One of the most controversial features that came On 20 April
1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, both high school students, entered
Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado and killed thirteen people. Apparently,
one of them had been involved in developing a level of the famous action computer
game named ‘Doom’.
Until which
extent is the wide-spread video/virtual games industry related to a hypothetical
raise of violence in our modern society? Is it so dangerous for our society to
expose children to this kind of entertainment? On the other hand, what logic is
behind and what elements compose this phenomenon? Is it relevant to understand
nowadays the culture in our modern societies?
These are
just few of the questions that Siapera tries to answer in the 11th
chapter ‘’Games and Gaming’’ of her book ‘’Understanding New Media’’. Starting
off from the relation stated by Johan Huizinga in his book ‘’Homo Ludens’’
between culture and games, she develops her analysis focusing on how new media
has transformed games, and so cultural transmission patterns.
On her
first analysis, the stage the author finds games nowadays is a huge industry
rather influenced by the economic force of a business that moved $35 billion in
2008. Games became a product, just as any other product produced in the
capitalist era. Profit making is the base of the business, as any other.
Because of this the industry is experimenting an integration at all levels, at
the production process to cut costs, and at the ownership element which of
course leads the market industry into a monopoly industry. In this sense
videogames represent the ideal-typical of this phase of capitalism. Just as
cars at the Fordism era, the called informational capitalism could use
virtual-gaming as its ideal-typical item.
The second
element of analysis is the actual content of games. Apart from the genre the game
belongs to, Siapera and previous authors that researched this topic found that
there are common characteristics to them: the war-context narrative line
(military-industrial complex inspiration), the representation of complex
situations or events as simple, for example on the good/evil line and the
ability of players to manipulate (interaction).
It is quite noticeable how violent the content
of virtual games usually are, but excluding this hypothetical negative
characteristic because of the lack of evidence (few and not robust methodology
to develop research of the real affects on a long-term basis), Siapera focuses
on the actual logic and process in which the game takes place, to be able to
analyze from a multi perspective view, differently from the narrative analysis
of a flat text. Studying this whole interactive logic leads the author to
highlight the participatory element of these games, in which the player plays a
different role from the traditional one. The interaction in many ways, for
instance the ‘’modding’’ case, but also among players in virtual gamers communities
(guilds) is seen as a real process of creation, possession and accumulation of
capital (Bourdieu’s concept).
It seems as
the modern society is transforming the form but not the content, the internal
logic. This participatory culture is seen by some authors as a positive
element. But does it have the power necessary to change the whole game logic?
The point of Siapera was to research weather the game structure and
characteristics had changed with the new virtual platform. In my opinion it has
not only kept the culture construction process the same, but this is being
reinforced by establishing and setting the traditional societal patterns in a
stronger way, in a way people can not escape as easily as a reader could from
reading a book. We may not be able to state cause-effect proof to say virtual
gaming is spreading violence, or at least violence-tolerance, but it is clear
that: these games are not real life (although many people may only socialize
through them), their industry moves a lot of money, and looking for maximizing
profit, they turned gaming into a private commodity, and finally, they
perpetuate the traditional and hegemonic ideology and values. The virtual world
once again shows us that, as we created it, there is no such difference we are
looking for with the real world or traditional life course. The tools are
different, but the patterns and logic are almost exactly the same, and the people
who run all,which is the most important element, are the same: the powerful,
the producers and the consumers. It is just another phase of capitalism we are facing here.
