Big Game Hunting - Game Invaders: The Theory and Understanding of Computer Games - page 183

at GIL's activity profi ling software. Now go on to list those things that you would
expect to be able to interact with in a real car that you cannot with Driver: gears,
indicators, lights, horn, radio, doors and windows, heater, and so on. There is actu-
ally far more you can't do than you can; far, far more. In terms of driving a car, the
agency in Driver is about as simplifi ed and whittled down as it is possible to get.
Games do this all the time. We believe we are offered agency, the agency to
drive a car, but we are only given very little of it. We are given just enough to satisfy
the objectives of the game. We live in world where taking part has become more
important than just being there. Playing sports, particularly extreme sports, has
become cooler than watching it. We can't just watch wild animals on TV, we have
to go and see them, walk with them, swim with them. Making a difference, at least
the appearance of it, is not some idealistic dream for the young; it has become a
way of life for almost all. Yet if we all went off and did all the things we dreamed
of for ourselves the world would become swamped by people doing extreme sports
and making a difference in exotic locations. The world, the environment couldn't
cope! Games rely on our belief in the myth of interaction; they rely on our need,
the recent need in terms of cultural evolution, to be an individual taking part and
not just on the sidelines looking in.
When we are offered the limited form of agency that games are capable of we
accept it largely without question and in doing so we demonstrate our acquiescence
to that myth. In the very fi rst chapter we summarized Janet Murray' s characterization
of the evolution of media (Murray, 1997). In particular she identifi es the embryonic
medium where people anticipate the new medium prior to the technology itself being
available to support it. This was true for interactive digital media. There were all
sorts of electromechanical and other nondigital but interactive media developed
before computers made interactive media truly possible. The fairground in the early
to mid-twentieth century was the place you went to interact: to fi re guns, to ride
dodgems and spaceships and the house of horrors. In their very early days fi lms were
very short and you found them in amusement arcades; “What the Butler Saw” and
so on. But they were also interactive. You had to turn a handle to make the movie
move; and you could stop it when you wanted to view a single frame. There were
interactive novels, “make your own adventure” novels, where choice and chance
determined which section/chapter you read next. There were artists working with
happenings and installations that were interactive to a certain extent. Artists also
attempted to develop interactive video and such like. The need to interact has been
taking increasing hold on us as the twentieth century has progressed and turned into
the twenty-fi rst. For many people, games are the means by which they satisfy their
need to take part: a need created by their belief in the myth of interaction.
It seems that the myth of interaction arose and became accepted in western
culture perhaps a hundred years ago or more; way before the computer made interac-
tive games possible. The myth enabled the game, not the other way round. The
computer game is just one demonstration of our acquiescence to it. So another reason
people play games is that they are culturally driven to; and what big business satisfy-
ing this acquiescence, this drive, it has turned out to be.
And now, there was a question; wasn' t there?