antoine martin-vallas dig.arts+dig.anim 10183897

the impact of games on society.

Before I start, I'd like to point out that my title is somehow exaggerating the statement I will try to make throughout this essay. For even if games have indeed had a deep impact on our society, I fully realise that they are not the only forms of entertainment to have contributed to the changes seen over the past years. Movies, music, the internet, and so many other factors have all played their part.

However, the reason why gaming interests me is in its ability to hide. True, many writers have tried to educate people on the different aspects of games, but whereas movies, music, etc... have all had an enormous media coverage, (recent examples include Gladiator been criticised for bringing back the sadistic pleasures of roman barbarism, or Eminem's recent chainsaw/drug tag team during his tour, PopStars and co's debilitating effect on today's youth, Napster's recent trial and subsequent shutdown, the list goes on forever...) the third biggest money making machine in the entertainment world has somehow manage to slip in unnoticed...and affect us and our surroundings in many ways...

Fashion: Games have influenced fashion in probably the most obvious manner. By fashion I mean not only clothes but also everything that needs designing and that isn't considered art (by art critics). This includes:

Culture: the fashion culture has noticed some radical changes, especially in the club scene. Go to any club and you will see that bright colours, baggy pants and, most distinctive to gaming, the trademark spiky hairdos and matching accessories is the incarnation of this year's cool... Gaming has contributed immensely to this trend with games like "tony hawk's pro skater" (PS,1998 - DC2000), which managed to single-handedly raise skating from the grave, and making the new fashion to go around wearing your dad's jeans with an XXL T-shirt. Tattoos and body piercing have been used in games since their beginning, as they are one of the easiest ways to add depth and detail to a character without using too much processing power (tattoos don't use any since they are drawn directly on the skin map).This has directly influenced their comeback in pop culture, with recent games such as "the Bouncer" (PS2,2001), or slightly older "ShadowMan"(PS,1999 - DC,2000) pushing boundaries even further, leaving players feeling they could be their gaming counterpart if they had their tattoos/piercings. Much in the same way a rock star or fashion model would, but magnified by the fact that the more complex games become, the more you are incited to feel as tough you are the in game character, and therefore the less the gap between what you could be and what you are.

Surroundings: from appliances to furniture, from transport to architecture. The new trends in these fields have all been touched by today’s games. Whereas ten years ago the art of dissimulating wires and cables had been perfected to near obsession, today’s companies take pride in showing off their dodgy melding and/or wiring connections! Of course, technological progress is the main cause for this trend, but as gaming is part of this progress, it played its part with titles such as “alpha centauri”(PC,1998) and “heavy gear”(PC,1997). However, this change doesn’t only cover electronical equipment (and Macs), but also, as mentioned earlier, buildings. These have been made to more and more resemble machines, something which was first introduced by “le baubour” (in Paris,1986) but first made popular by “FinalFantasy6” (Snes,1995) , a game which was the first to successfully create a world where the old and the new were merged together, and something which was to be adopted in many buildings inside and outside (but mostly inside) of Japan. Our transport system is probably the only one to have remained unchanged in the past decade…while the Japanese have, it is well known, developped the most high-tech underground system in the world, and these trains ,and indeed stations, suit the representation of today’s motoring designers (weather winged, wheeled, or tracked…). The need for a sleeker, yet more organic look, something that could look clean cut, but without the cold edges of sheets of steel. “FinalFantasy8”(PS,1999) captured this look brilliantly, and brought it to new heights the more you got into the game, influencing designers world wide.

Language: Language is ever changing to suit the overall mentality of its era. The need for an ever quicker, more efficient, and above all time saving way of life has had its impact on all languages, english or foreign, visual or verbal.

Visual: the visual language that surrounds us everyday, from street signs to company logos, has taken a lot from games like “wipeout”(PS,1995), with its bizarre neon lit smileys, something which you now see looking through any shop window, and, to an even greater extent, the original “mario” and “sonic”…just look at most of today’s adds, from insurance to deodorants, and you will see that they all have their own little mascot, with each new entry looking more and more like a game character...most people see this recent trend for mascots as a side effect of cartoons, but it is only since people started playing games that they can associate themselves with an animated character, and therefore it is only since then that this form of advertising has become popular. Another aspect of the visual language games has modified is visual interfaces. Since the start of the success of gaming, pads have seen their number of buttons increased from a lowly 2 (up and down, in PONG…) to the massive 10 pressure sensitive buttons of the recent PS2 pad, (without counting the directional cross, the two analog sticks, or vibration enabling button…). When I was my brother’s age (seven), my friends and I couldn’t even begin to understand how one could play “donkey kong” on the Atari using the 2 buttons on the pad and simultaneously move around using a 4 way directional cross…now I’m 10 years older, and my brother, using the DC pad (which is twice the size of his hands, and has three times as many buttons as the atari pad) still manages to put up a great fight at every fighting game I throw at him. The point I’m trying to make is that we are now able to cope with much more complicated visual interfaces, something witch is shown through cash points, vending machines, passport photo booths, cd-players, videotape recorders, menus on webpages, etc…and something which could not have been introduced if games hadn’t eased us into them.

Verbal/Written: “waasssaaap!”, “; )”, and other “%&**#@” are all examples of how the internet has changed the way we right (:-@ (for better and/or for worse…). However, whereas the web took the english dictionary, threw it out the window, and started writing like they’re speaking (as demonstrated, a very easy mistake to make…). Games developed their own style of narrative, which can be considered as well balanced mix between what goes on an online forum, and what goes on in the books you’d find in a library…i.e. in game text is like an unabbreviated version of the internet mixed with a strong background story/plot to keep you interested until you reach the end, and overall I found playing RPG’s (story driven games) like “chrono cross” (PS,2000), and “Vampire the masquerade” (PC,1999), to be the best stepping stone from a book to an online chatroom.

Community: social status and sense of belonging have until recently always been family and friends related… however, the introduction of gaming has changed all that, for they have introduced a new factor to the equation. For gaming takes people from different sexes, cultures, ages and backgrounds, and places them all as the same in game character in a world where the real world’s rules don’t apply. Of course, each individual picks something different from the same in game situation, but by their very essence, games needing to associate you with a central character, it means that you’ll often find that central character to be cross generic, and you’ll find yourself changing during play to adapt to him/her. This means that while today’s communities grow more and more towards unique looks and uniform personalities, a new one issued from games was created as a by-product. One in witch each of its members has lived, without knowing, a part of the other’s experience, and, to a certain extent, a part of his/her life, but has had a different emotional response to it. I have seen its members aspiring to their in-game counterpart, while for others, the same in game character allowed them to escape from themselves during play, so as to fully enjoy being themselves after play. And so, going back to my introduction, after chatting online with people who were part of this new community, I can safely say that gaming’s uncanny ability to hide comes from its users more than its creators, and comes form their need to be in probably the only community where instead of taking people with different lives and then try to make them feel as though they’ve lived the same one, you group people who’ve lived the same life (as the same in-game character) and leave them to make out what they want from the same experience.