Media Futures and New Technologies

Myst & Doom to Virtual Reality: New Media and the Future of the Gaming Industry

Table of ContentsIntroduction:.........................................................................................................................................1Key issues:............................................................................................................................................2

An Oligopoly Shattered: New Media and it's Consequences on the Structure of the Gaming Industry.......................................................................................................................................2

Doom and the development of the Prosumer within the early Game Space.....................2An Oligopoly Continues: Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft dominate the Gaming Market. 2Gaming Online; The Future of the Industry?....................................................................3Convergence within the Gaming Industry:........................................................................3

From 2D to 3D and Beyond: The Changing Aesthetics of Game Space....................................4A Society Transformed?..............................................................................................................5

“You're Pulling the Trigger”: Violence and Video Games.................................................5Future Trends in Game Content: Computer Games as Cultural Expression.....................6

Conclusion:...........................................................................................................................................7Bibliography:........................................................................................................................................7

Introduction:New media; an extension of “general human capacity” (McLuhan in Lister et al, 2003) has altered all facets of modern society.

The internet, convergence, and the “Networked Society” has altered the structure and consumer markets of the cultural industries globally, forcing the abandonment of traditional business models and practices.

The gaming industry has not been immune from global trends; new media providing a catalyst for rapid expansion of the industry; with the game genre infiltrating emerging platforms such as the internet, social media websites, and the mobile phone.

New media has had more profound impact on the nature of game content; with technological advancements encouraging the development of an increasingly realistic game space. Advancements in aesthetics, have transformed the gaming experience – “distant and abstract” interaction with the screen transformed into embodied “play” within a virtual environment indistinguishable from reality.

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Key issues:

An Oligopoly Shattered: New Media and it's Consequences on the Structure of the Gaming Industry

Doom and the development of the Prosumer within the early Game SpaceCollaborative authorship has defined the development of great projects throughout history (Manovich, 2002), and the 1993 video game “Doom” proving no exception to this trend. Developed by id software1, Doom was to “transcended the usual relationships between producers and consumers” (Manovich, 1998) by allowing players to actively contribute to the content of the game2. Conforming to “hacker tradition” (Lister et al, 2003), distributed solely as shareware, Doom presented a momentous shift away from traditional forms of game development and distribution.

The adoption of the gaming sphere to new media forms, specifically the internet, resulted in traditional conceptions of “gamer” and “producer” being altered. In many ways, Doom “pioneered multiplayer gaming over networks, online distribution and an open architecture that promoted user modifications” (Grossman et al, 2004), a trend which continues into the present (Ip, 2008). Thus, as the digital age dawned, the focus of the gaming industry was altered; users becoming increasingly influential in the development of game content.

An Oligopoly Continues: Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft dominate the Gaming MarketDespite the convergence phenomenon associated with digitalised media having profound impacts on the gaming industry; three main companies, Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft continue to dominate the production of software and consoles for domestic use. Within the Australian context, 2011 figures herald Nintendo as the industry leader3, with 22% market share (Shulman, 2011).

Major companies have dominated the industry since it's inception in the 1970 (Ip, 2008), and despite rapid industry growth4, few independent software or console manufacturers enter the global market annually5. The gaming industry; once defined by small firms like id software, has been transformed; the contemporary industry dominated by three major firms, and their respective product, the XBox, Playstation and Wii.

Despite dystopian visions of the continued commercial dominance of these firms in the age of digitalisation – “the implication of the oligopolistic nature within the game industry is expected to deepen in the advent of digital convergence” (Ip, 2008) – independent game development companies continue to exist; approximately 50 companies existing in contemporary Australia (GDAA, 2011).

1 A small Texas based video game development company2 When id software released the original Doom, they also made descriptions of the game file formates and game

editor available to players (Manovich, 2002)3 A position Craig Shulman attributes to the introduction of the Wii and the altering demographic of the industry; 45%

of gamers now believed to be female (Shulman, 2011)4 2011 figures from IbisWorld suggesting that the Australian gaming industry had grown almost 10% annually

between 2007 and 2012, with further increases in growth projected (Shulman, 2011)5 “The cost of design and manufacture alone are prohibitive, making the entry of a company without substantial

experience in electronics and gaming unlikely” (Shulman, 2011)

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The development of new media technologies has altered the commercial environment; encouraging the popularisation of independent games such as “Braid”; a 2008 game developed by Jonathon Blow with a budget of US$200,000 (Golding, 2011). Thus although the vast majority of the profits associated with the industry remain in the hands of a few (Shulman, 2011), a shift towards independent production, promotion and distribution of games remains a future prospect.

Gaming Online; The Future of the Industry?The online game space is rapidly expanding; with 60 million users of online games recorded in 2008 (Roquilly, 2011). “Gamers are always the first adopters of the latest technology” (Michael A. Dennis, professor of science and technology studies at Cornell University in Peters, 2003), thus it is unsurprising that with the development of new media gaming has extended beyond the confines of the domestic sphere.

The intense expansion of the industry both internationally – the most popular MMORPG6, World of Warcraft generating a revenue of 1 billion dollars in 2006, and 1.5 billion dollars in 2008 (Roquilly, 2011) – and domestically7 is suggestive of a growing trend within the online sphere; “play” online. Given the uncanny ability of online gaming to satisfy desires for a social experience within a virtual environment (Kolo et al, 2004), whilst simultaneously providing an outlet for creative processes – encouraging the production of fandom content (Lemke in Sherlock, 2009) and an avatar – the online gaming experience proves more satisfying than any other gaming experience which has existed previously.

Thus as four out of five internet users become members of a virtual world by 2012 (Roquilly, 2011), the gaming industry will be transformed; traditional dependence on the console replaced with a dependence on online software.

Convergence within the Gaming Industry:Traditional conceptions of what were once separate mediums – the game, film, television – have become increasingly blurred with the development of new media. The convergence phenomenon, described by Henry Jenkins as a process altering “the relationship between existing technologies, industries, markets, genres and audiences” (Jenkins, 2006), has resulted in the metamorphosis of the gaming industry; the gaming genre converged with more traditional media genres such as film, advertising and music.

Transmedia storytelling (Jenkins, 2009) is becoming the norm within the film and gaming industries; with such texts increasingly developed “side by side” to allow their respective releases to be “more coordinated” (Jenkins, 2009). The legitimate narrative of film is enriched within the game space; the interaction between the player, environment, and characters providing opportunity for further development of the existing narrative (Wallin, 2007), a conceptual framework supported by Henry Jenkins:

“Games...may more fully realise the spatiality of these stories, giving a much more immersive and compelling representation of their narrative worlds” (Jenkins, 2004)

The development of the internet, specifically Web 2.0, has altered the purpose of games; the function of the game transformed from entertainment and “play” to encouraging “junk

6 “Massively multiplayer online roleplaying games”7 “The online gaming segment of the [gaming] industry [in Australia is] … worth about $69 million in subscriptions

and up-front software purchases alone; this is up from zero revenue in 2002” (Shulman, 2011)

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consumerism” (Lister et al, 2003). In the modern commercial environment, virtual reality games or alternative reality games are often transformed into forms of viral marketing; prominent examples of which include The Beast8 and I Love Bees9 (Szulborski, 2005). Within the confines of virtual reality the imperatives of business and those of the gaming community are interchangeable; engagement with a consumer product synonymous with immersion in the game space.

As the gaming industry continues to adapt to an increasingly mutable media environment, the priorities of the industry are likely to transform. As was the case with one of the most successful games in history, Pokemon; consumption of game content will not be limited solely to game play. In the future games will expand into franchises:

“A self-referential world in which every product – every trading card, computer game, movie, cartoon and hamburger box – serves as propaganda for all the others” (Burkeman in Lister et al, 2003)

The convergence phenomenon will alter all facets of the gaming industry; expanding its reach and altering it's content.

From 2D to 3D and Beyond: The Changing Aesthetics of Game SpaceAn immersive experience within the game space is the product of realist aesthetics and gamer empowerment (Jenkins, 2007), the industries fixation on photorealism and incessant use of the point-of-view visual perspective resulting in an almost tangible experience of game space (Poster, 2007)

Market pressure for a more realistic gaming experience has defined the gaming industry since its inception (Wolf, 2003). Early games were presented as a representation of an already existing reality – with Nolan Bushnell's1972 game, Pong labelled a virtual version of a game of ping-pong (Wolf, 2003). Mark J. P. Wolf ascribes significance to this industry trend, suggesting that the initial unwillingness of game consumers to adapt to the complexities associated with the emerging medium10 resulted in an industry unwillingness to incorporate any form of abstraction into game content (Wolf, 2003).

The trend towards realism within the game space continued with the release of Doom and Myst in 1993. The “detached, abstract sort of fun” (John Carmack in Grossman et al, 2004) that had defined the video game experience to date was to be transformed with the introduction of 3D; as Paul Keegan was to report in the Guardian:

“You're not just watching a movie, you're in the movie... you're actually pulling the trigger” (Keegan, 2000 in Lister et al, 2003)

With the introduction of 3D animation the computer was transformed, becoming“a revolutionary tool: a means of self-empowerment and fantasy fulfilment” (Kushner, 2003).

Beyond the potential implications of Doom regarding behaviour (which will be discussed in latter sections of this report), the game was to alter the narrative architecture of the game space; the spatial journey of the character intrinsically linked to the games overarching narrative (Manovich,

8 A virtual reality game involving some 100,000 people that was to accompany the release of Steven Spielberg's 2001 film, “A.I. Artificial Intelligence”

9 Used to market the hugely anticipated release of Halo 2 10 The first arcade video game, Computer Space, developed by Nonan Bushnell failed to be a commercial success

because the players found the controls difficult to use and the graphic representations overwhelming

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1998). Thus with the introduction of Doom, the narrative aspiration of the contemporary video game became the exploration of 3D game space, illuminating the similarities that exist between the game and more traditional media forms (Manovich, 1998); specifically the quest genre of ancient literature (Hughes, 2010). The construction of the modern gaming narrative is suggestive of what Marshall McLuhan was to term “remediation” (McLuhan, 1968); the “electronic culture” of the gaming industry resembling more traditional media forms, an attempt to “rival or refashion” (Bolter et al, 1999) the cinematic experience.

Although labelled “new media”, the gaming genre maintains similarities to those mediums termed “old media”. Consumers now engage with gaming content in a manner that defined consumer interaction with traditional media forms (Newman, 2002), inherently limiting the industries potential to provide “revolutionary” content as a realist game space is now the industry standard (Wolf, 2003). Thus in future the gaming industry will resemble the industry of the present with improved graphics.

As Lev Manovich suggests, the video game “has not reached its Renaissance stage yet [as space is not conceived of in its] totality” (Manovich, 1998). As the development of game aesthetics continues, the distinction between reality and the game space will be diminished.

A Society Transformed?

“You're Pulling the Trigger”: Violence and Video GamesPublic insecurities have surrounded the development of video games as a popular medium, a phenomenon arising from wider anxieties concerning the status of childhood within contemporary societies (Beavis, 1998).

Violence has been an element of video game genre since the mediums inception11. However it was the 1993 release of “Doom” was to transpose the apparent link between violence and the video game onto public psyche; a popular perception which was to be reinforced by the massacre at Columbine High School in 1999 (Dapin, 2007)

As well as altering public perception of “gaming culture” – especially within developed, Western nations (Squire, 2002) – Doom irreversibly altered the content of the contemporary video game:

“In their bloody excess, programs like “Doom” and “Quake” reinvented computer gaming and gave birth to a generation of gamers who lived by the mantra that, when it came to guns, guts, and demons, more was definitely better” (Peters, 2003)

Following the release of Doom, first-person shooter games became the norm within the gaming sphere, a trend which continues to the present12.

Within the academic sphere, research into potential links between violent video games and violent behaviour have been fragmented; with fundamentally flawed research methodologies and misconceptions of the genre more generally13 resulting in inconsistent results and conclusions:

11 Ronald Regan employing the use of games in the early 1980s to create “a generation of highly skilled cold war warriors” (Squire, 2002)

12 Titles such as Doom III and Halo 2 continuing to dominate both the international and Australian game market (ABC News, 2004)

13 Kurt Squire suggests that a fundamental flaw of academic research on gaming to date has been the lack of observation of gamers “playing” as they would in everyday life: “What's missing from contemporary debate on

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“Studies generally lack any real-world evidence linking game-playing to acts of violence; they ignore broad trends that that show inverse correlations between game-playing and violent behaviour; finally, they make wild logical leaps in linking very constrained behaviours in laboratories to violent acts where people really get hurt.” (Squire, 2002)

Thus although relative consensus exists within the academic community that video games rarely encourage violent behaviour14, the public remains uncomfortable with the medium as a whole. The “immersive” nature of the medium, gamers empowered role within the narrative space (Calleja, 2007), and the “meaningless violence” (Jenkins, 2007) intrinsically associated with the medium situated within a broader cultural narrative of the potential threats to youth culture associated with digitalisation and new media forms (Beavis, 1998).

The violent content of most games has resulted in a conception that the medium resides outside the realm of popular culture, a tendency limiting the application of conclusions regarding game culture to society itself. As Henry Jenkin's records, the implications of gaming violence remain misunderstood and under researched:

“Rather than bemoaning 'meaningless violence', we should explore ways that games could not simply stage or simulate violence but offer us new ways to understand the place of violence within our culture” (Jenkins, 2007)

As Kurt Squire records, the impact of video games on contemporary Western societies has been overstated, epitomised by the decreasing levels of crime throughout much of the industrialised world (Squire, 2002). Public insecurities accompany the development of all new media forms – especially those media forms that reinvigorate visual culture – the traditional media forms of cinema and television associated with anti-social behaviours when first developed (Squire, 2002). Momentous technological change is intrinsically linked to an alteration of cultural norms; the result of which is a public fearful of the potentials associated with new media forms, a tendency well exemplified by the unfounded public anxieties which surround the video game.

Future Trends in Game Content: Computer Games as Cultural ExpressionThe concept of realism infiltrates the gaming medium; the ability of games to mirror reality assumed pivotal to a pleasurable and immersive gaming experience (Wood et al, 2004).

Thus, future gaming development will “bring an added measure of reality to the screen” (Vittoria De Sica in Galloway, 2004), the intention of post-modern games being to mirror reality in its entirety. The result of which is the development of “Video games of the Oppressed”; games such as “Special Force”15 and “Under Ash”16 (Galloway, 2004). With a focus on the “everyday struggles of the downtrodden” (Galloway, 2004), the game graphics and narrative are converted into a telling representation of the injustices that define contemporary societies.

gaming and culture is any naturalistic study of what game-playing experiences are like, how gaming fits into people's lives, and the kinds of practices people are engaged in while gaming” (Squire, 2002)

14 The opinions of Dr. Ian Lewis typical of the majority opinion within the academic sphere: “games can't be taken in isolation here. If you look at the vast majority of people that play games, be they adults or children, they will suffer no ill effects from playing games at all but people with other problems can be susceptible” (ABC News, 2010)

15 Released by Lebanese organisation Hizbullah in 200316 Released by Syrian game publisher Dar Al-Fikr

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As new media transforms the global cultural and political landscape through the popularisation of the internet, video games as a medium are also being transformed. Although the navigation of virtual space remains crucial to the cyberdrama genre (Murray, 2004), the incorporation of “realism” into the game space presents a paradigmatic shift within the industry; the purpose of gaming extended beyond “play” (Galloway, 2004).

However within the sphere of academia, prevailing opinion asserts that in future recreational gaming will be replaced with educational gaming17. Visual culture has been associated with knowledge production throughout history (Riha, 2011), thus the gaming genres requirement that players actively engage with the virtual space (Flynn, 2004) is assumed valuable to the learning process.

The conception of game space as knowledge space arises from popular psychology's fixation on the consequences of new media on the thought processes of the individual. Epitomised by Marc Prensky's “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants”, the discipline emphasises that exposure to new media (specifically devises such as mobile phones and the internet) resultes in “physical” changes to the brain (Prensky, 2001):

“Today's students think and process information fundametally differently from their predecessors” (Prensky, 2001)

As more traditional forms of education are inherently unable to provide this new generation of “digital natives” with the content demanded (Prensky, 2001); the development of educational games becomes imperative.

The result of which is the development of projects such as “The Education Arcade”; an MIT initiative that aims to create games which “promote learning through authentic and engagaing play” (Jhaas, 2008), and the use of existing games such as “Civilisation” and “SimCity” within the teaching environment (Squire, 2002).

Conclusion:Traditionally conceived of as a juvenile misogynistic medium; the video game has been revolutionised by the development of new media. The medium continues to expand rapidly; testimony to the continued significance of “play” within modern societies.

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duesseldorf.de/fileadmin/Redaktion/Institute/Kultur_und_Medien/Medien_und_Kulturwissenschaft/Dozenten/Szentivanyi/Computerspielanalyse_aus_kulturwissenschaftlicher_Sicht/WolfAbstraction.pdf

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