We can experience an "alternative history" in many games. In our real life, we have a history of what happened in the past, but an alternative history can be designed in many games to let you immerse yourselves in it. As we bid farewell to real urban life in games, we suddenly find that many everyday things become extremely important and we will desperately explore the world that has been destroyed, and search for these things and put them in our bags. In games like Death Stranding and Cyberpunk 2077, a bottle of purified water might be very precious! You gain a brand new relation with many of the things around you today. Through games, the ways we relate to today's world become diversified.
Video games can be seen as laboratories and even further as an upgrade of the art form. But what do video games mean to "play"? Is it an upgrade, or an entirely new approach? In the anthropological sense,"play" is very basic practice. Through games, we are enabling creative thinking.
These days there are a lot of so-called open games, in which the philosophy is that we can explore anywhere, but in fact every place we can go is pre-programmed, and every space we explore is preset. So in video games, what is cut apart is the potential of being creative and making the impossible possible brought by “play” in the anthropological sense. We have to play games in a prescribed procedural way. This is not an enrichment of "play", but a compression. Then why are we addicted to it? The secret is in the program.
Video games and everyday life are homogeneous as both evolve into a highly programmed pattern. The lovely thing about the real world is that it gives us a lot of possibilities and freedom to explore. The virtual world is programmed; the door can't be opened because there is no design behind it. But each door in the real world is real and there must be something behind it. Then why do we increasingly find the real world less fun? Because the real world and the game world are becoming more and more homogenous.
Video games can’t be classified by simple judgment. Its power is precisely the kind of power that our daily life cannot provide. Feedback in our daily life is delayed and even may not come or may be on the way. Whereas in a game, as long as you follow the instructions and the gameplay, there will be immediate feedback.
Games are worth thinking about. For example, how to re-increase the possibility of real life. We can open up our truly different possibilities for life by removing the highly programmed setting that locks things up in the first place. With the game as a reference, through the juxtaposition analysis and thinking, we can have a deeper understanding of the current world. Games don't make us do all sorts of things that go against the programmer, but in everyday life, we could be the next digital hero or the next Musk. As long as we have gameplay that opens up different possibilities and takes us to new heights, we are real heroes.
Issued on Nov. 11, 2021
Wu Guanjun, professor of East China Normal University