Week 12: Games
In chapter four of Understanding Video Games, Neilson states, “the cultural position that games occupy today is difficult to understand without a sense of how games were initially conceived” (52). Neilson then points out that games “let us experiment with chance and probability… allow us to simulate things that we cannot (or do not wish to) see happen in real life” (49). To validate Neilson’s observations here, I have a confession to make: I used to play role-playing games. Vampire, circa 1995, was my game of choice. Looking back on this experience, I know I did it because it engaged my imagination, and I had a weird longing to imagine things “we cannot (or do not wish to) see happen.” So on this count, Neilson is correct. But I also remember my mother, who, like many parents, believed that the these role-playing games were “morbid and unhealthy” (48). As a teenager, though, I had decided otherwise. And so I played them with joy and, subsequently, confirmed the fact that games hold special cultural positions. The cultural position that Vampire held for me can be encapsulated in another confession that I should now make: I played games specifically to reject my mother. Through them, I asserted my independence. So on this count, Neilson is again correct, and so is Liestol.
Liestol concludes that the action game, Duke Nukem reflects ancient myths about dragonslayers and serves to uphold modern-day male myths, including the myth that manhood requires that “we exclude all feminine attributes” and that men “alone can get the job done in rugged solitude and by sparing no ammo” (345). In fact, Liestol concludes that the narrative of Duke Nukem represents the slaying of the mother, the exterminating of maternal control so that men can achieve their manhood. She wonders whether these myths resonate today because “the modern city lacked the necessary challenges that would make boys into strong, independent, and brave men” (345). Nonetheless, she asserts that the narrative in Duke Nuken represents the “nightmarish vision of an ‘independent woman’… threatening the autonomous masculine hero” (347). She then finally proceeds to tie this observation with the fact that 89% of boys grow up in a household run exclusively by the mother, and Leistol suggests that “boys may seek father replacements in macho heroes” (348) and that the game may serve a psychologically soothing purpose.
On the one hand, I tend to think that Liedtol’s conclusion goes too far, i.e. most boys probably do not connect Duke Nukem to a need for a father-figure, although the connection makes sense in the halls of academe. On the other hand, I do think that macho video games can serve as one way for boys to reject the mothering mother figure. As a boy who grew up in a household run only by good ol' mom, I know, first hand, that certain video games were seen as disgusting by my mother and that she would never play them; consequently, this made playing them all the more exciting, and I was able to assert my independence from her by continuing to play them. Although my singular experience is not enough to extend the claim that games serve this purpose to all other boys, I do see the validity in Liestol’s suggestion that macho video games serve a psychological purpose for boys in mother-led households.
Sherry Turkle makes similar observations by showing that video games serve cultural roles for us and that “video games have become a part of the cultural landscape” (33). Turkle's article shows how people understand video games as reflecting themselves or part of their lives. Two things struck me about this article: 1) I noticed that Turkle recognizes “the youth” as the ones obsessed with video games and that she claims that video games have created a generation divide” (500). To some extent, this is still true, I suppose, but since we have lived with computer games for a few generations now, I know that adults are embracing the games as a way to escape, much like David the lawyer, who at the end of the article states, “the better I do at a game, the better I feel.” Turkle is quick to note that David “wants reassurance that he can handle things. The games are his test” (513). And as I watch my friend's fifty-year-old father play Wii Golf and feel a sense of satisfaction and reassurment in his golf skills, I know Turkle's observation there was true and apt. But my point here is that video games may now be bridging the generations. 2) People seem to believe, even today, that their intelligence is shown/demonstrated through the computer video game, and they do not, necessarily, believe that they are reflecting the personality/thinking of the computer. At the end of the article, Turkle states, “David likes video games when they can serve as the perfect mirror, as a measure of who he is” (513). However, when one considers the database, as Manovich has done in The Language of New Media, then one remembers that the computer game is transcoding its internal logic, the movement of its algorithm, onto the player so that the player, when successfully completing the game, has learned how the algorithm works. Therefore, it is fair to reverse the observation—that computer games do not always reveal so much about our own intelligence, but rather they can also reveal to us our lack of intelligence, in that we must mimic the computer and become like it in order to feel intelligent.
In “The War Between Effects and Meanings,” Jenkins argues that we should think of violent video games in terms of meanings and not effects, In other words, he suggests that video games should not be understood strictly as teaching tools where the player robotically “learns” to mimic the actions of the game since such a behaviorist model rules out the selective memory of the player, the reasons why he/she is playing, and the experiences that the player brings to the game from the material world. As a result, Jenkins derides David Grossman’s (a West Point instructor) point of view and says, “Grossman’s model only works if we assume that players are not capable of rational thought”. On the other hand, Jenkins asserts that games can be powerful teaching tools. They help players “find better solutions to obstacles and challenges” (212). Jenkins suggests, using Kurt Squire’s research, that game players set their own goals, make connections, explore environments, and learn decision-making in a context and do not just robotically repeat actions. Consequently, Jenkins suggests that the same is true for players playing violent video games. Jenkins states that we need to not focus so much on the literal view of the game but “understand learning in a more active, meaning-driven sense” (216).
Jenkins’ main points here are well stated and well taken. However, since Jenkins admits that “not all gamers think deeply about their play experiences,” I wondered how Jenkins would respond to the contention that teenagers with certain lower mental capacities—those who might tend to see the world very literally—understand violent video games not in terms of social play or meaning-making but in literal terms, more like military training. Of course, Jenkins defends violent video games by asserting that certain violent video games tell us stories about violence and “can, in effect, remove some of its sting and help us understand acts that shatter our normal frames of meaning” (216). However, this statement, too, assumes that all people understand video games as meaning-makers or as narratives that teach deeper themes not present in a “literal reading.” In short, I am testing the bounds of Jenkins’ argument here and wondering how far his meaning-making argument would go for our culture at large, which tends to believe that children are very literal in their interpretations of the world and that some children, those with certain types of brain functioning, might not “get” what Jenkins is selling. Consequently, I wanted to see Jenkins address this issue head-on. He could have offered some perspective on how violent video games, even if they are being understood literally, might not be so bad. He could have tied his opening argument—teenagers bring their past experiences to the games in order to decide how they will interact with them—to the contention that some/all children simply do not see the world in many dimensions and are not capable of grasping the game as a meaning-maker.