Playing Video Games, the Shelf o’ cool books and Affective Disposition Theory
I love being back at a library that actually has books…most of the time.
I went looking for a book by Ian Bogost on Persuasive Games (which wasnt there and I still need to track down) and found a whole shelf of good books to read.
Resisting the urge to grab all of them and greedily check them out to the shagrin of all others, I took only two. Having sunk my teeth into actual academic published literature on my topic of choice, all I can say is “yay!” other people to plagiarize borrow theories and legitimized quotations from.
I’ve been struggling with exactly how this text will look - content analysis of games, a review of the literature, my usual flow of consciousness type writing, or something completely different.
Sitting down with the intro to “Playing Video Games: Motives, Responses, and Consequences” gives me plenty of places to draw from and I thank the editors greatly.
Interesting discussion on Affective Disposition Theory (p. 4) which apparently involves us deciding if the character we are watching/playing is good or bad and then wishing either positive or negative outcomes (respectively) for them
Now, in a traditional game where you play the (good) protagonist of the story within the social context it is intended, this creates a fairly non-surprising outcome: Master-Chief saving the world from the Covenant; US soldiers defending against insurgents in America’s Army; The mayor of your SimCity - we all (mostly, generally) want them to “win” (a positive outcome).
But what happens when we are asked to play the reverse roll of a socially defined good/bad dichotomy. In cinema or literature, this is not so confusing because if we are watching/reading from the “bad guy’s” side, then we can still wish upon them negative outcomes and the main character of the film should just die/get caught/be hurt/embarrassed/poor/worse off in the end. But, when we are the “bad” guy within our social context (Night of Bush Capture, Super Columbine Massacre RPG, Bully, parts of GTA etc.) the player might become conflicted - they, by this theory, would wish negative outcomes on the character they are playing for being bad, but at the same time, positive outcomes for themselves (there’s a little thing called “winning”).
In this situation, where a player is asked to, in some ways, morally compromise themselves in order to “win” what happens - is this something teaching a player to believe that killing Bush is a good thing (if they didnt already believe that) or that killing/beating up other kids in school wins you a prize? not really.
As Greg Costikyan over at Manifesto Games points out in his defense of Super Columbine Massacre:
But the insight Super Columbine Massacre provides about its
subject matter derives precisely from the fact that the player is
forced to take the roles of the pepetrators. The player is exposed to
their world: the music, the games, the heedless cruelty of high school
life, the thoughts and words of Harris and Klebold themselves. Few
people of intelligence and sensitivity emerge unscarred from the
relentless anti-intellectualism and the cruel cliques of the American
high school, and while most of us are not driven to murder (rather more
to suicide), this game does a good job of evoking the thoughts and
emotions of Harris and Klebold–without glamorizing or exculpating them.
What he is saying, in essence and in my opinion, is that by forcing people into a situation where they are uncomfortable, and are forced to make choices based on stepping outside of their accepted social context gives people a wider view on world events, something more in depth and prepares them better to accept or reject those computer-mediated events when they happen in the real world.
I am not claiming this is a good or bad thing, just that perhaps it is a thing. Again pulling from Costikyan:
And a game such as Super Columbine Massacre can lend insight
into the events of that terrible day that newspaper reports, or somber
and thougthful essays, cannot. Not necessarily better insights–but
different ones–precisely because it makes you complicit in recreating
the events.
Now, coming to where this fits into development; SimCity, America’s Army, Night of Bush Capture, Counter Strike, and even (perhaps especially) Disney’s Cinderella: Dollhouse 2 all allow the player to “play a game” (experience a set of events) from a certain moral perspective which, according to their Affective Disposition, is seen as deserving of a positive or negative outcome. Regardless of their disposition however, the game will tend to direct them towards certain acts and away from others and in doing so, expand the players’ insights into that set of events.
Now, because the majority of games being sold (27.1%) and favoured (57.5%) are action and shooter games, respectively (ESA stats for 2004 I believe), are we disproportionately giving players more “insights” into solving problems through war rather than diplomacy? Is the fact that the easiest way to win even Civilization 257:Total Universal Domination (not yet a real game, but we will get to #257 eventually) is to build schools and universities to educate your population so that you have tons of science research to pour into military advances to crush your opponent - rather than convincing everyone to vote you to being the Sec. General of the UN or whatever the “political victory” condition is - giving players more “insights” into the “best/easiest” way to solve international cleavages (i.e. through military research and deployment and that education is only a means to this military end). Is Disney insighting (oh, look at the clever word game!) children the world over to demand a materialistic capitalistic imperialist world order through asking mommy and daddy to open their wallets and buy them a castle dollhouse and accessories?
So, Thoughts o’ the moment:
Library good.
And
By forcing players to assume a certain role within a certain socially acceptable space, or challenging their Affective Disposition, can we games give them insights into the world outside the computer generated one and does that happen more when it is reinforcing or challenging existingly held assumptions, knowledge and morals?
But while we might not be ready for games that have something to say,
the games themselves are talking, and sometimes it’s worth listening. (Elanor Lang, Kill Pixels, Not People @ WorldChanging.com)
September 18, 2007 at 6:43 am
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