This week’s Escapist is all about gaming that falls outside the mainstream market — including girl games, as discussed in a short piece of mine called “Games of Fairer Sex.” What are girl games? Who the heck is buying these things? Where have they gone right, and where have they gone wrong? Attempted insights; quotes from flesh-and-blood developers. Plus, sparkles, sparkles, sparkles! The dramatic conclusion to my escapades as a pseudo-clueless shopper…

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?

I’m not usually one to jump into the video games and violence debate, nor do I normally give two hoots about war games, but there’s an interesting piece up today at The Escapist by Shawn Williams called “Apocalypse Not” which discusses, from first-hand accounts, the vast differences between real-life warfare and game fighting.

It relates back in a lot of ways to what some people have been talking about here on the site recently, namely gaming as a reflection of reality, or gaming as fantasy. War games, it would seem, aim for realism on many levels; certainly war game players seem interested in an authentic experience. Yet, as Williams’ article points out, such games are not authentic. They too are a fantasy, a fantasy - unsettingly enough - shaped by our own image and desire for war, which lets us play out our lust for destruction through the veil of historic accuracy.

Game writer Tim Stevens has an interesting short piece up this week in The Escapist’s “Casual Friday” section called “Supplemanting Reality,” which gives a quick glance at the question of virtual reality vs. real life experience (as expressed through a game like Nintendogs).

Tim’s overall point seems to be that gaming offers players opportunities they might not be able to endulge in in real life, a valid if somewhat simplistic argument. He raises this example though, which seems, in a way, to bring into question and even combat his conclusion:

[Can a game give a sense of friendship of companionship?] In Japan, at least, there’s compelling evidence that they can. Think of the incredible popularity of dating sims among Japanese gamers. There are hundreds of romantic video games there that feature nothing more explicit than a modest bathing suit or more titillating than a kiss on the cheek, yet they sell like hotcakes, and their success extends far beyond the games themselves. Players genuinely become attached to the characters they’re trying to digitally woo, spending their salaries on figurines and posters depicting them, even dressing up like them; trying to make them real.

So what does it say about us when we escape the real world through the virtual world, only to make the virtual world the standard for the re-creation of the real? Digital puppy care may be one thing, but in the overall are we really engaging in virtual worlds because we’re content with the wide array of possibilities of in-game experience, or are we trying in some way to shape the actual world around us by displaced extension? When we as real-world human beings are playing, are the implications of the virtual ever merely contained to virtual worlds?

I’ve done something I probably shouldn’t have. I joined Second Life.

I’d resisted it for months, so why did I cave now? I’m putting together a small news piece for Wired on an in-world pornographic magazine called Slustler, and I was convinced (forcibly) that before I could write about it I had to shut up and try it.

So I went. I worked hard at making my avatar not hideous (Trust me, there were so many options if I had wanted to go that route!). I’m still fighting to get her dressed like a descent human being. I did recently figure out how to give her long, white gloves, so that’s helping.

The lag time is annoying, but I admit I had an absolutely hilarious time last night exploring the sex clubs and testing pose balls. My fiance and I were playing together (as one girl), and we just couldn’t believe how quickly all the stereotypes came true. Maybe it was the fact that we were hanging out watching strippers dance, but we made a helpful male friend almost immediately, got free stuff (I have a naked skin, plus I can fly higher and faster!) and ended up signing off at God knows what time in the morning.

Anyways, if you feel like saying hi in-world, I’m Velouria Collingwood. I warn you though, you might get me just hanging out, or you might get my fiance trying to sweet-talk some lonely soul into more free goodies…