video game update

[cabell]

I forgot to mention, my latest column went up on Strange Horizons yesterday: My Avatar, My Not-Self: Narrative Worlds Within Video Games

I just saw a very interesting presentation on an MMO being built in Austria: Papermint. More on that later.

Comments

[aardvark_gumbo]

"...my father maintained that it was okay because I was shooting Nazis. Obviously, this justification does not escape the identification framework."

I'm still trying to parse this statement. You're saying that this justification is only valid if we accept that characters represent what they seem to represent? Clearly so, but isn't that pretty much a necessity? I mean, in fact, you weren't shooting anything, and all that was happening was some changes in pixel patterns on a screen.

Or rather, a justification that would escape the identification framework would acknowledge that the "you" on screen doing the shooting isn't actually you, so the acts it performs aren't being performed by you? Yet since you control the character, it seems inevitable that the character's actions be construed as your own.

I think I've walked into the middle of a long conversation that I haven't been party to.

[bookzombie]

An interesting piece which had me thinking about my own character identification while I should have been working this morning!

One vaguely coherent thought that came out of this was the intrinsic limitations to character identification when the characters are foisted upon you, as they are in almost all single player games. And how much does this affect the gender distribution of gaming?

As a pretty un-laddish sort of guy I admit to being bored when presented with yet another bulked up action-hero with the brain cells of a radish and the wit of a Daily Mail reader

[kicking_k]

Hmm, yes - I've been wondering since I read this entry what sort of character I'd create if I was playing CoH. Would I stick close to the real me or not?

It would seem rather unoriginal to make a strongly-built, black-clad, longhaired female, but on the other hand, that does represent my tastes as well as approximating who I am in real life. I've made the odd avatar, and they all look fairly like me.

The last time I actually played a computer game with a female heroine was Jill of the Jungle (a '90s PC platformer - anyone remember that? She could turn into a phoenix). I can't say I identified with the green-leotarded, blonde Jill, but I appreciated that she existed.

I've noticed that guys playing Grand Theft Auto seem to talk about their character in the first person, even though he has a name and his body type etc. aren't customisable (although you can later make him more muscular by going off and exercising, and so forth). Perhaps, in fact, his blank-slate nature lends itself to this? Unlike the CoH characters (for which the

[bookzombie]

Personally, I can't understand why anyone would play GTA - I don't see the appeal. But I agree that from what I know it very much seems like a 'blokes' game.

In all the debates about the morality of gaming I do wonder how much one's own personal morality leaks into the games and vice versa. A couple of years ago we visited a friend who was playing Halo 2 on an xBOX. The character he controlled was under attack while accompanied by a squad of soldiers. When his 'super' weapon was exhausted he quite happily killed one of his own soldiers to take their superior weapon! Not only did I think that was I shocked, but it would never have even occurred to me to do that

[kicking_k]

Well, I've never wanted to play GTA myself, but I've watched my brother playing it - it's surprisingly easy to get drawn into the "story".

I played certain games a lot as a child/teenager, but those with characters were mostly platform-type things. I don't think you're really _meant_ to identify with Sonic the Hedgehog (if you do, there's probably something wrong!)