Utne Reader Pokes And Prods At Games
January 9, 2007 6:01 PM | Simon Carless
The be-bearded Raph Koster handily points to an extremely interesting Utne Reader cover story on games, written by Chris Suellentrop (who covers games for Slate on occasion, I believe).
The Utne Reader is an somewhat bizarre but neat alt.periodical and Suellentrop's conclusion for his article (reprinted from the even more obscure Wilson Quarterly) is actually an odd but thought-provoking one:
"Whether you find the content of video games inoffensive or grotesque, their structure teaches players that the best course of action is always to accept the system and work to succeed within it... Our video-game brains, trained on success machines, may be undergoing a Mr. Universe workout, one that leaves us stronger but less flexible. So don't worry that video games are teaching us to be killers. Worry instead that they're teaching us to salute."
For his part, Koster notes that the article "...argues that games may be driving gamers to be more conformist — because they teach you to solve the problems presented, not to break out of patterns and truly innovate. As part of the basis for this argument, the author uses my book a fair amount." Koster comments, however: "But I think it’s a mistake to perceive the ordinary daily play of games as being the only way to engage with games."
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3 Comments
Koster's point, were it true, would be an argument against ALL games, not just the video and computer variety.
Yet there are also games that reward the player for looking askance at the "traditional" rules. The original Super Mario Bros. is the example that immediately springs to mind; the Warp Zone in worlds 1-2 and the second one in 4-2 are both located by jumping out of the scrolling section of the screen and traveling through the score strip, a move akin to being outside the universe. Considering we can't travel outside our own universe, that would indicate to me that games can sponsor *more* flexible thinking that could non-virtual pastimes.
John H. | January 10, 2007 5:09 AM
i'm particularly fond of the idea that you'll either find videogame content "inoffensive or grotesque". actually liking it? not an option.
ferricide | January 10, 2007 3:47 PM
John - Mario's warp zones were part of the code, an exploitation that was planned by the designers. A better example might be a Metroid Prime speedrun that takes advantage of bugs in the game to skip over certain battles and weapon upgrades.
Still, most gamers don't play this way. It's a fascinating idea, too bad Suellentrop only spared his last few grafs for it, dedicating the rest of the article to previous debates.
Jared | January 15, 2007 9:23 AM