I like your style
When you play a video game, how do you play it? These days, many games offer you an open-ended world that you can explore in almost any way you want. Want to be a perfectionist and uncover every secret room? Want to go location-scouting for interesting vistas? Or maybe conduct physics experiments?
The upshot is that a British gamer posted an intriguing meditation on the Edge discussion boards, pointing out the different ways his friends play Grand Theft Auto. One of them is an Iraqi-American who's into gangsta rap and "hasn't yet completed the story because he doesn't want the riot in Los Santos to end." Another is an cocky Italian anti-authorian dude "who will steal police bikes in preference to any other vehicle on principle." The author himself prefers to study the gameplay, trying to spy the influence of other games, "rather than waste my time giggling about the fact that I could sleep with prostitutes".
The upshot, as he writes, is this point:
A Game is not merely the expression of the creator, but of the player also.
Game censorship is therefore not merely(?) censorship of art, it is a limit to our virtual and real freedoms.
If a piece of art depicts a world gone wrong in which bad things happen, we should look to solve the real life problem that inspired it, rather than analysing the gameplay or censoring content while we wait for the next big event (riots in paris/terrorist attacks in the west/hurricanes in New Orleans)to outline our real shortcomings.
I think "censorship" is a bit of a strong term, since the government hasn't actually yanked any games off the shelves. But the idea is quite neat.
(Thanks to Tony Blow for this one!)
Posted by Clive Thompson at November 22, 2005 05:26 PM
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People always told me they could tell my Meyers-Briggs type by the way I played Tetris.
Posted by: Matt Hutson at November 22, 2005 10:11 PM
Honestly, Thompson, I'm surprised at you. There is far less to this than meets the eye.
Added Fibre has some interesting friends but what sort of revelation is it to say that different people will play the same game in different ways?
"Game censorship is therefore not merely(?) censorship of art, it is a limit to our virtual and real freedoms." Weep, weep for this tragic wasted potential! And weep again, for just this minute, I chose not to write a novel - callously denying people the opportunity to read it in their own unique way. What about their rights, dammit?
[By the way, I love that "(?)" after "merely". If ever we needed an emoticon for "I’m bluffing now” or “Is this what I mean?"…]
How unusual to find - on the Edge forums no less - sophomore hand-wringing about Expression and Art and The Man and Freedom, and Censorship, and Art, and Freedom, and Expression, and The Man, wrenched to a fever pitch by the stomach-tightening fear that the medium we call games might not be able to support the teetering tower of cod literary theorizing thrown upon it. Ohhhh the Developing World! Ohhhh Imminent Death Of The Planet! Won’t someone think of the poor Gamers?
Added Fibre’s last paragraph is a masterpiece. Yes, it’s clearly an either/or option: we are incapable of solving real life problems while doing anything else and we should definitely not be analyzing gameplay, least of all while attending our next shortcomings-outlining event. Oh, OK, I’m being cruel – the poor chap’s feeling his way around a subject he cares deeply about. But it’s still drivel. All those in favour of not analyzing gameplay? At the back? Bueller?
Posted by: BonGob at November 23, 2005 7:10 AM
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People always told me they could tell my Meyers-Briggs type by the way I played Tetris.
Posted by: Matt Hutson![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.collisiondetection.net/nav-commenters.gif)
at November 22, 2005 10:11 PM
Honestly, Thompson, I'm surprised at you. There is far less to this than meets the eye.
Added Fibre has some interesting friends but what sort of revelation is it to say that different people will play the same game in different ways?
"Game censorship is therefore not merely(?) censorship of art, it is a limit to our virtual and real freedoms." Weep, weep for this tragic wasted potential! And weep again, for just this minute, I chose not to write a novel - callously denying people the opportunity to read it in their own unique way. What about their rights, dammit?
[By the way, I love that "(?)" after "merely". If ever we needed an emoticon for "I’m bluffing now” or “Is this what I mean?"…]
How unusual to find - on the Edge forums no less - sophomore hand-wringing about Expression and Art and The Man and Freedom, and Censorship, and Art, and Freedom, and Expression, and The Man, wrenched to a fever pitch by the stomach-tightening fear that the medium we call games might not be able to support the teetering tower of cod literary theorizing thrown upon it. Ohhhh the Developing World! Ohhhh Imminent Death Of The Planet! Won’t someone think of the poor Gamers?
Added Fibre’s last paragraph is a masterpiece. Yes, it’s clearly an either/or option: we are incapable of solving real life problems while doing anything else and we should definitely not be analyzing gameplay, least of all while attending our next shortcomings-outlining event. Oh, OK, I’m being cruel – the poor chap’s feeling his way around a subject he cares deeply about. But it’s still drivel. All those in favour of not analyzing gameplay? At the back? Bueller?
Posted by: BonGob![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.collisiondetection.net/nav-commenters.gif)
at November 23, 2005 7:10 AM