I’ve been thinking a lot lately about game interactivity - whether it negates the selfhood of the actual player, or somehow recreates it. In other words, is the real-life person behind the controller abandoned in the face of the game world, or is he/she re-established in his/her power to manipulate the game?
Do we dissolve ourselves to make way for the game’s reality? Or is ours the dominant reality and therefore the game only a realization of personal fantasy?
Obviously, it’s not a simple question - nor is there only one right answer or the same right answer for every person. But it does seem to relate to another modern form of entertainment I’m sure we’re all too familar with: porn.
What makes pornography attractive to us? Is it because we can imagine ourselves being acting upon as we see others acted upon? Or is there something arousing in subsuming our selfhoods long enough to be turned on simply by the pleasures of others?
I don’t know; you tell me. For example, to the heterosexual men out there: are lesbians attractive because they remind you how fun it would be to have two girls at one time? Or is that their actions are somehow equally - if not more - arousing when you’re not around?
December 8th, 2005 at 7:13 pm
There’s been an increasing amount of first-person camera work in gonzo porn. More and more you see camera operators as participant in hardcore scenes. I believe that part of the reason the poorer quality of XXX on video tape was acceptable to consumers when it was introduced, was because it felt very close to their own home movies they produced with their home home video equipment. While there’s still a strong demand for narrative pornography, the kind that more satisfies the voyeuristic urge, I believe that the increasing amount of DIY web porn companies are growing as a direct result of the fact that porn viewers like to imagine themselves in the scene and participating. Again, I believe this is the reason why unattractive and generally out of shape male stars like Ron Jeremy are so beloved, because his presence in the scene makes the fantasy seem all the more attainable.
December 8th, 2005 at 8:16 pm
I recall a discussion in 4chan /b/, where a hentai image was posted depicting a very young girl penetrated by some faceless man, you could however make out a kind of evil grin on his face, and her face seemed to be in some kind of pleasure/pain contradiction. A pretty generic maledom picture.
There was this one reply that said something like “I can’t decide which turns me on more, the idea of fucking her or the idea of being her”. And there was a pretty decent (for /b/) discussion following about how porn turns you on, and i think the behaviour of imagining oneself as one of the depicted characters was kind of common. Something along the lines of “omg that must feel so..” and you kind of feel that feeling.
Or, I don’t know..
December 8th, 2005 at 10:38 pm
I’m not sure what /b/ is, but that sounds like a startlingly honest discussion of arousal with regards to something as distanced as pornography.
For me, porn=voyeurism, while videogames=projection/immersion. I think the sex games industry is fascinating because it’s taking “porn” where it’s never really been before. The idea of directly affecting something - and not just being affected - is the antithesis of pornography, and offers so many possibilities for more complex relationships with others. I’ll argue that there is a degree of projection in sex games, but I believe it might be more about immersion; the experience of something more visceral than an image or a movie.
December 9th, 2005 at 6:29 am
For example, to the heterosexual men out there: are lesbians attractive because they remind you how fun it would be to have two girls at one time? Or is that their actions are somehow equally - if not more - arousing when you're not around?
I think you’re over-thinking it. I think it’s as simple as “One sexy woman = good. Two sexy women = better.” Even the point that a lesbian wouldn’t want a heterosexual man is too high-brain for the level at which porn works at.
Regarding player “selfhood”: I think it depends more on the game than the person. Something like DDR or Parapara physically necessitates player self-awareness. The ‘FP’ in FPS stands for “first person.” RTS games, on the other hand, (Warcraft III, Myth II) impose a distance between the player and the characters by requiring a one-to-many control relationship. The blurred line becomes most apparent in RPGs or third person perspective games (Tomb Raider, Oni) and then the answer is “well, it all depends.”
December 9th, 2005 at 8:37 am
As far as the lesbian thing goes, I definetly tend to project myself into the fantasy when I watch lesbian porn. There is however, a degree of pleasure to be extracted from the idea of a woman getting off, which when carried into contexts of actual sex, is actually healthy. I personally don’t use porn too often, but I imagine chronic use of it can distort the ego boundary in the same way that extended gaming sessions will have you dreaming of tetris blocks. At that point, you get in the mindset of the hentai aficionado who "can't decide which turns me on more, the idea of fucking her or the idea of being her".
This quote may apply to Tomb Raider as well as hentai.
December 9th, 2005 at 9:14 am
Gus, I’d seen some porn like that before, where they actually purposefully cut a guy’s head out of the shot so that you could imagine it was your body being fucked instead - but I had never really thought about the who’s-holding-the-camera element of it. Although, your point seems to be that the home-movie quality footage allows you to more realistically place yourself in the portrayed situation, and I would argue that, while that’s true, it simultaneously offers a heightened sense of simple voyeurism: watching the couple next door, instead of professional porn stars.
Calle, your comment brings up a whole new level to the discussion: if we imagine ourselves in porn scenes, is it because we’re imagining ourselves in our socially normative roles, or does watching a woman get fucked or a man fuck allow men and women respectively a chance to vicariously live out alternately gendered desires?
Scott, somehow I knew you’d go for the pornography = voyeurism angle :-).
Nic, I think your distinction between different game types is an important one (and the entire idea of the camera’s role goes back to what Gus was talking about in terms of porn). But think of a game, even an FPS -you are in control and have dominated the persona of a character through the camera angle. But the you is no long you anymore - it’s a figure in a different setting with a different back story and different goals. Of course, there’s no one answer here. It’s both one thing and the other.
Patrick: “ego boundary disturbances” - couldn’t agree with you more. Could you explain a little bit more of your thinking?
December 9th, 2005 at 1:15 pm
The appeal of lesbian porn, to me, is that there is no male participant for me to envy because he’s getting to do what I can only watch. With two girls, there’s nobody displacing me in the “man” role so I can enjoy the show unreservedly.
Also, there is the already-mentioned fact that since I’m attracted to women, two women means twice the sexiness.
Then there’s the whole Pirate thing. Lesbian Pirates, folks. Think about it.
December 9th, 2005 at 1:42 pm
"ego boundary disturbances" - think about the Evangelion episode where Asuka gets zapped by the angel hanging out in the upper atmosphere, and the “Hallelujah” chorus plays in the background, and they’re like “its some energy ossiclation using invisible wavelength! Its similar to an A.T. field!”
Think of A.T. fields as the difficulty of real relationships, and that angel as a metaphore for technology, and I think it comes together pretty nicely. Or read Lacan, if thats too dorky for you. We aren’t “real” in the sense of being consistent entities or whatever, we’re largely defined by our interactions with others, and in this sense we are somewhat fluid (no pun). Technological interaction is included, so when you spend a lot of time whacking to hentai, you’re going to get a bit weird.
December 9th, 2005 at 3:28 pm
Hmm, Brummbar, I’d never thought of the jealousy/displacement side of things…
Patrick, any time you reference Eva as an intellectual text you’ve got my attention :-). You know, the more things I study, the more I love that show. I think that’s a really helpful - and logical - explanation of what you were talking about. Thanks!
December 9th, 2005 at 4:02 pm
Time to take notes from my yet-to(but-will-it-ever)be published/accepted work on video game as a narrative, with hope someone will utterly destroy the thing:
If you try to define the relationship between in-game avatar and player, you’ll notice three main levels, each depending on the level of narrativity imposed on the avatar (game?), and each containing at least in germ the level(s) preceding it:
-1) The player only exist as the process that makes the game (Tetris is the first exemple that comes to mind).
-2) The avatar is the in-game persona of the player (a shoot-em up is probably one of the purest exemples).
-3) The avatar has been infused enough narrative that it is a different entity from the player altogether (heavy on narrative games, quite often RPGs).
Level 1 poses no problem: you’re your actions. Level 2 starts becoming interesting, the schizophrenic (why do I always want to put a y in that word ?) aspect starts creeping in; you don’t say “the ship exploded”, or “Mario died” but “I died”. Pure level 3, pretty rare, is the thing of books translated to games.
The interval between 2 and 3 is where the real meat is: most games are now lost somewhere between these two pure types.
(Sorry, after reading Nic Jones’ comment, I really felt like sharing this. If people are interested, after that there’s a discussion on the2/3 inbetween avatars in RPG and the associated narrative scheme)
Small present for Brummbar.
Back on the porn aspect of things later, it’s now time for my weekly dose of MMORPG.
December 9th, 2005 at 6:52 pm
Really interesting stuff MD^2, though I’m a bit confused on level three, where a character becomes so distinct he’s clearly separate from the player. You seem to suggest those are rare, but I would argue that a lot of games in which the characters have definite personas - take, for example, Mario - fall into that category…?
December 10th, 2005 at 4:45 am
Mario is an interesting case, as he clearly started as a type 2 so pure as to border on type 1 (game&watch) and changed more and more into a type 2 bordering on type 3 with each iteration.
At the core he’s still a type 2 I’d say. Look at Paper Mario, in which he’s still a perfect exemple of the “silent hero”, individualised just enough to prevent the player from leaving the narrative tracks imposed by the creators, but empty enough on most levels that the player can project himself completely in it.
A pure type 3 would probably be found in Final Fantasy 6. There’s no main character here. No silent hero figure, no amnesic hero figure (RPGs favourite mean of artificially introducing a character bordering type 3 as a character bordering type 2) of worth (Tina’s there, but replaced almost imediately by Rock). Each character (well, except for the two secret ones) clearly individualised, can be replaced by any other in the course of the action, there’s no main character to fully project yourself into (but they aren’t interchangeable on a textual level: each can have it’s own text [reaction] regarding the situations involved in the game). You can say they’re type 2 only in the sense that they’re the sprites you’re controlling.
In porn, as with any other narrative, the spectator can project himself (note, now that I think of it, that I generally use the masculine because for me, french and all, it’s the neutral form, so it feels closer to “it”, without feeling insulting as it can in english) in any (and all) character(s). He can enjoy the generated situation for itself, or he can enjoy the form in which it is displayed. Of coure he can do all of the above at the same time. If a reader, whatever his sex, can project himself into, say, Madame Bovary, feel her plight on a gut level while at the same time analysing it on an intellectual level, and also enjoy the mastery of the writing craftsmanship, there’s no reason he couldn’t do it while watching “Gang Bang of New York”.
To follow on Patrick’s idea: our identity is only the zone of existence defined by the set of relationships (interactions) we have with other things (things, not persons I’d say. At the lowest level, there’s no difference between a stone, a person or a story, it’s only the linking that creates differences). The nature, form and number of the links we have with something are as defining of what we are as it is of what that thing is for us.
December 10th, 2005 at 2:29 pm
Hmm, very Marxist, selfhood as defined by our relationship to objects. Also, funny that you use Madame Bovary as your example. Most likely you know it already, but Flaubert often spoke about his close association with the female character, and the feminization of his words and authorial persona by stepping into her shoes…
December 10th, 2005 at 4:24 pm
I think I can sum up the exponential Doctor’s typology by examining it in the simple terms of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd persons. Direct process is interactive first person, while “blank” avatars and literal first person perspectives classify as second person. In type 2 cases the illusion is that “you”, the player, are the force in the virtual world. The most complex, type 3, are narrative roles the player is being cast in, this is 3rd person. This actually translates to film as well as literature and games, so far this thread has analyzed these different tenses in porn films.
The three person-tenses a medium can present form into a sort of heirarchical triangle, but things get interesting with games. The heirarchy is disturbed - the interactive third person both immerses the user into a prescriptive role, but it also provides a more holistic immersion where the user connects the whole process of the game and achieves a sort of 1st person perspective all on their own. I think that feeling is called geshalt by some european guy. The point is: in games the boundaries of identity and perception, in other words what the user consciously pays attention to while interacting, are susceptible to heirarchical distruption, where 2nd person immersion can bleed into a role which feeds its agency to a 1st person geshalt. Most games so far have been based on consistent molds of perception, but some of the best ones, System Shock 2 and Planescape: Torment come to mind, lend to play between “me, myself and I.” Games can really postructural and allow people to experience their mind as a heterarchical playing field, where all the A.T. feilds are dissapearing.
Imagine what creative use of tangling and intermingling player identities could do with multiplayer games… we’re talking about new social organizations. Or if you want you could create the global oedipal orgasm multiplayer platform, like the 18th angel. Either way its better than World Of Warcraft.
Uh, I hope the academic speak and Eva references don’t make that too dense.
By the way, speaking of lesbians and ego boundary bending, has anyone seen Mullholland Dr.? That movie borders on interactive.
“You’ll see me one more time if you do good, and two more times if you do bad” - The Cowboy
December 10th, 2005 at 7:03 pm
Thanks, MD2. And they say there’s nothing good on the ‘Net.
December 11th, 2005 at 1:34 pm
Hmm, I haven’t seen Mullholland Dr. I keep meaning to see that. In what way specifically is it interactive?
December 11th, 2005 at 1:49 pm
You need to see that film, it has a post-structural narrative that functions sort of like a mobius strip. The way the viewer interprets and assembles the film, in general, is very interactive due to its unique form, its more like a presentation of psychological algorithms than a sequential telling of a plot.
Specifically, pay attention to the seemingly esoteric figures in the film, like “the cowboy” and “the man in the back”, and how they appear. With the cowboy in particular, he says in his big scene, "You'll see me one more time if you do good, and two more times if you do bad". You see him clearly once more in the film, at the point 3/4s of the way through, where the film’s mobius strip twists off. But, if you pay attention in the last quarter you can pick him out of the foreground of one scene, just breifly. When you do its like, “whoa, now I’ve done bad”, and you’re left to puzzle out just what he was doing in that scene.
My point above though, is that we tend to understand identity and perspective in a sort of hierarchy, with 1st person being the conscious soul and so on. In games, however, the hierarchy can be knocked over and different perspectives can play in the user’s mind.
December 11th, 2005 at 9:21 pm
It’s been on my list for a long time, but I’ll see if I can’t track it down right now. Thanks for the teaser :-)
Also, I hear you on the hierarchy (or lack thereof) - a sort of schizophrenia not simply in multiple personhoods but in multiple personal perspectives…
December 22nd, 2005 at 9:51 am
Sorry for laaaaaaaaaaate answer, had to do one of those yearly family visit to/from hell.
Hum, yes of course Bonnie, that’s the very reason why I chose Madame Bovary as my exemple.
I’m still not sure about the 1st/2nd/3rd person analogic equivalence with type 1/2/3, which is why I left the current nomenclature as is for now. The type/second person aspect of things is especially problematic if you start going into details. [Type one doesn’t appear to pose problem, which is why I beware of it, and type three, including in itsels type 2 becomes a mess enough that you don’t expect it to be simple anyway…]
If narrative is the 3rd person of society imposing itself on the first person of the spectator, video game is doing things in a way that makes it the best tool for develloping ultra-individualistic conformity.
Both a curse and blessing, of course.