As much as I despise New Games Journalism, and really I do (not the constructive Julian Dibell-type, but the hundreds of needless, self-centered rants that pose as legitimate reviews), there is something interesting at the heart of the matter - the idea of reciprocal interactivity, a kind of AC/DC flow, if you will. That’s to say, you as the gamer interact and make changes within the playable world of the video game, but at the same time the game interacts and makes changes in you, creating a sort of emotional mirror of your visibly “real” interactions in the game. It’s the elements that relate to the former side of the screen which are critiqued in traditional games journalism: gameplay, graphics, etc. Of course, it’s much harder (if not impossible) to objectively or constructively judge the latter half of things, the personal half. But perhaps, as the brighter stars of New Games Journalism claim, it really is just as important.
We already know lots about how players interact with games. The next step, it would seem, in investigating reciprocal interactivity is figuring out just how games interact with players. “Emotional response” is a convenient, fancy-pants term, but it covers far too large an area. Could you not write whole separate NGJ reviews of a game for different categories of response? How does this title affect your feelings of self-confidence, your happiness, your self-image, your perception of gender roles? Does it make you cranky, frustrated, hungry? Couldn’t you ask, in a form of NGJ all its own, how does that game make you feel… sexually?
I don’t mean the obvious stuff. Take, for example, GameGirl Advance Jane’s infamous article on using a Rez vibrator (Video games and sex toys, why can’t you be friends more often?), a case of undeniable physical reciprocal interactivity: Jane’s boyfriend plays Rez, Jane’s vibrator gets Jane off. I’m talking about sexual response on an interior level. And it doesn’t have to be as simple as what turns you on - though that would definitely be part of it. Varying in-game experiences or aesthetic encounters might spark different sexual feelings. The triggers themselves might not be of an overtly sexual nature. For example, running a stranger’s car into the wall in Burnout might inspire a moment’s inkling for a bout of soft-core bondage. Who knows.
The point is, just like no two gamers will play a game identically, no two will react to it in exactly the same way. That, some journalists believe, makes our responses as individuals worth chronicling, because it’s us, not the games, who are supposedly important. Given that, why stop the discussion with emotions like happy, sad or bored? Why not discover something useful about ourselves as gamers in the process, and let the mirror of reciprocal interactivity shine a little light on our on sexuality? We’re sexual creatures, whether we like it or not, and our sexual feelings play an influential role in everything we do, even “nonsexual” activities like gaming. Let’s just admit it; it might make for some interesting journalism.
