apprehend knowledge.
In such a context, we have to ask ourselves on the way games are created and on the stake they represent, whether on the control or mind development. Today videogames play a similar role as yesterday’s tales and legends, in the sense that they allow the imagination – a cultural imagination – to escape from the real and from ourselves. Lots of teenagers and young adults say they dream in computer animation images and prefer 3D images to video or to images of the real. They also have a more active relationship in consuming these cultural goods. It is therefore fundamental to give priority to diversity in games to allow this imagination to develop and not only be a way to control the minds.
During the past few years, the usual talk about video games fortunately changed a bit and tends to progressively abandon a judgment hitherto tenacious, considering games as a subculture for retarded teenagers. In parallel, more and more titles appeared, giving favour to the creative aspect such as Ico, Shadow of Collossus, Katamari, Loco Roco… Players changed too, especially with the arrival of the last games consoles Wii or Nes: more girls and/or older people, more occasional players that were not recognizing themselves in games considered violent or sports games. This concomitant evolution also allows to surpass recurrent critics around violence or addiction, linked to video games.
It was indeed proved that addiction to video games is minor compared to the addiction to television for example, and it was also proved that the few cases were largely given publicity in the media in order to facilitate the work for media suffering from lack of information and views on this subject. This over-exposure looks like the treatment of information around illegal downloading in 2000: over-exposing isolated cases in order to play with people fear. As for the violence of games, that really exists, it seems to be hiding more delicate issues: authorizing weapons, children soldiers, errors of strategic targets for the army… The violence of real revealing itself much more serious that the one of games that are only a mirror image of it or a representation. Children have always played war, but with video games realism is more obvious. Games are by the way often criticized because of their ultra-violence or free violence like in Silent hill or Resident Evil.
And yet, lots of Grand Theft Auto players admit they prefer to explore streets and districts, rather than blowing up their rivals! Moreover, more than deadening or making violent, researches tend to prove today that games develop children various cognitive faculties: reading, being logical, observation capacities, maps reading, orientation, taking notes, problems resolution and last but not least working in a team, because to be successful in network games, it is important to get together, communicate and interact. It is how sociologist and psychologist have used network games – Counterstrike for example – to recreate the social link for disadvantaged youngsters. Indeed, playing to Counterstrike means being part of a team, respect some rules, listen to the others to work together, to develop strategies and finally progress in the game and win.
The new vague or "serious games" in education, armament and governmental institutions tends to confirm this tendency. There are called serious games, not because other games aren’t, but because game is used in a pedagogical way for political, social, marketing, economical, environmental or humanitarian purposes. The game Darfur is dying made to understand better the conflict in Darfur, or Food Force, a game created by the UN in which users play to distribute food are few examples. Similarly, artists create games that are social or political critics. McDonald the video game, the satire of Mac Donal restaurants by the group of Italian activist artists Molle Industria or the games of Gonzalo Frasca September 12 or Madrid prove the capacity of games to expose ideas.
Perfect examples of mass consuming object, sentenced to have given birth to a generation of "no life" or to a generation of "molle" of passive consumers, games can be used to become a way to express oneself. The Machinimas, films created with video games engines or 8bit music – still called chip tunes – embezzle the primary function of games, to turn them into musical instruments or machines to create films. This is how a young graphic artists from the north of Paris created a film in a week thanks to the game The Movies, in order to give his own vision of the suburbia riots back in 2005. This film was downloaded more than one million times and Alex Chan, the author of Machinima The french democracy was interviewed by the international press in order to give his point of view on the events.
In another Machinima — This Spartan Life — a talk show directed by the New Yorker artist Chris Burke in the network game Halo 2, Malcolm Mc Laren is invited to express himself on 8bit music. He explains that in the karaoke world in which we are living, his only hope lies in the new generation of hackers. The one that use Gameboy consoles to create music with. According to him, the entertainment world starts having sense again with them. Because a bit like situation diversions, codes and popular culture are used to give political messages. A current issue necessary to give conscience back and arm ourselves with knowledge! Playing…
Isabelle Arvers
Exhibitions organizer, independent author and critique
www.isabelle-arvers.com |
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Digital Art
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