Games

Brecht has implemented in his theatre the "Verfremdungseffekt", which can be translated to the "alienation effect" or "distancing effect." Essentially, by creating interruptions or fissures within the illusion on stage, the audience can achieve a certain distance to the characters and events, allowing for evaluation and critique. During his performances, the audience is presented to some cues that indicates that what they are seeing is an ilusion, that what they are seing is actually an actor playing a scene. This cues can be strange objects, non-connected actions or actors speaking directly to the audience for example. Different of the Theatre of Pleasure, when the audience is emotionally connected to the play, Brecht seeks to create a critical discussion about what is being showed. He redefine it as Epic Theatre.

Is it possible to have the same effect in Video Games where you, as a player, is somehow intensively connected to the gameplay and the character?

In general, the mod (modification) of the game means the process of code editing and changing to add extra flavour on the original game. Usually, the mod makers are game players with sufficient coding or programming knowledge. Each mod can give different experiences to the gameplay and form specific player community. To analyse, how does the mod benefits both game and players? what motivates a player or players to make a mod? Who has the rights on the mod, maker of game company? What is your own opinion towards mod? The article will give insight into creative consumer and new cultural online society. Note: You can focus on specific game or company to give more detail on a specific group of community.

Bioshock is a video game franchise centering around the player entering a strange supposedly utopian city falling into disarray as its society breaks apart (Rapture, an underwater city isolated from the rest of the world free from governmental, religious and ethical control, and Columbia, a flying city theocracy embodying and literally worshipping late 18th century American ideals) run by a megalomaniacal idealist with twisted morals (Andrew Ryan, an ultra-individualist, and Zachary Comstock, an ultra-nationalist). Write about the political backdrops of the Bioshock franchise, analyzing what ideology each game is criticizing through narrative and gameplay mechanics and what is being said about them. Analyze the political messages implied by the cities and their inhabitants. What is being said about the political ideologies presented? What caused the downfall of the societies and how is it affected by their political systems?

Gaming in many ways is another medium that requires writers, and yet the approach to story telling in writing is unique and quite different as opposed to traditional storytelling via books. I propose an article that might entertain looking into the deeper facets of story and writing in the gaming industry and the unique approach that is taken in completing a script as opposed to traditional writing. Focus could be placed particularly on discussing the need for adaptability in characters, characterizing empathy and emotion within a character as we follow them while also playing as them, the duality of the protagonist and the gamer etc. which while coming naturally in traditional writing, have to be balanced against what is possible within the given game dynamics

Outer Worlds, made by Obsidian of Fallout New Vegas acclaim, is a open world RPG where you exist in an alternative universe where capitalism is even more unregulated than it is today.

Within the world of OW however there is little to be said in response to capitalism. In a future where "science" is good on it’s face, marauders commit crimes because crime, and the world itself is limited by the imagination of the writers, what is displayed is a critique of the world not for ideological reasons but for practical and efficiency reasons. That is to say, Outer Worlds can lead the player to see some damning indictments of capitalism, but it will never allow for anything in game aside from a moderate reformism.

And that is a curious line to draw. What indeed can be said about advancement for advancement’s sake when the human cost both in universe and out is seen as only worthwhile if it’s apolitical. Where revolution is on its face dismissed for it’s idealism, but "progress" is revered for making the future better.

I did a bit of research on ‘The Witcher III: The Wild Hunt’ last year while preparing to write a piece on the Video Game industry and its treatment of minority groups. The Witcher, of course, is written by Andrzej Sapkowski who is very obvious about what types of groups are being discussed, even if allegorically. I picked on the Witcher because it is among many of the power fantasy narratives that come with the genre.

There are currently several iterations of Geralt of Rivia, and similarly, this trend can be seen in The Last of Us and God of War. Our protagonists are fathers first, and the plot follows this innate connection between parent and child.

I’m interested to see where this came from? To what extent is it really a trend, or just a few notable additions to the AAA RPGs?

This article will analyze the growing trend of game developers and publishers moving towards subscription models instead of one-time purchases. Examples: Apple Arcade, Google Stadia, Microsoft’s Game Pass (old, but now more aggressive than ever push towards subscription-only titles and removing one-time purchase options swifter than ever), Ubisoft , EA Play, PlayStation Now. Studios with a single game or franchise are also going the subscription route. Is this good? Bad? Subscriptions of the Game Pass, for example, have increased by millions in the last year. And it’s true that indie games, when they come to Game Pass, earn more than they could ever make solo. Xbox Game Pass is a unique case which will need its own section here. Instead of subscribing to a service that gives free delivery (like Amazon) or TV shows (like Netflix) – a game can be anywhere from 20 hours of fun for hardcore games or 1,000 hours of play and replays – how is it fair that you pay less than I do for the same game in this case? A headline: "GDC has released its annual State of the Industry survey of 4,000 developers, over one-fourth of which were concerned such models would devalue games." Another topic to cover is games-as-a-service (or more broadly tech-as-a-service) models being adopted by videogame publishers and developers. Even gaming hardware seems to be moving in that direction, with Nvidia providing subscription to RTX 30-series gaming capabilities instead of actually owning a video card. Starting from newspapers and magazines; then moving to TV shows, movies, and software; and now to games – subscriptions seem to be the way forward. But is it really better to have a monthly subscription to play games than to own the games and judging by the current pace of things, even renting your hardware and not owning it?

"This is the Police" was a top down simulation game, in the vein of Sim City where, you play as a police chief. It happened to be released during the rise of Black Lives Matter and Gamergate, but went out of its way to say it was "not a political game but a human one", or at least that is what the developers claimed.

This is the Police, as game has a fail state, you have to make certain decisions or the game will end. In the case of your player character you are fired or killed for making decisions that could or would be read as moral, for example, not firing certain officers for their race or investigating crimes that mafia members don’t want you to.

Hannah Arendt, wrote of Eichmann, how he wasn’t amoral, wasn’t a monster, and instead of how ordinary he was. How his motivation to send millions to their death wasn’t motivated by sadism but shallowness and carelessness. He didn’t think of the consequences of those actions.

Within the narrative of This is the Police, the player is faced with various situations were their own morality may come into conflict with the story. And that should be examined as even if the game is "not political" it does reflect a volatile political situation.

Why are you as a player character rewarded for being corrupt? Examinations of police corruption merit discussion but the game seems more than comfortable in presenting the idea of corruption without inspecting it. It’s the nature of the system and as such is immutable.

This gives room for analysis of the actions the game forces you to take, why are those the only possible actions, why were some scenarios added and why not others? Moreover, what does it say about this "human game" as per the developers and its commentary on the nature of humans?