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Trigger Happy
from the video-games-and-the-entertainent-revolution dept.
Here's some stats that may cause jaws to drop in classrooms or around dinner-party tables.
- Total video game software and hardware sales in the United States reached $8.9 billion last year, versus $7.3 billion for movie box-office receipts. Of that, $6.6 billion of the videogame receipts were from software sales, retail and online.
- Over the next three years, sales of game consoles and software in the U.S. are expected to generate more than $17 billion.
- The average child in the U.S. plays video games 49 minutes a day -- but the average age of videogame players is now estimated to be twenty-eight.
- Increasingly, adults -- evenly split between men and women -- choose video games over other forms of entertainment. In fact, according to The Wall Street Journal, Americans named video games as their favorite form of entertainment for the third year in a row in l999. Twice as many people nominated videogames as chose watching TV, three times as many preferred videogames to renting movies.
Some of you won't be shocked by these numbers (especially those who browse sites like myvideogames.com and mygamecritics.com), but the vast majority of non-tech, non-gaming people -- especially those who depend on mainstream media for technology news -- will be amazed. If the Net really turned kids' hearts dark, the streets would be awash in blood.
Videogames have created an ebullient universe all their own, inspiring and pressuring Hollywood and the music industry, increasingly shaping culture and creativitity and also, and -- according to a new book by British journalist Steven Poole -- affecting military training and war.
But most education and media institutions still refuse to take this new form of culture seriously, dismissing videogamers as either a trifling teen entertainment, or a corrosive influence on young minds. They also refuse to recognize that the compulsively entertaining and stimulating nature of games makes schools and other environs seem boring, even suffocating.
Steven Poole gets it right. In Trigger Happy: Video Games and the Entertainment Revolution, he writes, among other things, about the impact of the legendary Lara Croft, the pistol-toting, ponytailed, hotpants-and-shades digital star of the l996 game, "Tomb Raider." Lara has appeared on the cover of The Face and been the subject of countless magazine features in Europe. She's become such a recognizable icon that she now advertises other products, appearing in computer-generated TV commercials for Lucozade and Nike.
Eidos, the publisher of "Tomb Raider," has sold more than 16 million copies worldwide of the first three games in the series, and was named Britain's most successful company in any industry in l999. Add in estimated sales for the fourth installment, "Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation", and Lara, predicts Poole, is close to becoming a billion-dollar babe.
One of the world's first virtual celebrities, Croft is one of the initial video game characters to break out in so global and commercial a way, as synergistic marketing propels her way beyond the videogame culture.
Poole also takes note of growing evidence that videogames are breaking film's monopoly on the moving image. They've lovingly appropriated set-piece forms from the cinematic milieu of horror, action and science fiction, he writes, citing the enormous monster, the car chase, the space dogfight. Meanwhile, movies have stolen ever more brazenly from videogames' hyperkinetic grammar, exaggerated sound effects, and disregard for gravitational laws.
Poole believes that the The Matrix is one of the best and most successful examples of the two media in-breeding with one another. "In its exaggeratedly dynamic kung fu scenes, in which actors float through the air and smash each other through walls, The Matrix contains the most successful translations to date of certain videogame paradigms to the big screen." The film is also a reminder, Poole notes, that virtual reality is a very old idea, which the philosopher Descartes conceived of as a "malin genie" or evil demon. Just like the computers in The Matrix, it caused Descartes to have thoughts and perceptions he would normally have believed to be the signs of a real, external world. Poole also relates some Jackie Chan and Hong Kong guns'n'kung-fu films to video games, and vice versa.
Trigger Happy has also caught the evolution of plot and character as they relate to video games. Poole describes the use of the Marvin Minsky's AI theories in "Outcast," one game he deems especially important because it has taken the use of NPC's (non-playable characters) to sophisticated new levels. "Outcast" has tackled one of gaming's toughest challenges: How can you make computer-generated characters behave in a convincingly lifelike fashion? "Outcast's" Gaia computational engine uses Minsky's concept of "agents," mental homunculi with specialized jobs: one agent represents hunger; another represents curiosity; another, fear. Put enough agents together and you have a crude model of consciousness.
As Poole's book makes clear, the psychology of videogames is unique. No other medium is as interactive, or offers as many satisfying opportunities to win and keep on winning. Currently, he says, the third-person game -- Tomb Raider, Metal Gear Solid or Zelda 64 -- has the edge over the first-person game like Quake III, which has a viewpoint that makes the player feel as if he or she were inside the digital environment.
Video games, says Poole, will never be as good as films at telling stories visually, or as good as books at weaving "cerebral tapestries" of ideas and human lives. "But video games are already extremely good at providing an exhilarating blast of the animal emotions. Fear and triumph -- that is why you play a videogame at the moment." Modern videogames are fun, a means of leisure and relaxation.
But that's not all they are. One of Poole's more interesting chapters comes towards the end, when he looks at the impact of video games on U.S. military training and the increasingly popular American idea -- displayed both during the Gulf War and in Bosnia -- that war can be fought on high-tech, video game-like terms without any real human sacrifice, the high-tech, "risk-averse, "politically palatable war. This is a dangerous notion, since it involves the use of military conflict without political risk, a radically new kind of idea. Military aircraft and tanks used by NATO now have weapons of such range that it isn't at all usual to make direct visual identification of a target; instead, icons are tracked on computerized displays and weapons are locked automatically. Since attacks in Desert Storm and Serbia were fought at the greatest distance possible to insure that there were no American casualities, there were numerous reports of ineffective bombing runs and of friendly fire. Allies tanks were destroyed, hospitals and at least one embassy was bombed. Relying on pixels rather than eyes is dangerous, claims Poole, because computers can malfunction, and pixels can lie.
This link between video game culture and war is, says Poole, reflecting a common (but rarely heard in the U.S.) European perspective, a "lethal failure of imagination. And it is in this way that I do think videogames must have a type of moral responsibility. Of course, we cannot blame videogames for the deaths of Serbian civilians, yet video game-seeded technologies have contributed to the potentially alienating culture of simulation that allowed them to be killed so easily, so cleanly. I think the duty of video games, therefore, is an imaginative one -- an aesthetic one."
In Poole's view, videogames are nothing less than a TV screen reclaimed for individual control. He's eloquent about their possibilities. "If television replaced the log fire or the wireless as a focus of domestic attention, the videogame re-engineers TV's relentless blaze as a colorful zone of play, a new world to explore, a rich and strange place to pit your wits against the dazzling inventions of others," he writes. " The pixels dance to your tune. You're not watching, you're doing. And when videogames are at their best, what you're doing is something vastly more creatively challenging than watching a docusoap or a quiz show. Your reasoning, reflexes and imagination are tested to exhilarating limits. That hunk of molded plastic, that Play Station or Dreamcast, is a magic box that allows you to play with fire."
Remember: All video games are not violent (Score:3)
However, take a look at the top selling video game charts once in a while. Most of the time, at least 2 of the top 10 are going to be non-violent games. SimCity3K and Roller Coaster Tycoon are still at the top of the list. Games like Ceasar III, Pharaoh [*], racing games like Need for Speed, etc will usually come in near the top 25. The infrequent puzzle/adventure game such as Myst or Monkey Island get up the charts too. The number of these games in best seller lists tends to be disproportionate to the number available for purchase, suggesting that more people buy the non-violent games. This is probably a reflection on parents buying games for their children and staying with 'safe' titles, but it could also imply that game buyers also want to some extent less violent games. I know for myself that I like variety -- I can't play a FPS for anymore than a few hours straight before I need to switch to another genre of game.
[*] Ok, so you do have to battle enemies here, but I see it being true from an historical persective -- and your main goal in these games was not to genocide the opposing culture, but mainly to defend your own. It's definitely hard to compare the battles in these games to a q3a deathmatch.
Video Games & The Pentagon (Score:3)
boom and bust industry? (Score:3)
Katz speaking at University of Minnesota (Score:3)
What's really amusing is that the ad for this talk says that he is also teaching a 1 credit class entitled "Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, and the Unabomber." That would really be good for a laugh.
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Re:Didn't "they" say a lot of the same stuff... (Score:3)
In the United States, of course comic books are irrelevant. Almost all culture is irrelevant in the United States, but comic books, in particular, never recovered from the crusade waged against them in the United States in the 1950's.
The situation is considerably different in Asia.
Oh, I'm probably going to hear some American say next, "Oh, I've seen manga, they are just as stupid as American comics... and I wouldn't call porno a big advance." Americans know nothing about the role of comics in Asia or about the kind and variety of comic books they have in Asia, they only see the ones that get imported and translated for the American market. (Which is a very narrow market, kept in its pathetic ghetto.)
In Asia, comics are a vital, vibrant form of entertainment with a great deal of mass appeal. (And this goes beyond just Japan, to places like Thailand, for instance.) In America, they are teenage power fantasies, for the most part. (Heck, computer games have already gone beyond that, remember when Deep Blue beat Kasparov?)
Things I Never Knew About Lara Croft (Score:3)
> ponytailed, hotpants-and-shades digital star of the l996 game,
Lara was wearing hotpants and shades? And she had a ponytail?
[/me runs the game]
Re:Family values are inverse of technological valu (Score:3)
I don't know about you, but I got heavily into online bulliten boards (aka BBS) about 13 years ago. I used to spend most of my "tv time" in my bedroom, alone, logged onto various WWIV and Renegade boards reading and responding to posts... (which made slashdot a natural choice for me when BBSing started to die out)... anyway, the point is, I was repeatedly accused of being "addicted" to my computer, though I always argued that interactivity with other people's thoughts was a much more productive use of my time than watching ESPN (which is what my family spends most of their leisure time doing.)
My parents went so far in those days as to physically sever the cable from my monitor so that I had to splice it back together (in secret) whenever I wanted to logon.... or disabling the phone lines in our house. (I ran a 30 foot phone cable over to the neighbor's box.) Eventually, they got over it and let me be.
Now, years later, I'm out on my own, still relatively "obsessed" with computers, and the only real difference is that now, my parents are online too, so they can check email & sports stats while they're watching espn.
-The Reverend (I am not a Nazi nor a Troll)
Market shrinking in Japan though (Score:3)
Youngsters there prefer to pour their money into phone bills rather than new videogames.
Interaction between players is currently also the target of most videogames. Competing with others constitutes the main appeal.. but sometimes is not quite enough. Games like Quake III are great fun but turn out rather unfair unless you have a nice T1 line or local network. Other games like StarCraft work much better on the Internet but the verbal interaction is limited and often undesiderable (insults, lame players that beg you to ally so to achieve victory points). Also during those online experiences it's very rare to spot female players.. on the other hand, cellphone technology in Japan offers wider communication, silly but entertaining mini-games and plenty of chicks.
Now I'm curious to know what will happen to the US videogame industry if and when cellphones will catch up.
old argument (Score:3)
Ya, but havent they been saying this since the 70's when stand up consoles (pong, asteroids...)strted appearing? all of the arguments, good and bad, seem to just be rehashing old ground from days gone by. Were just not poping our milk money into machines anymore. If your woried about a corrosive influence on young minds, it helps to pay attentin to what your kids are doing for a change.
ask yourself... (Score:4)
As well, both the CDN and US gov'ts are currently working on multiple simulations from a full VR flight sims to full VR and interactive first person shooters (using the halflife engine of all things, as a basis) designed to be linked up over high bandwidth comms for "team play" for training spec forces units.
When's the last time a TV managed to help national defence?
Demographics of game players? (Score:5)
Oh well, at least it gives me more incentive to take the railgun and castrate them with a slug...
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Family values are inverse of technological values. (Score:5)
Back in the day, when you sat yourself down in front of the TV, your parents said too much of it will rot your brain. And they were correct, you were simply vegetating in front of the tube, not expressing any creativity.
Now, how many people who spend a lot of time on the net, or even the computer, are being told by their parents to come out and watch TV with them? When computers are actualy promoting an interactive medium of entertainment, much better then vegetating.
Games and Obesity (Score:5)
Video games are wonderful. I play them all the time. The big problem with them as far as I can see is not violence. The violence of video games is no more graphic or realistic than what kids see in movie or TV on a regular basis. In fact it is dramatically less realistic than the real world due to the limitations of computer graphics etc. Besides, most kids are smart enough to realize that these are games.
The problem is this, americas children and teenagers are overweight and getting fatter. This is a serious problem and the dramatic increase in video games/gaming isn't helping. Video games build problem solving and other skills, this is good. However, over use means a loss of hand-eye coordination and physical fitness. America as a nation needs to get outside an play some ball with its friends.
Dare I say it... (Score:5)
I don't know why I was born this way but I have just never liked games. I sort of like flight simulators, and my honey and I play Scrabble quite a bit. I was always one reformatting instead of getting thumb callouses.
Some friends of mine play all sorts of things. All the time. They live for it. A friend of mine here at work with whom I was just recently relating my gamelessness suggested that I keep it that way because games are like crack.
I enjoyed putting Gran Tourismo on easy, and just wheeling around for about a half-hour. That was it. I'm not trying to sound stuck up or something, it was just not my thing. I highly respect a friend of mine, Nathan. I used to work at a computer software store in High School, and this guy would return games the next day... sometimes even the same night. "Didn't like it. Beat it too quick." It seemed arrogant, but hey, we had a nice liberal return policy and I didn't care. Later I became friends with him, and on many occasions become very interested in the quality of plots he describes in games, like Siphen Filter and Rainbow Six. I tried to play these things, but for a non-gamer having been intrigued by an uber-gamer, I didn't have much fun.
I won't even mention how badly my ass has been kicked in Teken.
My point is, gaming should never be considered a waste. I equate gaming with how I learned Linux, or PHP. To me that was intriguing, and stimulating, and worthwhile... and honestly even if it sounds unproductive, I feel that games are the same thing for those that enjoy them. I mean... they are learning.
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Didn't "they" say a lot of the same stuff... (Score:5)
Well, comic books failed to wreck the youth of this country. But they also didn't, in simulated Katz-speak, "usher in a new paradigm of creative interactivity and illustrative expression that trashes all the stale old educational and institutional models." They wound up with their niche in popular culture. Sure, I wish my differential equations textbook was as engaging as a comic book or video game, but please. Anyone who thinks that every form of media should or could somehow contain the same excitement or interactivity that Tomb Raider does needs a serious reality check. "Thrills, chills, and mind-numbing strobe-light 3d effects - it's all part of Bob Vila's Home Carpentry video workshop!" Heck, writing code for video games doesn't even have that. The thrill of video games does not replace the satisfaction of human contact, the joy of creating, or the imagination invoked when reading a particularly good book.
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