interactive media we like

CTCS 505: Survey of Interactive Media @ USC

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When I read Ōdyubon no Inori

I've read a book, Ōdyubon no Inori, a detetive book, as they descript in preface. Actually, as many online readers, I prefer to define this book as a fable, fairy tale or a fairy tale for adult. Someone died, and our main character would find out the murder. All the settings are likely to a detetive story. But, what if the main character is just a normal people, not a famous detetive or a former FBI agent, but a programmer who just lost his grandmother and resigned from a big company. What if the victim is just a scarecrow, who can speak with the human and tell the future. What if the murder happened on an island far away form the modern city. What if there is just craftsman, painter, postman, store clerk and police on the island. And what if the fiction ends with a joke, a joke to make reader ruminate.

This reading experience reminds me a significant question that I once partially ignored: why we should choose to tell a story in game. If we can tell it by words, why do we need to do it by game? The largest difference between words and video stream is that words are more abstract. Readers should use their imagination in reading, and that’s why people feel more painful in reading than watching a movie or playing a game. Movie and game brings the excitement and  enjoyment directily to the audience by killing the imagniation. Is that really worthy?

The author of this book is Kōtarō Isaka, a Japanese writer. The book shows a very obvious Japanese writting style, the pastorale scene setting, poetical word usage and simple and isolated ordinary life. The whole story is like a light music, no exaggerated Rhetoric or intensive turn. Every plot happens carelessly, and they are all connected to one point in the end. As the normal detective fiction does, the author sets plenty of foreshadowings in the first half part of the story and brust them in the ending. But the solution of the mystery is not the purpose. Even in the moment the main character solve the mystery and find out the answer, it doesn’t seem like a climax. In the opposite, it open a door of reflection, the reflection of the problem we are facing in our real life.

Games try their best to tell a story in a ‘fantastic’ way, but is that the player really want? Is the player really need the story? Or say, does the game convey a concrete story to the player or convey the possibility of making a story to the player? Why ‘There are a thousand Hamlets in a thousand people's eyes‘? The purpose of narrative is the story itself or the reflection on the story? Is the real need of the readers or audience the gain of the plot or the emotional immersion in the story? I’m the supportor of the latter opinion. I think it’s artist’s work to show a different prespective of the world and resonate the audiences.

There is a subtle relationship between China and Japan. In the field of politics, they are enermy. Yet in the field of culture and art, they both influence each other. The scarecrow is the symbol of the god in the fiction. It knows the future and guides the life of citizens in the island. Its dead affected every islanders’ life-they lost their god, and get lost. The interesting point is, the author choose the scarecrow to be the symbol of the god. I’m suprise scarecrow is called ‘scare-crow’(maybe ‘hay-man’ sounds better?), it sounds negative. But in China, a agriculture country, scarecrow is a respectful item. Though Japan is strictly island country, but it was influenced by the agrigultural culture from China for hundreds of years. So it is not strange to see the scarecrow become such an deific tutone in the story.

- A.D

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Ethical Considerations in “Empathy” Interactive Media

In this article, I will describe and analyze ethical considerations of consent and integrity in “Empathy” Interactive Media, in which I include the trending pseudo-genre “Empathy Games.” 

Emotion researchers generally define empathy as the ability to sense other people’s emotions, coupled with the ability to imagine what someone else might be thinking or feeling. Merriam Webster defines empathy as the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another without having these things explicitly communicated. 

Regarding “Empathy Games,” Georgia Tech professor Ian Bogost simultaneously validates the initiative while acknowledging that the genre may be redundant. 

Empathy is at play anytime someone feels for the perspective of a character, whether in a book, movie, or game. Rather than in a book of film, empathy in games is “about the decisions you can make and what if feels like to be inside the logic of that other individual’s life.” This cognitive attention to the requisite mundane in a character’s life is of special interest to Bogost. 

However, while segmenting Empathy Games off from other games may point to a gap in the current market, it may not be helpful in the long run: 

“You don’t turn on the television and go to the empathy channel so you can watch the empathy shows. It’s just assumed that empathy is baked in to these media. Good works would provide empathy, and bad works would fail to. We’re trying so hard to respond to this trivialization of games that perhaps we’re overcorrecting in a way.”

Selling “Empathy Games” alongside mainstream games in online marketplaces diversifies the voices represented and validates all of these forms of gameplay. 

The genre Empathy Games is, hopefully, a short-term tag for the earliest trend towards diversifying voices in games. 

I lump Empathy Games in with Empathy Experiences, because all of these are geared towards the player understanding the perspective of someone else on an emotional level in a number of ways: 

1. See through the protagonist’s eyes rather than seeing the whole system. (This is the distinguishing point between Empathy Games and Serious Games).

2. Adapt a real-life experience to the digital realm, through autobiography, biography, research and adaptation, journalism, intervention, and/or co-creation. 

3. Fidelity is to the authenticity of this experience (not to be confused with accuracy - e.g. a fictional adaptation could prove more authentic than an accurate first-person account) rather than pandering to perceived player pleasure-seeking behavior. (This point is where “Serious Games” got their name).

There is no question that diversifying the voices present in mainstream media is important. Whether or not compartmentalizing “Empathy” Games and Interactive Media is helpful to that remains to be seen. In the meantime, I will outline some of the pros and cons of the following approaches to Empathy Interactive Media: Autobiographical, Biographical, Immersive Journalism, and Intervention / Co-Creation.

In that order, these approached progress away from a primary source (first-person, autobiographical account). Curiously, the examples I’ve chosen to analyze exemplify a correlating trend towards social action in the real world (as opposed to simply the digital interactive media / game). Both of these progressions require an ethical component: 

1. Consent: As the storyteller progresses away from the subject of the story, consent becomes increasingly important. 

2. Integrity: As the designers increase claims for social action, the quality and follow-through of this action becomes increasingly important, not just to the aesthetic value of the digital media work, but to it’s ethical worth as well. 

The works I happened to study turned out to be, in my opinion, exemplary. My critique is more along the lines of pointing out best practices rather than policing. 

Autobiographical 

The following examples have been cited in the news as Empathy Games. They are autobiographical: created by teams of 1-5 people, about experiences that the core creator(s) went through or were going through at the time. 

Anna Anthropy created Dys4ia as a journal game about the six months of her life when she began hormone replacement therapy.

Nicky Case created Coming Out Simulator about his journey of coming out to his conservative parents. 

Ryan and Amy Green created That Dragon, Cancer about loving their young son Joel through his heartbreaking battle with cancer. 

Llaura dreamfeeel created Curtain about her own experience with the complexities of an emotionally abusive relationship.

One could argue that consent in autobiographical works is carte blanche, yielding the most intimate and truthful account of a story. One caveat to that is that not all storytellers are necessarily in the position to give themselves consent to tell their own story. For example, minors or the mentally ill may consent to autobiographical disclosure and regret it later. Additionally, each person has a blind spot. You may notice that, in autobiographical works, especially by young voices, the storytellers present the worst version of themselves. I believe that this is because humans more easily remember the bad, and they forget the virtues they called upon to carry themselves through. 

That said, all of these examples have achieved consent in my eyes. The case of That Dragon, Cancer is a unique one, with central character Joel being an infant. Creators Ryan and Amy Green delve into this question of consent in their documentary, Thank You For Playing. Amongst the countless micro-decisions this couple made to love and honor their son Joel was the decision to include his laugh in the game, but not his cry. 

Across the board, these works emulate integrity, notably because the bar the creators have set is a modest one: self-expression. These creators are artists before they are activists. 

Of her experience with an abusive relationship, Llaura dreamfeeel tells Polygon, “Making Curtain helped me process a lot of that.“ In their documentary, Ryan and Amy Green poignantly relate that upon learning of their infant’s cancer, they didn’t know how to process it. They didn’t know what to do other than what they do, which is make games. 

In the case of autobiographical works, the press-created title “Empathy Games” may actually do more harm than good by giving gamers a false sense of social action that balloons past their actions within the digital game itself. Anna Anthropy is outspoken about how players of her game have not walked in her shoes, and do not know what it feels like to be her. Nicky Case chalks his game up to expression and narcism, but he does not self-identify as making empathy games. Green says that "games, of all mediums, should reflect life,” but does not identify with forging a new genre.

Llaura dreamfeeel tells Hunt & Gather that Empathy Games are problematic. “You can’t play a game and understand totally what it means to be somebody, like ‘I’ve ticked off the box, like a bucket list of things, like you don’t have to consider their point of view anymore.’ [But] it’s definitely a very powerful way of expressing stuff, and it does help people to consider other people’s experiences.” 

I personally feel that autobiographic works are the ideal path to diversifying voices in games. Time and again, the uniqueness of the perspective, the level of detail, the emotional acuity to complex situations, the passion to follow-through - all of these contribute to making truly remarkable works of art. Not just that, but the works serve as a transformative agent for the creators to grow, and create more remarkable works. But the personal investment in these works is a precious metal, and like a well-meaning alloy, the term “Empathy Games” degrades them by overcomplicating their moment of resonance victimizing their performance in the marketplace, as if these games need to be perceived as charity in order to be noticed. 

Biographical

Papers, Please casts the player as an immigration inspector running a checkpoint to control the flow of people entering the fictional Arstotzkan from Kolechia using traveller documents and the Ministry of Admission’s inspect, search, and fingerprint systems.

This War of Mine provides a fictional experience of war through the eyes of a group of civilians trying to survive in a besieged city.

I’ve categorized these games as Biographical because, while they are fictional, they are adaptations of real-world systems and events built upon a foundational combination of research, interviews, and first-hand experiences, albeit in the role of “onlooker” or “opponent” rather than the game’s protagonist. 

Papers, Please has relatively little online documentation about its making. On its making, sole creator Lucas Pope tells VG 24/7:

“I wanted to show that in politics, all sides of any kind of issue have some justification. There’s not just the good guys and the bad guys – even the bad guys have some justification for why they want to do something.”

Pope says that the experience of losing his passport in a foreign country cued him into the other side of what is otherwise a frightening experience: 

“They see a thousand of you a day. You’re a real person, but from their perspective it’s just like an anomaly that they’re worried about. They’re scared you’re going to do something wrong, they can’t verify your identity or they’re being really extra careful… This was one of the things I tried to capture in the game, this kind of ambiguity and this vagueness to everything, not knowing for sure what anybody is saying is true and not knowing who to trust.”

While the game gives off the impression of a soviet dystopia, Pope relates that it is more a collection of tropes that intentionally avoid being entirely Eastern European:

“I worked pretty hard to make it so it wasn’t specifically anything. Anytime there’d be something that would nail it down as Soviet or ‘this is definitely the Berlin Wall’, I would leave it out.”

Pope expertly walks the line of grounding this experience in reality, while making it widely relevant to anyone who’s gone through any sort of checkpoint. Because Papers, Please is not explicitly based on a real person, place, or event, the game does not require consent. Additionally, Pope is careful to frame the goals of this game as expressing his view of this type of political system. Pope does not call Papers, Please an “Empathy Game” or make any claims to social action. Therefore, Papers, Please satisfies its avowed goals simply in the fact of its commercial success; it has integrity. 

11 Bit Studios more closely based This War Of Mine on the real-world events. Wikipedia states that “The game was inspired by the poor living conditions and wartime atrocities that Bosnian civilians endured during the 1992-96 Siege of Sarajevo, the longest city siege since World War II. 

Game Designer Pawel Miechowski told Kotaku that 11 Bit began work on the game after Miechowski’s brother, the company’s CEO, came upon an article called ”One Year in Hell“ by a guy who supposedly survived a siege in Bosnia, possibly in Sarajevo. Miechowski says:

"I’m not even sure if the article is real or not, I cannot find the author. It doesn’t even matter. It was so devastating to read about those horrible conditions and we were like, ‘We are making a game about it.’”

Also with Kotaku, Miechowski discussed the Warsaw Uprising in World War II, and Aleppo, the largest city in Syria. Although This War of Mine is not explicitly set in any real world event or city. Miechowski says, “I want you to feel it could happen to your country, your city, anywhere.” 

While this ambiguity similarly absolves 11 Bit Studios from needing to acquire consent or satisfy fidelity to a real-world event, the team conducted research and numerous interviews of survivors of the Siege of Sarajevo. 

Neither Pope nor 11 Bit Studios self-identify with the label “Empathy Game,” although their games are the media darlings for this budding genre. Unlike the above autobiographical works, these biographical examples lack real-world subjects empowered to recoil at the media’s claim that these games are giving gamers the experience of running a checkpoint in a fascist country, or the experience of trying to survive war. If they did, I suspect these games would not make such tidy poster children for “Empathy Games.”

Immersive Journalism (Nonny de la Pena: Project Syria, Gone Gitmo, Hunger in Los Angeles)

Nonny de la Pena began as a print journalist and then became a documentary filmmaker. She merged these interests to create immersive journalism in VR. She begins with audio that was captured on scene. Then she recreates photorealistic models of the scene and people in VR, based on real images of people on the scene. Her stated intention is to help people understand how difficult the circumstances are so they can thing about what change they can bring about.

This audio interview with Nonny from the Silicon Valley Virtual Reality Conference & Expo sheds light on her thoughts on empathy (17:32). Nonny essentially states that VR has a greater ability to evoke empathy than any other medium. She states that participants experiencing Project Syria had a greater propensity to follow up with the issue and to donate. I could not find data to back up the credibility of these claims for social action, but on the other hand, I’d argue that current data collection methods aren’t sufficient to prove causality between a VR experience and a propensity for related social action over an extended period of time. Perhaps in this instance, the best proof of integrity is user and subject testimonials. I wish these testimonials were more readily available. Currently, my indicator that Pena’s work has met its stated design goals is that these works continue to be shown at festivals around the world. 

Because the context of Journalism is distinct from Activism, I think Nonny’s work shines as an example of Immersive Journalism rather than faltering as an example of shoddy activism. However, to me, the practice of using news footage to no holds barred recreate virtual 3D representations of real people, using their voices and factual experiences to heighten the empathy factor for VR players, is wanting. Maybe it’s because the people in the footage are unlikely to know what VR is. Maybe it’s because the huge teams constructing these experiences were not at the scene of the event, unlike the photographer of a video or image, who took some risk to be there. Whatever it is, with regards to consent, it feels to me like the process of creating these Immersive Journalism experiences should be more akin to constructing a memorial museum than making headlines.

Intervention / Co-Creation 

Here I focus on an example that is both Intervention (physically intervening in a real world event) and co-creation (radical collaboration towards creation). While these two methods do not need to be paired, Project Daniel does so effectively. 

The Not Impossible Labs crowd-sources real problems from around the world and then crowd-solves those problems to make them accessible to all. Project Daniel centers on Daniel, a child in the Sudan who lost both of his arms at age 14 in a bombing.  World News covered his story. I was not able to find the original article, but here is a picture of it. Apparently, the news stated that a tree saved Daniel’s life, but that Daniel wish it hadn’t. 

Not Impossible Labs co-founder Mick Ebeling saw this article and was motivated to help. He describes thinking of a 14-yr-old Daniel who felt life was not worth living. He outlines the bigger picture for Intel: “Daniel is just one of 50,000 amputees left in the wake of the bloodiest war Africa has ever known.” The Not Impossible Labs mission is to help many by helping one. Mick Ebeling describes his process as first committing and then figuring out how to do it. Ebeling committed to 3D print arms for Daniel. 

Ebeling’s brand of co-creation is so effective because the goal is to help a person rather than an issue. The person-centric approach both streamlines the design process of defining the problem, implementing a solution, and measuring success. This human-centric approach also fuels biopics that successfully galvanise support for the subject, the project, and the labs. Both co-founders of Not Impossible Labs have a background in film. “Project Daniel” won 5 Cannes Lions awards in 2014. The human-centric approach strategically condenses an overwhelming issue to a dramatic performance of heroism, collaboration, and world betterment. Critical acclaim and populous support are critical to the lifelines of Not Impossible Labs: sales of Mick Ebeling’s book, donations to the foundation, and the free contribution of specialised skills from doctors, scientists and techies to implement design solutions.

The better part of Not Impossible Labs’ “poster children” for DIY tech solutions suggest a strong level of consent to this level of marketing one’s image and story to represent an issue (rather than, say, Daniel’s interest in singing). Project Daniel is an outlier in that Daniel was unaware of being the “chosen one” until Mick was there, in the Sudan, with a truck packed with computers and 3D printers and a small film crew. As a 16-yr-old, what consent did Daniel supply to this plan? How did he feel about becoming internationally known for overcoming his amputee status? Having never been outside of the Sudan, much less to film festivals, how was he informed of what “consent” would mean? Mind you, I believe Daniel is portrayed as a hero (rather than a victim). But it’s notable that the consent involved in Daniel’s picture being taken by the World News does not necessarily translate to Project Daniel. DIY co-creative technicians especially must think deeply about what medical ethics means in a project like this. 

Ultimately, the saving grace of Project Daniel is its integrity. Not Impossible Labs delivers far beyond their stated goals to provide Daniel with arms. They delivered a computer lab and 3D printers to Daniel’s village, taught members of the community how to use them, and as of this year, Ebeling says the village is still printing an arm a week. This means that Not Impossible Labs must be offering a great deal of tech support, replacement parts, and maintenance in the long-term. The Not Impossible Labs seems to be leveraging the best of human stories and co-creation to start a movement. That kind of commitment is worthy of the praise of ethical thinkers such as Deepak Chopra: 

“This is the template for a new science of consciousness. Mick Ebeling sees impossible as just a word for something not yet done. Read his book. Think like him. Then do the impossible.”

Conclusion

Grounding Interactive Media works in real world experiences is powerful. It only makes sense that Games and Interactive Media should, like many other art forms, represent a range of perspectives comparable to the range of voices on earth. Autobiographical, Biographical, Immersive Journalism, and Intervention / Co-Creation are a few approaches. Each holds unique merits and challenges with respect to gaining consent and emulating integrity. None request or require a special “Empathy” title, as the hope is that interesting and unique voices in games and interactive media will be the norm rather than the outlier. However, this complicating trend of “Empathy” labelling is more readily problematic for the autobiographical category, whose subjects are empowered to oppose the assertion that gamers have walked in their shoes simply by playing a game. The issue here has nothing to do with these works, it has to do with misguided press setting false expectations. 

-ATL3Y

References

Articles: Empathy Games: Birth of a Genre?, Empathy Games Don’t Exist), Why Empathy is the Next Big Thing in Video Games

Documentary Films: That Dragon, Cancer

Games (partially) Played: Dys4ia, Coming out Simulator, Curtain, Gone Home, Papers, Please, That Dragon, Cancer, This War of Mine

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Great points and fantastic references! I especially liked what you mentioned about why Ebeling’s project is effective. It reminds me of Joseph Stalin’s quote, “A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic”. People tend to feel less empathy about numbers, and more about a single story targeted about a specific human being.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/life-autopilot/201003/why-is-the-death-one-million-statistic

- DY

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Thanks to ATL3Y’s recommendation, I watched the movie Enter the Void by Gaspar Noé. The movie tells about this surreal experience of a drug dealer’s afterlife experience. Basically, the movie is filmed in a unique first person perspective and creates this weird feeling of the detached spirit, out of body experience and the regrets and guilt about family, relationships and existence. The movie is so interesting to me as it has an obvious resemblance of games. The camera is always from above everything and the rich sensory environment immerses the viewer. Even if no one knows what exactly it’s like to view the world as a spirit, the movie certainly succeed in creating this immersive environment that embedded with narrative. The feeling of unable to participate in the world but only watching as a witness is heart breaking. The visual and sound creates this environment have impact on the viewers.

The first person perspective is the biggest highlight of the movie. However, in terms of video games, we are more used to see everything through the eyes of the protagonist. The images, sound and narrative surround the players and encourages them to identify with the protagonist and be entirely immersive in the virtual experience. But my question is, is it true that by simply changing the perspective and mapping the visual reception of the protagonist and the players will be necessary to have this sort of immersion?

For me, the answer is definitely not. Although the first person perspective is a very direct and explicit way to show that the story is about having the viewer feel what it is like to be the protagonist. But it is not the key to bring out the same feel in the players. The thing that keep me playing some of the video games is the narrative embedded in the environment.

From my personal game experience with the games that I have played so far, I would say that how I would identify with the protagonist is only about how much I identify with the character. For some games, the gender, appearance and action of the character may be a take-away from the immersion. For instance, in Bioshock, the protagonist’s hand in is an indication of what I am in the virtual world. Even if I understand that this type of game is not targeted for players like me and I am totally fine with having a pair of masculine hands and pretend that I were a man for some a while, I still feel a little bit awkward to be represented this way in the game.  Yet this disconnection doesn’t stop me from engaging myself in the game as the story and environment is interesting enough for me to keep exploring.

Also in the horror game Layers of fear, there is one scene that the face of the avatar shows up in the mirror which is a shock to me as it is not what I expected. I feel separated with the character.  The game tells the story of this mysterious painter, but I’m only an explorer in this world. I don’t feel like being in his shoes. I’m merely interested in the fictional world.

Same thing holds true for Enter the Void. It is true that I wouldn’t think myself as the drug dealer, instead I very much feel like I was behind the back of his head and see the world together with the through out the journey. As a companion, I feel for the character.

In conclusion, most RPG, First Person games give the player the fun for manipulation and pretending. Games like Journey, Tomas Was Alone designed their characters in a very good way that they are not specifically related to certain groups or individuals. All players can be this traveler in the desert, and this lonely cube in the dungeon like world. The players can have their own projection to the characters without feeling disconnected. The game Meadow even takes out the virtual avatar. The player cannot move around or see her body. It is vague who the player is in this world and why the player is there and it works very well with the experience.

-- Y.D

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Tangible Interface and Games

The development of video game industry synchronises with the rising of the computer science. The way we interact in games maps the technology in the computers. The field of gaming has already had a lot of wonderful examples of tangible interfaces. For instance, the games pieces in board games are the physical input devices. For video games, joysticks, gamepads, buttons function as the user input devices and some even give the feedback such as the simple and efficient vibration for some controllers. But still, TUI in games is an exciting new area waiting to be explored.

Most popular human computer interactive mode is still bounded in the WIMP (windows, icon, menu, and pointer), and most games are played with mouse and keyboards.It has been the dominate form of interaction. Nevertheless, new interactive mode and interfaces are being explored. As for the subject of painting, talented artist and engineers keep creating new ways of appreciate a painting. Here are some examples.

The first is a project by MIT Tangible Media Group in 2008, called Wetpaint. Users are allowed to touch the screen and scraping the images and navigating between different layers of the image. This idea is inspired by art diagnostic techniques and has advantage in interaction when users need to compare the same area of different images.

The next one is Still Life by Scott Garner. This is an interactive painting which responds to the real life interactions. The objects in the painting are actually affected by the gravity as you tilt the frame.

The last and most interesting one is called Pu Gong Ying Tu (Dandelion Painting). You can blow on the puff of the flower and see them scattering around in the painting. This is beautiful and poetic and make the circuits behind the painting more playful and fun.

Hiroshi Ishii, director of MIT Tangible Media Group, has brought up this concept of Tangible Bits. The word bit here is the counterpart of the bit in digital computing. It is the basic unit of information that you can touch and grab under the surface of digital screen. His project Physical Telepresence is such an experiment that allows users, mostly designers to see, touch and feel the data. To some extent, TUI is more human and user-friendly as we are more comfortable interacting with the world using haptic sense and having the physical feedback is always rewarding and satisfying.

For me, the reason why TUI is an interesting topic in games because it combines the advantage of physical and digital interface. The physical atoms are haptic and tangible but restricted to the laws of physics meanwhile the digital bits can be manipulated as we like but berried beneath the surface of the display and screens. The combination of the two creates new applications which are magical.

As for games, TUI is still an experimental topic as the tangible interaction are restricted to the physical settings. On one hand, it is hard to match the interaction with general gameplay. They usually need a specific settings and works for only one type of game. Such as the Fabulous Beast is so unique and wonderful but there is an obvious requirement for the entire physical setting. On the other hand, it is not easy to make such interaction a product as for manufacturing, distributing and marketing. But still, TUI has a promising feature in museum, education,  medical applications and so on.

-- Y.D.

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In the year since Facebook bought Oculus, a virtual reality headset the size of a pair of ski goggles, the industry has become obsessed with the potential of virtual reality. Samsung and Sony are developing their own virtual reality systems. Google has sought to help users augment their experience of the web by the launch of Google Cardboard, a cluster of lenses, magnets, and digital tags that can be mounted on a sheet of cardboard and laid over a cell phone to produce an illusion of 3D imagery. 

We see more and more uses of VR in digital media field. Director Spike Jonze (Her) has already explored the boundaries of VR filmmaking with a 360-degree documentary shot during the Millions March protest. Story Studio from Oculus showed its first VR film Lost and has more in production. Hollywood is catching on, too. HBO used the Oculus to enable Game Of Thrones fans to climb the vertiginous Wall and survey those pesky wildings (See the above video).

These new devices and their applications have already brought out a resolution and might be the future of gaming, akin to how internet changed how we shop. As Peter Firth, insight editor at The Future Laboratory says, “We already spend more time looking at screens than we do sleeping, so VR is a natural extension of that.” 

However, what is VR actually for? Will it trigger a new appreciation for the physical world – or turn us into insolated individuals and couch potato game addicts?

People shows concerns about the potential risk for addiction to the virtual world and their concerns are well-founded. With graphics advancing considerably, players would be more immersed in these VR systems than the 8-bit ones of the past. Also, the barrier to entry is much lower then before, a few hundred dollars to own a VR device makes it accessible to more youth. Yet we all know video games are addictive, the biggest issue of VR is that it might become so addictive that the experiences in a virtual reality world will produce a far greater sense of reward than being in the real world and makes players escape from the real world. 

On the other hand, however, VR headsets are amazing empathy engines and this can be used in promoting serious games. Scientists at the University of Washington, Dr. Hunter Hoffman and Dr. David Patterson, have developed games like SnowWorld to reduce the pain of wound care and other hospital procedures. It helps patients during bandage changes and wound cleaning – the times when morphine does not even come close to dulling the excruciating pain. Also, serious games using VR help in training astronauts, military pilots, and even surgeons. 

There will be virtual reality addicts, just as we’ve had concerns about rock and roll music, comic books, TV and movies in the past. We need to keep them in mind as game designers, but we shouldn’t stop our exploration anyway and try our best to make good use of any technology.

XL

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Live in Your World, Play in Yours

"They used to tank cod from Alaska all the way to China. They’d keep them in vats in the ship. By the time the codfish reached China, the flesh was mush and tasteless. So this guy came up with the idea that if you put these cods in these big vats, put some catfish in with them and the catfish will keep the cod agile. And there are those people who are catfish in life. And they keep you on your toes. They keep you guessing, they keep you thinking, they keep you fresh. And I thank god for the catfish because we would be droll, boring and dull if we didn't have somebody nipping at our fin." -Catfish (2010)

In 2010, two movies centered around social media were released. While one was a blockbuster adaptation of the Facebook fiasco, the other was a documentary by Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost which follows Nev Schulman, a 24-year-old New Yorker who finally meets the women he has had a long distance relationship with, only to find that she is 40-years-old and married. The film was sold as a 'reality thriller', and while this title applies, it does not fully encompass the wide range of themes and textures the movie contains. As we follow Nev down this foreign rabbit hole, it becomes apparent by the audience's reaction, and the subsequential reality TV show, that this is not a unique occurrence- the lines between the virtual and real world are almost nonexistent. Videogame theorists have attempted to analyze this notion of real versus virtual worlds and how they shape our identities and space. In 'Live in Your World, Play in Ours': The Spaces of Video Game Identity, Sheila Murphy examines the relationship between the televisual space and game space. She considers how the identity and identification of a gamer is related to videogame space and how various elements of real space and virtual space alter ones perception of both the character and gamer. In the famous concluding scene of Catfish, Vince, Angela's husband discusses the notion of human-catfish and how they "keep you on your toes. They keep you guessing, they keep you thinking, they keep you fresh," This can also be applied to videogames, as they force players to make quick decisions through puzzles, foes, and storyline. Even though Catfish was a commentary on the blurred lines of online and real interactions through social media, the themes and filmic techniques used in the documentary allude to game theory in the sense that, like video games, reality isn't left behind in virtual worlds- it is reformatted. 

Murphy discusses this notion of one's desire to escape or transcend mundane reality is a theme depicted through countless science fiction texts. In the majority of these texts, it is the screen or virtual reality interface that allows the characters to do this, providing them with a risk free environment to embody another being. In this sense, the screen is a sort of barrier between the real world and the virtual world, allowing for physical safety in extreme situations. Video games, being seemingly limitless and fantastical, where players get to be immersed in places that would usually be unobtainable and become characters that have the abilities they can only dream of, enable players to do this from the safety of their homes. As a result, it is easy to associate screens, in general, with a safety net. 

While it seems surreal, we live in a science fiction world. Even though we do not have flying cars or easy access to outer space, the Internet itself is a magnificent entity. Within seconds, I have access to thousands of webpages about the cold war, can showcase my location to the world, and can turn in this essay from miles away. Of all of these, it is social media that has impacted our everyday lives the most and has perpetuated a new era of social interactions. With nothing but a picture, biography, and a handful of 'friends', it is possible to create an approximation of your actual personality- or an avatar. Once using the built in interface of posting, liking and commenting, suddenly the digital version of yourself, looks legit. 

This is exactly what Angela Pierce did when deciding to embody someone else in order to begin a romantic relationship with Nev. In conjunction with the Facebook interface, Angela not only had to create a profile for 'Megan', but also for her friends and family. In this real life 'game', the objective was to appear as real as possible and Angela achieved this through the controlling of her 'avatars '. According to Murphy, early discourse surrounding virtual and digital identities and technologies "often triumphed the virtual as a realm of the 'technological sublime'- in a cyberspace that was untainted by the social realities and inequalities of class, race, and gender," (Murphy, 225). But in actuality when entering the game space, the avatar and the body merge to become the player-character. 

Ultimately, Angela looses the game when her real world and virtual worlds collide. In conjunction to examining virtual worlds, Murphy explores how certain aspects of video games break immersion and make one conscious of the physical space around them. Murphy is interested in the role of the controller, which is used both as the umbilical cord between the player and character, and as the object that evokes physicality through haptic feedback in order to 'mirror' the actions in the video game. Murphy states, "force feedback motors are designed to make the virtual experience of games more immersive, yet when I play, instead of feeling like I am drawn more deeply into the game, I also notice how the game is spilling outside of its digital space and onto the physical space in which I play," (Murphy, 230). Nev's sudden appearance mirrors this, as he causes a sudden tremor in her real life. She now has to physically respond to the actions in this 'compatible game', as her game is literally unfolding before her eyes. The bleed between her virtual game and real life is apparent in her initial reaction to Nev's presence, where she never discusses her appearance, Abby's indifference to Nev and, in turn, creates more lies about having cancer in order to create sympathy for herself. In a sense, it takes her some time to figure out that she has lost the game and essentially, due to the real life nature of the situation, there are no re-dos.

 Appropriately, digital innovation has taken a new perspective, where we can now communicate globally, without even leaving our homes. Through social media networks and online video games, people are now able to create depictions of themselves virtually. The manipulation and misleading that is prominent in virtual communities can be traced back to this notion of anonymity. In terms of Catfish the film and the television show, I found that the people who were generally 'catfishing' weren't trying to do so in a malicious way. What is interesting that these people weren't necessarily bold or outgoing in real life- the kind of qualities you would expect in a person who would fabricate such a story. They usually don't take risks in their own life (which can be seen through Angela's dreams of becoming a dancer), but they are able to make this ridiculous leap because real life human interaction wasn't involved. What we often forget concerning online interaction or roleplaying is while the virtual is nonphysical, we are essentially living and playing in the same world. 

Work Cited 

Catfish. Dir. Ariel Schulman. Universal Studios Home Entertainment, 2011. 

Murphy, S. C.. "'Live In Your World, Play In Ours': The Spaces Of Video Game Identity."Journal of Visual Culture (): 223-238. Print.

-ACJ

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Ethical Considerations in “Empathy” Interactive Media

In this article, I will describe and analyze ethical considerations of consent and integrity in “Empathy” Interactive Media, in which I include the trending pseudo-genre “Empathy Games.” 

Emotion researchers generally define empathy as the ability to sense other people’s emotions, coupled with the ability to imagine what someone else might be thinking or feeling. Merriam Webster defines empathy as the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another without having these things explicitly communicated. 

Regarding “Empathy Games,” Georgia Tech professor Ian Bogost simultaneously validates the initiative while acknowledging that the genre may be redundant. 

Empathy is at play anytime someone feels for the perspective of a character, whether in a book, movie, or game. Rather than in a book of film, empathy in games is “about the decisions you can make and what if feels like to be inside the logic of that other individual’s life.” This cognitive attention to the requisite mundane in a character’s life is of special interest to Bogost. 

However, while segmenting Empathy Games off from other games may point to a gap in the current market, it may not be helpful in the long run: 

"You don’t turn on the television and go to the empathy channel so you can watch the empathy shows. It’s just assumed that empathy is baked in to these media. Good works would provide empathy, and bad works would fail to. We’re trying so hard to respond to this trivialization of games that perhaps we’re overcorrecting in a way."

Selling “Empathy Games” alongside mainstream games in online marketplaces diversifies the voices represented and validates all of these forms of gameplay. 

The genre Empathy Games is, hopefully, a short-term tag for the earliest trend towards diversifying voices in games. 

I lump Empathy Games in with Empathy Experiences, because all of these are geared towards the player understanding the perspective of someone else on an emotional level in a number of ways: 

1. See through the protagonist’s eyes rather than seeing the whole system. (This is the distinguishing point between Empathy Games and Serious Games).

2. Adapt a real-life experience to the digital realm, through autobiography, biography, research and adaptation, journalism, intervention, and/or co-creation. 

3. Fidelity is to the authenticity of this experience (not to be confused with accuracy - e.g. a fictional adaptation could prove more authentic than an accurate first-person account) rather than pandering to perceived player pleasure-seeking behavior. (This point is where “Serious Games” got their name).

There is no question that diversifying the voices present in mainstream media is important. Whether or not compartmentalizing “Empathy” Games and Interactive Media is helpful to that remains to be seen. In the meantime, I will outline some of the pros and cons of the following approaches to Empathy Interactive Media: Autobiographical, Biographical, Immersive Journalism, and Intervention / Co-Creation.

In that order, these approached progress away from a primary source (first-person, autobiographical account). Curiously, the examples I’ve chosen to analyze exemplify a correlating trend towards social action in the real world (as opposed to simply the digital interactive media / game). Both of these progressions require an ethical component: 

1. Consent: As the storyteller progresses away from the subject of the story, consent becomes increasingly important. 

2. Integrity: As the designers increase claims for social action, the quality and follow-through of this action becomes increasingly important, not just to the aesthetic value of the digital media work, but to it’s ethical worth as well. 

The works I happened to study turned out to be, in my opinion, exemplary. My critique is more along the lines of pointing out best practices rather than policing. 

Autobiographical 

The following examples have been cited in the news as Empathy Games. They are autobiographical: created by teams of 1-5 people, about experiences that the core creator(s) went through or were going through at the time. 

Anna Anthropy created Dys4ia as a journal game about the six months of her life when she began hormone replacement therapy.

Nicky Case created Coming Out Simulator about his journey of coming out to his conservative parents. 

Ryan and Amy Green created That Dragon, Cancer about loving their young son Joel through his heartbreaking battle with cancer. 

Llaura dreamfeeel created Curtain about her own experience with the complexities of an emotionally abusive relationship.

One could argue that consent in autobiographical works is carte blanche, yielding the most intimate and truthful account of a story. One caveat to that is that not all storytellers are necessarily in the position to give themselves consent to tell their own story. For example, minors or the mentally ill may consent to autobiographical disclosure and regret it later. Additionally, each person has a blind spot. You may notice that, in autobiographical works, especially by young voices, the storytellers present the worst version of themselves. I believe that this is because humans more easily remember the bad, and they forget the virtues they called upon to carry themselves through. 

That said, all of these examples have achieved consent in my eyes. The case of That Dragon, Cancer is a unique one, with central character Joel being an infant. Creators Ryan and Amy Green delve into this question of consent in their documentary, Thank You For Playing. Amongst the countless micro-decisions this couple made to love and honor their son Joel was the decision to include his laugh in the game, but not his cry. 

Across the board, these works emulate integrity, notably because the bar the creators have set is a modest one: self-expression. These creators are artists before they are activists. 

Of her experience with an abusive relationship, Llaura dreamfeeel tells Polygon, “Making Curtain helped me process a lot of that." In their documentary, Ryan and Amy Green poignantly relate that upon learning of their infant’s cancer, they didn’t know how to process it. They didn’t know what to do other than what they do, which is make games. 

In the case of autobiographical works, the press-created title “Empathy Games” may actually do more harm than good by giving gamers a false sense of social action that balloons past their actions within the digital game itself. Anna Anthropy is outspoken about how players of her game have not walked in her shoes, and do not know what it feels like to be her. Nicky Case chalks his game up to expression and narcism, but he does not self-identify as making empathy games. Green says that "games, of all mediums, should reflect life,” but does not identify with forging a new genre.

Llaura dreamfeeel tells Hunt & Gather that Empathy Games are problematic. “You can’t play a game and understand totally what it means to be somebody, like ‘I’ve ticked off the box, like a bucket list of things, like you don’t have to consider their point of view anymore.’ [But] it’s definitely a very powerful way of expressing stuff, and it does help people to consider other people’s experiences.” 

I personally feel that autobiographic works are the ideal path to diversifying voices in games. Time and again, the uniqueness of the perspective, the level of detail, the emotional acuity to complex situations, the passion to follow-through - all of these contribute to making truly remarkable works of art. Not just that, but the works serve as a transformative agent for the creators to grow, and create more remarkable works. But the personal investment in these works is a precious metal, and like a well-meaning alloy, the term “Empathy Games” degrades them by overcomplicating their moment of resonance victimizing their performance in the marketplace, as if these games need to be perceived as charity in order to be noticed. 

Biographical

Papers, Please casts the player as an immigration inspector running a checkpoint to control the flow of people entering the fictional Arstotzkan from Kolechia using traveller documents and the Ministry of Admission's inspect, search, and fingerprint systems.

This War of Mine provides a fictional experience of war through the eyes of a group of civilians trying to survive in a besieged city.

I’ve categorized these games as Biographical because, while they are fictional, they are adaptations of real-world systems and events built upon a foundational combination of research, interviews, and first-hand experiences, albeit in the role of “onlooker” or “opponent” rather than the game’s protagonist. 

Papers, Please has relatively little online documentation about its making. On its making, sole creator Lucas Pope tells VG 24/7:

“I wanted to show that in politics, all sides of any kind of issue have some justification. There’s not just the good guys and the bad guys – even the bad guys have some justification for why they want to do something.”

Pope says that the experience of losing his passport in a foreign country cued him into the other side of what is otherwise a frightening experience: 

“They see a thousand of you a day. You’re a real person, but from their perspective it’s just like an anomaly that they’re worried about. They’re scared you’re going to do something wrong, they can’t verify your identity or they’re being really extra careful... This was one of the things I tried to capture in the game, this kind of ambiguity and this vagueness to everything, not knowing for sure what anybody is saying is true and not knowing who to trust.”

While the game gives off the impression of a soviet dystopia, Pope relates that it is more a collection of tropes that intentionally avoid being entirely Eastern European:

“I worked pretty hard to make it so it wasn’t specifically anything. Anytime there’d be something that would nail it down as Soviet or ‘this is definitely the Berlin Wall’, I would leave it out.”

Pope expertly walks the line of grounding this experience in reality, while making it widely relevant to anyone who’s gone through any sort of checkpoint. Because Papers, Please is not explicitly based on a real person, place, or event, the game does not require consent. Additionally, Pope is careful to frame the goals of this game as expressing his view of this type of political system. Pope does not call Papers, Please an “Empathy Game” or make any claims to social action. Therefore, Papers, Please satisfies its avowed goals simply in the fact of its commercial success; it has integrity. 

11 Bit Studios more closely based This War Of Mine on the real-world events. Wikipedia states that “The game was inspired by the poor living conditions and wartime atrocities that Bosnian civilians endured during the 1992-96 Siege of Sarajevo, the longest city siege since World War II. 

Game Designer Pawel Miechowski told Kotaku that 11 Bit began work on the game after Miechowski's brother, the company's CEO, came upon an article called "One Year in Hell" by a guy who supposedly survived a siege in Bosnia, possibly in Sarajevo. Miechowski says:

"I'm not even sure if the article is real or not, I cannot find the author. It doesn't even matter. It was so devastating to read about those horrible conditions and we were like, 'We are making a game about it.'"

Also with Kotaku, Miechowski discussed the Warsaw Uprising in World War II, and Aleppo, the largest city in Syria. Although This War of Mine is not explicitly set in any real world event or city. Miechowski says, "I want you to feel it could happen to your country, your city, anywhere.” 

While this ambiguity similarly absolves 11 Bit Studios from needing to acquire consent or satisfy fidelity to a real-world event, the team conducted research and numerous interviews of survivors of the Siege of Sarajevo. 

Neither Pope nor 11 Bit Studios self-identify with the label “Empathy Game,” although their games are the media darlings for this budding genre. Unlike the above autobiographical works, these biographical examples lack real-world subjects empowered to recoil at the media’s claim that these games are giving gamers the experience of running a checkpoint in a fascist country, or the experience of trying to survive war. If they did, I suspect these games would not make such tidy poster children for “Empathy Games.”

Immersive Journalism (Nonny de la Pena: Project Syria, Gone Gitmo, Hunger in Los Angeles)

Nonny de la Pena began as a print journalist and then became a documentary filmmaker. She merged these interests to create immersive journalism in VR. She begins with audio that was captured on scene. Then she recreates photorealistic models of the scene and people in VR, based on real images of people on the scene. Her stated intention is to help people understand how difficult the circumstances are so they can thing about what change they can bring about.

This audio interview with Nonny from the Silicon Valley Virtual Reality Conference & Expo sheds light on her thoughts on empathy (17:32). Nonny essentially states that VR has a greater ability to evoke empathy than any other medium. She states that participants experiencing Project Syria had a greater propensity to follow up with the issue and to donate. I could not find data to back up the credibility of these claims for social action, but on the other hand, I’d argue that current data collection methods aren’t sufficient to prove causality between a VR experience and a propensity for related social action over an extended period of time. Perhaps in this instance, the best proof of integrity is user and subject testimonials. I wish these testimonials were more readily available. Currently, my indicator that Pena’s work has met its stated design goals is that these works continue to be shown at festivals around the world. 

Because the context of Journalism is distinct from Activism, I think Nonny’s work shines as an example of Immersive Journalism rather than faltering as an example of shoddy activism. However, to me, the practice of using news footage to no holds barred recreate virtual 3D representations of real people, using their voices and factual experiences to heighten the empathy factor for VR players, is wanting. Maybe it’s because the people in the footage are unlikely to know what VR is. Maybe it’s because the huge teams constructing these experiences were not at the scene of the event, unlike the photographer of a video or image, who took some risk to be there. Whatever it is, with regards to consent, it feels to me like the process of creating these Immersive Journalism experiences should be more akin to constructing a memorial museum than making headlines.

Intervention / Co-Creation 

Here I focus on an example that is both Intervention (physically intervening in a real world event) and co-creation (radical collaboration towards creation). While these two methods do not need to be paired, Project Daniel does so effectively. 

The Not Impossible Labs crowd-sources real problems from around the world and then crowd-solves those problems to make them accessible to all. Project Daniel centers on Daniel, a child in the Sudan who lost both of his arms at age 14 in a bombing.  World News covered his story. I was not able to find the original article, but here is a picture of it. Apparently, the news stated that a tree saved Daniel’s life, but that Daniel wish it hadn’t. 

Not Impossible Labs co-founder Mick Ebeling saw this article and was motivated to help. He describes thinking of a 14-yr-old Daniel who felt life was not worth living. He outlines the bigger picture for Intel: “Daniel is just one of 50,000 amputees left in the wake of the bloodiest war Africa has ever known.” The Not Impossible Labs mission is to help many by helping one. Mick Ebeling describes his process as first committing and then figuring out how to do it. Ebeling committed to 3D print arms for Daniel. 

Ebeling’s brand of co-creation is so effective because the goal is to help a person rather than an issue. The person-centric approach both streamlines the design process of defining the problem, implementing a solution, and measuring success. This human-centric approach also fuels biopics that successfully galvanise support for the subject, the project, and the labs. Both co-founders of Not Impossible Labs have a background in film. “Project Daniel” won 5 Cannes Lions awards in 2014. The human-centric approach strategically condenses an overwhelming issue to a dramatic performance of heroism, collaboration, and world betterment. Critical acclaim and populous support are critical to the lifelines of Not Impossible Labs: sales of Mick Ebeling’s book, donations to the foundation, and the free contribution of specialised skills from doctors, scientists and techies to implement design solutions.

The better part of Not Impossible Labs’ “poster children” for DIY tech solutions suggest a strong level of consent to this level of marketing one’s image and story to represent an issue (rather than, say, Daniel’s interest in singing). Project Daniel is an outlier in that Daniel was unaware of being the “chosen one” until Mick was there, in the Sudan, with a truck packed with computers and 3D printers and a small film crew. As a 16-yr-old, what consent did Daniel supply to this plan? How did he feel about becoming internationally known for overcoming his amputee status? Having never been outside of the Sudan, much less to film festivals, how was he informed of what “consent” would mean? Mind you, I believe Daniel is portrayed as a hero (rather than a victim). But it’s notable that the consent involved in Daniel’s picture being taken by the World News does not necessarily translate to Project Daniel. DIY co-creative technicians especially must think deeply about what medical ethics means in a project like this. 

Ultimately, the saving grace of Project Daniel is its integrity. Not Impossible Labs delivers far beyond their stated goals to provide Daniel with arms. They delivered a computer lab and 3D printers to Daniel’s village, taught members of the community how to use them, and as of this year, Ebeling says the village is still printing an arm a week. This means that Not Impossible Labs must be offering a great deal of tech support, replacement parts, and maintenance in the long-term. The Not Impossible Labs seems to be leveraging the best of human stories and co-creation to start a movement. That kind of commitment is worthy of the praise of ethical thinkers such as Deepak Chopra: 

“This is the template for a new science of consciousness. Mick Ebeling sees impossible as just a word for something not yet done. Read his book. Think like him. Then do the impossible.”

Conclusion

Grounding Interactive Media works in real world experiences is powerful. It only makes sense that Games and Interactive Media should, like many other art forms, represent a range of perspectives comparable to the range of voices on earth. Autobiographical, Biographical, Immersive Journalism, and Intervention / Co-Creation are a few approaches. Each holds unique merits and challenges with respect to gaining consent and emulating integrity. None request or require a special “Empathy” title, as the hope is that interesting and unique voices in games and interactive media will be the norm rather than the outlier. However, this complicating trend of “Empathy” labelling is more readily problematic for the autobiographical category, whose subjects are empowered to oppose the assertion that gamers have walked in their shoes simply by playing a game. The issue here has nothing to do with these works, it has to do with misguided press setting false expectations. 

-ATL3Y

References

Articles: Empathy Games: Birth of a Genre?, Empathy Games Don’t Exist), Why Empathy is the Next Big Thing in Video Games

Documentary Films: That Dragon, Cancer

Games (partially) Played: Dys4ia, Coming out Simulator, Curtain, Gone Home, Papers, Please, That Dragon, Cancer, This War of Mine

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Virtual vs. Real World & MMOs

In Virtual Worlds Don't Exist: Questioning the Dichotomous Approach in MMO Studies, Vili Lehdonvirta, exemplifies the problems in reading real worlds and virtual world as two separate entities, concluding that in actuality, there are no boundaries that separate virtual worlds from real ones. Lehdonvirta's main aim is to critique the prevailing dichotomous real word vs. virtual world approach when examining MMO gaming or more specifically, massively- multiplayer online games. She explores the many dimensions of this model including space, economy, identity, relationships and laws and exemplifies the many problems this model has, when examining these online communities in order to commentate on real life. Using Anselm Strauss's concept of overlapping social worlds, Lehdonvirta demonstrates how "the world of players does not respect the boundaries of an MMO server, as it frequently flows over to other sites and forums," (Lehdonvirta, 1) and how the interactions of gameplay online can mirror real life. Lehdonvirta sets up her argument by presenting various approaches in analyzing real world vs. virtual worlds. Most notably, she discusses the "magic circle" theory, which refers to the boundaries enclosing the virtual world from the outside world. Lehdonvirta explores many different variations of this theory that include viewing virtual worlds as "synthetic doubles" or doppelgangers of our own worlds as opposed to placing them side-by-side using the notion of 'activity' and 'play' as a framework. 

Using past arguments set up by Huizinga, Salen/Zimmerman, and Castronova, Lehdonvirta breaks down the model into subsets and aims to examine its flaws and challenges. When discussing the notion of 'space', she presents the ambiguous and multi-faceted virtual world space and acknowledges the many bleeds (on and offline) MMOs can have. In regards to 'identity', Lehdonvirta debunks the idea that virtual and real world identities are completely separate and explores the idea that experiences both on and offline can shape someone's identity in the real world or on other virtual worlds. In terms of 'population' Lehdonvirta finds the study of virtual population deceptive as "the amount of play that qualifies as 'active participation', ...depends on the specifics of that service in question (Lehdonvirta, 5). Similar to separating on and offline identities, the 'relationships' created in the two 'juxtaposing' worlds are not easily distinguishable. 

When analyzing the models of institutions, economy and law, Lehdonvirta points out stark similarities that mirror our own institutions, economy and law. Essentially, virtual world institutions don't necessarily only persist online, our real world global economy can directly effect virtual world economies, and the laws set up in the virtual world use real world laws in order to create their own. She proposes that when using the virtual-real world model one must account for these blurred boundaries between virtual worlds vs. other virtual worlds, virtual worlds vs. social worlds, and the virtual worlds vs. real worlds and concludes in actuality there are little to no boundaries to account for. Using Lehdonvirta's critique of this model, I aim to analyze the game Left4Dead 2 as a case study in order to conceptualize her analysis in term of online FPSs. 

Left4Dead 2 is a cooperative first-person shooter (FPS) that was released by Valve on its Source engine in 2009. When Valve announced its gameplay interface 'Steam', where online users could not only buy and play games, but could also create profiles, groups and 'friend' people, Left4Dead was introduced as one of the top games on the Steam client. Even though Left4Dead is not an MMO, it shares a lot of the qualities that makes a MMO a massively multi-player orientated game with it cooperative structure. Just how MMOs allow varying degrees of interaction with other players, Left4Dead gives its players options to play alone, with computers and with other players from across the world, but essentially there is a heavy emphasis of cooperative gameplay that is built into its own coding. Because of its bounding connection to its client, the Left4Dead world includes both the actual gamespace and the Steam space. It is both of these spaces combined that I am able to use Lehdonvirta's restored model to analyze a 4=person cooperative game.

In the case of Left4Dead, the boundaries of virtual and real world spaces and identities are almost nonexistent. Because Steam is the basis on which players interact through the games, there are distinctive bleeds from interacting with users in game and interacting with them through the Steam interface. While Left4Dead allows players to voice and text chat when playing, the Steam interface also accounts for similar but more complex interactions beyond the game. After playing a series of games, Steam makes it easy to find other users that you've played with, friend them, see what other games they play, what groups they are part of, where they are from, how many hours they're on steam and most importantly, message them. When messaging a person through Steam, you are clearly not chatting as an avatar in the game but as a gamer, and this can also be applied to interactions in game. Because users play as the same four preset characters in Left4Dead, there is a sort of detachment from playing as characters (in the case of MMOs) and playing as other gamers. It is for these reasons that spaces of real and virtual worlds exist in one codependent world and the same could be said for real vs. virtual world identity. 

Similar to world spaces, the identities of gamers in Left4Dead and in the real world are ambiguous due to the rules set up by the producers. As I mentioned before, players are able to choose from 4 built in characters in Left4Dead. These characters have their own names, and implied back-stories. There is no way to customize these characters in any way but what is interesting is when the characters talk with each other, they refer to their teammates is their given names, but when players talk, they refer to that person as their username or if they know them in real life, their actual name. This is a distinct example of the non-existent boundaries of virtual game worlds and the real worlds. In the case of Left4Dead, the agencies of its players do not rely on game immersion with narrative or characters but in game cooperation with other players. 

While Left4Dead does not have any economic infrastructures; virtual institutions, relationships and laws exist in the game world, virtual world and real world. Similar to MMO guilds, Steam's abilities to 'friend', create groups and overall communicate with other players, breeches the boundaries from game to virtual worlds but is also perpetuates the destruction of virtual to real world boundaries in regards to player relationships, institutions and laws. Going back to my initial case study presented in my introduction, prejudice and harassment is very prominent in the online gaming communities and Left4Dead is no exception. It is without a doubt that the player's own personal beliefs about race, sex, or politics bleeds into the gaming world. This can be seen through the types virtual harassment that persists in Left4Dead. As a female, I have been kicked out of games just because I talked into my microphone. I have also witnessed racist comments about Rochelle the only female character who happens to be African American that are directed at the player but not necessarily congruent with whom that player actually is. But virtual laws are in place in order to combat harassment in Left4Dead. The notion of voting uses a democratic framework where a player can propose an idea to other players and a vote is initiated-majority vote always wins. Voting is used when 'kicking' players, restarting a level or changing the difficultly but similar to our democratic law, there are flaws in that system. 

A text that has resonated with me through out my media studies career is from Natalie Zemon Davis, a cultural theorist that focuses her work by looking at how communication shapes past and present societies. When investigating communication, she emphasizes that it is important to first "supplement thematic analysis of texts with evidence about audiences", which can provide context for the meaning and uses of online interaction in our society; and second: consider communication "not merely a source for ideas and images, but as a carrier of relationships,"(Davis, 66). According to Lehdonvirta's analysis, this carrier of relationships spans from real worlds to virtual worlds and vise versa. This can be seen by examining both gameplay interfaces, and user interactions within, and beyond the game world. 

Lehdonvirta, Vili. "Virtual worlds don't exist: Questioning the dichotomous approach in MMO studies." Game Studies 10.1 (2010).

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Women in Gaming: Tropes vs. Stereotypes

In conjunction with discussing narrative plot devices and the hero’s journey, I would like to discuss female character’s role in these video game narratives, namely the ‘damsel is distress’ trope. The damsel in distress is a plot device widely used in narrative based texts in which a female character is place in a dangerous situation where she cannot escape on her own and must be rescued by the male protagonist. Used as the motivator for the hero's quest or to perpetuate and broaden male character emotions, this trope is widely accomplished by a kidnapping of a family member, or love interest. Just as the damsel in distress became the token choice for the growing film industry in the early 20th century, this character trope provided an easy and successful plot device that has and still is used in countless video game titles. Probably the most iconic and quintessential of these characters is Princess Peach from the beloved Super Mario Bros franchise. Derived from a character originally called 'The Lady', Princess Peach is featured in 14 of the core Super Mario Brothers games and is kidnapped in 13. In the only game where she is not the damsel in distress, Peach is actually a playable character but it is important to note that the game was a redesigned and reskined Japanese game that required four playable characters. What is interesting is that this game featuring Princess Peach was released in 1988 and since then, Peach has never been a playable character and instead is replaced by another Toad when the game required four characters, robbing her of a chance to be her own hero. This burglary is also exemplified by the game Star Fox Adventure, staring Fox McCloud in a daring adventure to save the beautiful Krystal who is trapped in a crystal prison for the majority of the game. What makes Star Fox Adventure a key example when examining the damsel in distress trope is that Fox's adventure was originally Krystal's. In the original game named Dinosaur Planet, Krystal was one of two playable protagonists that was charged with saving the world by traveling through time and fighting monsters with her magical staff. 'The tale of how Krystal went from protagonist of her own epic adventure to passive victim in someone else's game illustrates how the Damsel in Distress trope disempowers female characters and robs them of the chance to be heroes in their own right, " (Sarkeesian). While Fox got an entire game dedicated to his adventures, Krystal got a new makeover with more makeup and a skimpier outfit , making her the object of Fox's attention. 

This object/subject relationship is usually coupled with this notorious trope in order to create highly sexualized characters that are specifically designed for the male gaze. By framing the damsel in distress as a hopeless character that in many games cannot even so much as move, female characters literally become the protagonist’s possession. "These women were firmly encoded within a male gaze - Dead or Alive had a notorious setting which allowed a player to change the extent to which each avatars' breasts bounced during combat, for example," (MacCallum). This example exemplifies how this objectification of female characters is not only used in narrative tropes, but in the coding itself. Even if video games feature female characters as the protagonists, these characters can still inhabit that stereotypical traits allotted to women. But this is not to say that these characters don' have redeeming qualities. For example, in fighter games when female characters are introduced they are usually fan favorites not only for their body image and costume but also for their enhanced abilities to be more user friendly, accurate, and appealing to players who are not as familiar with the gameplay. 8 The main reason why Lara Croft is so widely discussed both in academia and fan culture is because of her dichotomous abilities to be both appealing to male and female gamers. According to Helen W. Kennedy " The featuring of Lara Croft as girl power icon and cover girl for The Face magazine – where she is compared to both Yoda and Pamela Anderson – demonstrated the success of the marketing campaigns and signaled her penetration within a wider cultural landscape" (Kennedy). Even though Lara Croft could be seen as the object for the male gaze, she is also the subject of her own story, breaking this narrative trope but only to a certain extent. 

While female characters don't always exhibit these character flaws, the damsel in distress trope usually takes away the agency of the female character. Anita Sarkeesian exemplifies the real world problems with this trope when stating: 

“Narratives that frame intimacy, love or romance as something that blossoms from or hinges upon the disempowerment and victimization of women are extremely troubling because they tend to reinforce the widespread regressive notion that women in vulnerable, passive or subordinate positions are somehow desirable because of their state of powerlessness. Unfortunately these types of stories also help to perpetuate the paternalistic belief that power imbalances within romantic relationships appealing, expected, or normal.” 

Seeing this trope in countless different games that span across many genres sends a message to its players about the roles of women in our society. The media shapes our society just as much as we shape it, so when game developers constantly categorized female characters as inferior to the male hero, they are perpetuating the gender archetype where men are aggressive and domineering and women are reliant and subordinate and this is mirrored constantly in the online gaming communities and how gamers interact with each other. These actual fictional tropes have turned into real life stereotypes of what a 'girl gamer' is, resulting in a sexist gaming community where women are constantly put into niche categories. 

Video games are supposed be able to transport people to different places where the constraints of one's society and identity don't exist. But in actuality, the limits of our own society are brought to that space tenfold due to anonymity and characterization of female characters. Many of the comments and actions displayed in and around online gaming environments would be more unlikely to happen to a person in 'real life', but this networked and almost anonymous space has lead to many victims of prejudice and bullying by complete strangers or even teammates. The key differences between 'real world' sexism as opposed to online sexism is that once an offensive comment is said online to intimidate or bully another player, it somewhat disappears, "absolving its user of responsibility or even memory of the event," (Nakamura). This disappearing act is the reason why this issue is not widely discussed within academia, while the harsh online communities prevent this issue from being discussed by using harassment as a weapon. Essentially, game developers need to stop seeing video games as fitting into the magic circle boundaries and realize that their games can heavily influence the real world. 

MacCallum-Stewart, Esther. "Real boys carry girly epics: Normalising gender bending in online games." Eludamos. Journal for Computer Game Culture 2.1 (2008): 27-40. 

Nakamura, Lisa. Cybertypes: Race, ethnicity, and identity on the Internet. Taylor & Francis, Inc., 2002. 

Sarkeesian, Anita, dir. Damsel in Distress- Tropes vs. Women in Video Games: Part 2. YouTube (Feminist Frequency) , 2013. Web. 10 Dec 2013. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toa_vH6xGqs>.

-ACJ

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Escapism

For my presentation on addiction, I talked about hyperreality. Though we had an interesting discussion about the impact of simulated environments on the real world, what I really wanted to talk about was the validity of the simulated environment for its own sake. I understand the value of trying to have these constructed experiences have some connection with the physical reality. Still, I hope to acknowledge that there are some that are more interested in the virtual space as its own alternative space to exist in, separate from the physical reality.

With this said, I would like to begin talking about escapism. In the wikipedia page on escapism, most of the definitions are about the escape from the banality or unpleasantness of daily life. By partaking in an experience that provides a temporary escape, these problematic feelings are temporarily put aside in favor of something more interesting. While I see this as a somewhat narrow way to generalize the term escapism, it seems to capture the essence of the meaning. To further expand the meaning, I see escapism taking on two forms or two purposes. One of which is escapism as a means to achieve something greater that is not possible in reality and escapism as a means to escape reality, as seen in the wikipedia page.

Escapism as expansion

Despite the somewhat negative connotation of the word escapism, I find escapism to be a great way to allow people to expand their horizons and experience new things that are beyond the limits of reality. A person’s life and time is limited, and so are the number of experiences that can be had. I believe this type of escapism to have a large following, as it is essentially the same argument people make about why people should read books. When we read a book, watch a movie, or play a game, it is all a type of temporarily suspending the beliefs of reality to fully immerse oneself into the world that these mediums create in our minds. These worlds can be real or can be fully imaginative, but while we are immersed in the worlds, it no longer matters.

For some, partaking in a simulated reality or escapists are seen to be missing out on the possibilities of real life. However, I have to strongly disagree that the physical reality is of greater value than any imagined reality. I believe this to be a mere difference in personal preference. Both experiences are perfectly valid, real, experiences and a perceiver is free to climb either a physical mountain or virtual mountain the same way they have a choice to go outside in the rain or stay warm in bed on the weekend. One cannot make a value judgment over such subjective matters.

In response to this, I can see a counter argument being made in that a simulated experience is still not a real experience as it is engaging with a world that did not really happen, and with no consequences. Using the example of scaling a mountain, as mentioned in class, there is definitely the value of having endured a tough mountain range and finally reaching the top that is part of the experience that is expected of a person when they say that they climbed a mountain. However, that just validates one particular experiential goal for climbing the mountain. If the value of climbing the mountain was to experience the immense scale of a landscape to feel a sense of freedom and potentially the sublime, I would say that there is an argument to be made about the reality of constructed experiences.

What makes an experience real?

1) To start us off, there is the fact that technology is advancing to a point where the constructed experiences can recreate the same sensory stimulation as the real experience. There are only a finite number of sensory modalities that the human being can utilize to engage in an experience, and most, if not all, of these sensory modalities are being accommodated for in simulations. Therefore, in terms of sensory stimulation, the simulated environments are becoming increasingly indistinguishable to the physical reality. 

This idea of a simulation becoming real is an interesting parallel to the “brain in a vat”. In the concept of the brain in a vat, our existence may be mere sensory stimulations that make us perceive the outside world, that may or may not exist. For the person within the sensory experience, it is impossible to be sure whether their experiences are derived from something that is actually there. Furthermore, the Astonishing Hypothesis, discussed by Francis Crick, posits that “a person's mental activities are entirely due to the behavior of nerve cells, glial cells, and the atoms, ions, and molecules that make them up and influence them." It is not the human being directly engaging with something greater than themselves. The whole human experience can be broken down into simple neural firings that, in its sheer mass, creates an experience of great complexity. In other words, our experience of the real is all about what and how we perceive, instead of what is actually there. No matter how constructed the experience may be, once the experience is had, it is real to the perceiver. 

Though there are some theories on higher states of existence that uphold the physical reality over any other alternative state of being, it always boils down to belief. From the blog post prior to mine, it is mentioned that, “People may assume that there is an entity behind these phenomena if they find it convenient, but that entity is simply a way for us to understand the objective world, and does not really need to exist.” In this state, where it is not fully clear whether or not our physical reality is even a genuine reality, do we have a right to say that a simulated reality is not real.

*Sidenote on Consequences

In class, there was a discussion about the difference between the simulated and real in terms of the consequences of the choices within each reality. It is true that climbing a physical mountain warrants more physical consequences, but climbing a simulated mountain may have consequences within its own constructed environment. In addition, we cannot expect the same consequences to occur for both planes of existence for they are not the same experiences. The simulated mountain climbing only resembles that of the physical mountain climbing and the differing consequences between the experiences will be dictated by the differing systems each experience is built upon.

2) We never needed escapism to be realistic for it to be real. There are countless examples of how a perceiver enters into an imagined world and has fantastical adventures as things that cannot exist in daily life. This type of experience is not limited to just games, but it is also one of the major arguments teachers make to students on why they should read in grade school. Though my first point was on how technology is making the imagined become increasingly real, we never needed for anything to be real for an experience to be real for us. When reading a book, some people are capable of experiencing a fully developed world, but the only source of stimuli are the words on paper. This then begs the question of, what is actually needed for a simulated experience to be real?

The example I often fall back on to exemplify this experience is my personal accounts with playing the first Pokemon games as a child. At the time, I recall the game feeling like an epic adventure where I was exploring an expansive world with no limitations. As a child who did not have much access beyond the backyard, I was able to fulfill my curiosity and desires to explore with the game. Even though this was a mediated form of experience, for me at the time, it was as real as any other experience I could have. Returning to the game now, it no longer offers me the experience it did for me as a kid as I have become caught up on the bad graphics, lack of color, and the simple mechanics. However, this further pushes my beliefs that the only requirement for an experience to be valid and real is the perceiver’s willingness to be immersed. As long as this is fulfilled, that person can be transported to any world.

2. Escapism as Escape

So far, I have been discussing escapism as an expansion of one’s perceptual capabilities, but what about escapism for escapism sake. Overwhelmingly people believe escapism is a problem because escapists avoid real life issues. Instead of addressing and solving the problems in life, people who partake in escapism give off the impression that they are hiding. I do agree that spending time in just a simulated environment, putting off the problems of daily life can have detrimental effects as an adherence to only the simulated realm may lead to the neglect of the physical reality. When the physical body is tired, you need to rest. When the physical body is hungry, you need to eat. When the physical body is sick, you need to receive medical aid. However, in a purely conceptual, experiential sense, is it bad to escape the physical reality and exist in a simulated alternative reality?

The main pushback that I have witnessed in popular culture and from others is that the problem with existing in a simulated reality is that it is a simulation, or not real. By staying in that alternate world, the perceiver is wasting time by sheltering themselves from what is truly real and refusing to improve oneself in the reality that they eventually need to return to.

With this point said, let’s take a step back to the brain in a vat idea. With the brain in a vat theory, we aren’t even sure that our physical reality is a true reality, because it could very much be a series of simulated spaces triggered through electrical firings. The main thing that puts people at ease, or at least for myself, is the acceptance that our physical reality might be false, but it remains the truth while I exist in it. Since I chose this reality to be my reality, it does not matter whether it is real or not in an objective sense because the only true value is the value I assign to the space. Not all people will agree with my approach. For instance, in many monotheistic religions, they emphasize the value of a transcendent state of being that we cannot perceive in our materialistic world. There is no proof to prove that this level of existence exists, but it does not stop people from believing and devoting their lives to this cause.

The same can be said for people who choose to exist in a simulated reality. Like those who have chosen to believe in their physical reality or transcendent reality, escapists just chose to believe in a simulated reality. Instead of being at the mercy of daily life or some higher being, they get to construct and exist within a world of their choosing. How great is that? As mentioned previously, this may be harmful if this leads to the physical neglect of the body in the physical realm. But once these needs are fulfilled, these escapists are more self aware of their own existence than what they are given credit for, as they are consciously choosing to suspend their beliefs for the alternative world while simultaneously being aware of the existence of the physical reality.

On a final note, I would like to mention that, though I support escapism, I am not saying that all forms of escapism is good. There are certain problems that are better solved by directly confronting them as there are problems that require the assistance of a safe space to be solved. There are also a variety of different spaces that can be escaped into that can impact the perceiver positively or negatively. In the end, it comes down to the perceiver's own judgment on what they believe to be right for them, and the rest of us should have an open mind towards the various choices people make in life.

- JS

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When you can feel and think, does it matter which space you are in? This is a question I asked in my addictiveness and engagement presentation. I was hoping someone in the class can answer my question, but we talked about other questions instead so in my last blog I want to write about some of my thoughts I have about this question. (So might not relevant to games or interactive media) First of all, I would like to bring up “brain in vats” again. This is a hypothesis that Hilary Putnam in his book Reason, Truth and History in 1981:

You think you’re sitting there reading this book. Actually, you could be a disembodied brain in a laboratory somewhere, soaking in a vat of nutrients. Electrodes are attached to the brain, and a mad scientist is feeding is a stream of electrical impulses that exactly simulates the experience of reading this book… In fact, there’s no way you can prove that this isn’t so. How, then, can you justify your belief that the external world exists?  

As far as I know, in the history of philosophy the first similar case as "brain in vats" skepticism was written by Augustine of Hippo (although Augustine did not explore the idea further, as Descartes did, but merely used it to describe the relationship between God and knowledge). The point he made was the same as that made by Descartes: How can you know that all that you experience are not deceptions created by a demon as omnipotent as God? A similar question is: How do you know that you are not dreaming?

Although the average person cannot tell whether he is dreaming in his sleep without certain training, most people can tell they are not dreaming when they are awake, because the contrast between a dream and real life is very clear.

Through technological advances, this idea of skepticism also improved. Descartes put forth the demon argument: How do you know a demon is not deceiving you? With advances in biological knowledge, we learned to understand the structure of the human brain, and the scenario was restated as "a brain in vats". However, the question essentially remained the same.

Sadly, the question could not be solved. Naturally, some simplistic answers were given: Raise your left hand, and then raise your right hand. That is all.

In fact, we have no way to prove that we are not a brain in a vat, just as there is no way to prove that God exists or does not exist.

In his “Analysis of the Mind”, Bertrand Russell said:

There is no logical impossibility in the hypothesis that the world sprang into being five minutes ago, exactly as it then was, with a population that "remembered" a wholly unreal past.

Therefore, we are not trying to prove any of this; we are simply considering how we would deal with it. Russell's words, as well as Bishop Berkeley's statement that "idealism can in no way affect science", is sensible thinking.

Let us consider what it means when Bishop Berkeley said that idealism cannot even affect science. Scientific phenomena are all pre-arranged experiences and phenomena. We observe these phenomena and deduce patterns that describe them. People may assume that there is an entity behind these phenomena if they find it convenient, but that entity is simply a way for us to understand the objective world, and does not really need to exist. What truly exists is limited to what we experience. Of course in certain ways, we can say that God exists, just as we can say that the minds of others exist; but based on the principle of "Esse est percipi", our discussion ends here.

Similarly, even if we are brains in vats, what of it? Do you not eat when you are hungry? Do you not feel uncomfortable when you are sick? Do you not move your body when you want to do something? Do you not simply move your body when you want to move your body? Indeed, the “brain in vats” scenario is unfalsifiable, but it is also of little use, as are idealism and creationism. If we were to explain the world in terms of God, such as in the "Pseudo-Bible", then there would never be an end to it all. Compared with such a complicated system, it is better to assume that our way is best and normative. So, why justify your belief that the external world exists? Just raise your left hand, then raise your right hand—don’t think of yourself as a brain in a vat, it’s too much trouble.

- SXL

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Cultural Heritage & Technology

During my last presentation in class about cultural heritage and technology, I talked about a fascinating project I was involved in during my final undergrad years. 

During my Sophomore year, I was invited to be part of a Summer School organized by the Media Design Department of the Technische Universität Dresden. The weeklong workshop had 12 students from different fields and cultural backgrounds combining skills and knowledge to activate the Dresden-Damascus Room, once a reception room from a luxurious home in 19th century Damascus, Syria, and now exhibited at the Ethnographic Museum in Dresden. The goal was to find ways to bring the space to life. It was in Dresden that I met the incredible Dr. Anke Scharrahs, a conservator with a special interest in Islamic art, who’s been engaged in research and conservation of Syrian-Ottoman interiors for over 17 years. I was moved by her devotion to the preservation of Ajami rooms, and her contagious love for Syria and its people. This encounter made me reflect upon this country ravaged by a neverending war, and the horrific numbers of refugees displaced in space and time. And so my Senior Project was born. The Dresden-Damascus Room Initiative, as I called it, was initially meant to be an interdisciplinary design research and case study related to the preservation of cultural heritage through technology, an extension of our work in the Summer School, but due to time constraints, I turned it into a short documentary, From Dresden to Damascus. Working closely with Anke, I wanted to create something useful for her in her quest to redesign the museum exhibition, and to also point out the importance of preserving the life of the heritage, rather than just the artifact itself. The unexpected yet incredible positive feedback made me reflect upon the way we use technology to protect our world patrimony - are we doing our best to not just educate, but to also preserve the essence of memories and stories linked to tangible cultural heritage? How can we let people ‘touch’ the past, when artifacts need to be protected from the public for the sake of their own existence?

This project has been, for me, a chance to reflect upon the use of emerging technology to create more immersive, coherent, story-driven experiences, allowing an audience to truly come in contact with the intrinsic nature of an object and the culture it comes from. I believe it's important to find ways to revive the vibrant life of cultural patrimony through the activation of time and space, while adopting a perceptual approach to the process. I see great potential to explore the domains of virtual reality, transmedia storytelling and immersive environments. The idea is to resurrect the living essence of an otherwise static, inactive object, to allow it to be reborn in its full glory, but in a new form, letting art and technology act together as an immersive time machine.

G.G

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Streaming Games Culture

I think of games as related to theater, as players take on the roles of actors inside game systems and seeing them play is a performance which is different from the medium of playing games yourselves. 

Quoting Robert Yang, “To 'consume' a game, it is no longer necessary to play it.”

http://www.blog.radiator.debacle.us/2015/10/not-manifesto.html

Here are some statistics to support his statement: AKA the rise of the games streaming culture.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/a-new-sports-industry-is-blossoming-online-and-its-already-worth-billions-2015-05-29

http://www.reelseo.com/gaming-on-youtube/

Basically watching people play games is pretty tight.

But is it good for us, as game developers? Apparently even exposure to the masses does not translate to sales, because the demographic of those who watch and those who play are vastly different.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4F-zdpFb9I&feature=youtu.be&t=365

- DY

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TNB#7 - The Science Behind Pixar

The Museum of Science in Boston has teamed up with Pixar to make an interactive explanation of the science of animation in their current exhibit titledThe Science Behind Pixar. Honestly, I wish we could learn-by-doing like this more often and I think this model can be applied to different types of learning as well, not just math/science.

I think it is a unique power of interactivity. In class we talked about watching someone talk about doing something, watching someone do something, versus doing it yourself, versus virtually doing it. I think this exhibit walks the line since you can do the exhibit, or watch someone else do it live, but either way you aren’t having to just sit there and read about doing it or listen to someone talk about doing it which would be way more boring.

To that end, some of the portions of this exhibit have great examples of tangible and alternative controls such as the rotation exhibit where there are curves that you literally spin to see the resulting 3d object on the screen. Having faith in the tools of interactivity to teach elements of calculus to audiences of young ages is awesome! Breaking it down to the specifics of lighting, rigging, modeling, texturing as individual stations makes each station seem easy enough and not too intimidating or “pro’s only” looking. It’s just enough to empower the audience to feel not only the amount of work that goes into animation but the fact that people like themselves could become animators. Who knows, maybe once they get their feet wet with fun movies, as adults they would use modeling and animation to make tools that can enhance any other field of interest as well.

Using Pixar as a jump off point for teaching concepts is a great gateway into STEM. As a child these movies felt like magic, and I did not consider or comprehend the job opportunities that go into it. As a result, I thought calculus, physics, computer rendering etc would never play into anything I actually wanted to do. Now all I’m wanting is for there to be a play-at-home modelmaking software for the kids/newbs-of-all-ages to download for when they are at home! (I remember Windows 3D movie maker was huge for me. sadly it did not let you model, texture, rig, or light. Just place existing objects in a choice of scenes and direct the recording, choreograph the blocking, and set dialogue. That was huge into making me feel like I could write shorts and engage in narrative. But if I had some take-home version of the Pixar exhibit, I probably wouldn’t need to be learning Maya as my skillshare *shoutout yiwen*)

More info on the exhibit in this article

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Empathy in Games

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/empathy-games-dont-exist

Games, like other media, are good starting points for empathy, but they are not sufficient in of themselves. We can learn more about an experience and gain awareness of it, but playing a game only scratches the surface of other humans’ experiences. Because of this, one of my greatest fears of making media that try to raise awareness of situations is that it in the end does not affect anything.

For example, one great example of how media caused widespread recognition but failed to do anything in the end is KONY 2012. People watched the video and are moved by it, and in response they shared the video on social media and patted themselves on the back. No big changes came from people’s awareness. That is preferably not the results from making works about serious topics that need to change.

- DY

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In class today, the topic of 360 videos were briefly brought up during our discussion. Up until a couple weeks ago, I didn’t know that the technology to create these films even existed. I first discovered it on YouTube. Apparently, 360 videos have become the new fad on the video site.

What are 360 degree videos? They are a distinct type of viewing experience that allows the viewer to look 360 degrees around a set point within virtual space. In a way, it simulates virtual reality. It can be viewed with a computer, mobile device, or even a VR headset.

You can see the process of how they are created here: http://www.video-stitch.com/360-video/ .

The first 360 degree video I experienced was “Five Night’s At Freddy’s in Real Life!”. In the short, a small child is trapped in an empty arcade and is being chased by an evil “rabbit”. The first time through, I simply watched the video without doing anything. I didn’t understand what was so special about it. What was I supposed to do? Then, toward the end of the video, I noticed that there were controls in the upper left hand corner, simulating a directional pad (d-pad). I found that when I selected one of the arrows, I would be able to move around the virtual environment. It was cool, but it felt like I was controlling a security camera.

The next time I viewed a 360 degree video, it was on a smartphone and it turned out to be a much different interactive experience. There is no d-pad to look around the scene. Instead, you simply move your phone. It is a much more satisfying experience than viewing a 360 degree video on a computer.

If you are interested in viewing these videos, keep in mind that viewing a 360 degree YouTube video on a mobile device requires the YouTube App.

Below are a couple more examples of 360 degree videos.

-KTP

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I’ve always wanted to introduce a Japanese animator to you since the week that we had a lecture about computational narrative. I thought of Satoshi Kon when Steve talked about nested timelines and realities in the lecture. Satoshi was obsessed with mixing reality with virtuality, he used the format of animation and explored a series of new montage techniques:

“Kon didn’t shy away from mature subject matter or live-action sensibilities in his work, and his films will always occupy a fascinating middle ground between ‘cartoons’ and the world as we know it.”

We can find some similarities between Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream (2000) and Satoshi Kon’s Perfect Blue (1997).

Black Swan (2010) even has the same main plots Prefect Blue has: the desire for fame, wandering selfhood, aggressive ambition and repressed sexuality that lead to more integration of virtuality and reality.

In Perfect Blue, the main character, an innocent J-pop star, Mima Kirigoe took nude photos and acted in pornographies in order to become a famous actress, but because she was ashamed of herself and also felt anxious about the future, Mima broke down and she started to see another self in the mirror:

In Black Swan, Darren Aronofsky also uses mirror representing person’s confusion and the lost of self-control:

And when the mirror is broken, the “other self” will be set free:

People also compare Christopher Nolan’s Inception (2010) with Satoshi Kon’s another animation Paprika (2006) a lot. They also have a similar setting: dreams are invading reality and the main characters can enter the dreams to accomplish tasks. The details in both films are quite similar too, but Paprika focuses more on telling audiences that dreams are absurd and rational, also dreams represent people’s desires.

The young female characters touched giant mirrors, which all made the dreams broken:

The floor numbers in elevator represent different spaces:

There is a quick flashback of the characters’ memories when they enter a dream:

Zero gravity in hotels’ hallways

I can’t define Satoshi Kon as a pure animator as he was striving to combine animation and film making together for his whole life. He is more of an explorer who tried to interpret animation by using filmmaking techniques. Some people might think films are fantasies and fantasy is a lie, but I don’t quite agree with this. For me, mythology and religion are huge fantasies, also narratives are unrealistic, unscientific and irrational, but no one can deny their significance. This is also the reason why I like hand-drawn animations, it is easier for the storytellers to achieve their original intentions, and it is closer to the state of fantasy.

－SXL

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Wonderful director to bring up, and excellent examples (although I can’t tell where tribute ends here and direct copying begins - imagine if Hollywood recognized Paprika like it did Inception or Perfect Blue like it did Black Swan).

I think what’s more interesting about this director though was how he embraced what was uniquely powerful to the medium - something I’m sure we’ll see more in the future in film with more and more powerful CGI/VFX. Animation allows a unique ability to make anything look like reality, even the surreal. The first gif is a great example of this, and one of my favorite references for embracing what your medium uniquely offers. Film in the early 2000s would look incredibly artificial trying to do the same effect, but animation establishes a hand drawn world and really starts to shine when that is manipulated.

Games have a lot to learn here not only from the film and cinematography side, but from the abstract of using what the medium affords you. Great examples of this include Eternal Darkness, where a “Sanity Meter” tracks how earnest your perception of the world is. If it drops too low, your character may begin to be swarmed by nightmarish creatures or lose hope and take their own life - only to flash back into reality in a cold sweat and realize it was actually your sanity dipping to a new low. Unable to trust your own perception, your actions take on a different meaning, or might not even be real themselves.

Satoshi Kon did some incredible work, and I would love to continue to reference and see referenced his pieces throughout our time in this program. :)

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i watched Perfect Blue last night! thanks for this post - what an amazing film! it’s crazy how much Black Swan lifted from that story. 

as with Ghost in the Shell, i was a little amazed at the treatment of nudity here. is this a cultural thing? it’s weird to see a young anime character get treated like that. was the director trying to push the envelope of cultural norms or something? at the same time, she does succeed and she does get away in the end… 

ATL3Y

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Japanese people are not that averse to nudity, even for shows that are meant for children, such as below (although of course not as explicit as Ghost in a Shell)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6mwxMDO88s&feature=youtu.be&t=81

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcxcFzf9biI&feature=youtu.be&t=102