I’ve never truly thought about why I play video games. Now that I have, I feel dumber. The question that continually comes to mind is what makes a virtual world more engaging than a real world where things actually affect me? I guess because I can never be an NBA basketball player, but the minute I fire up NBA 2k7, there I am, crossing over Kobe and taking it to the rack. But there is a control aspect involved also. The ability to have full control over a virtual world, including the control to turn it off at any moment, is both empowering and safe. I virtual world allows me the opportunity to take risks without the consequences. I can run through the streets in Grand Theft Auto and beat up old ladies and police officers with no substantial consequence.
I think the facet of video games that is most interesting is the continual theme of good versus evil. This theme spans from virtual gaming, to the film industry, to politics, and never seems to wear itself thin. This brand of us versus them ideology has captured people’s hearts and minds throughout history. We use it in politics all the time: “You are with us or against us,” “There are evildoers who hate our freedom,” etc. If you took these Sound bits out of context and put them in the newest first-person shooter, you wouldn’t think twice about their legitimacy.

Another thought: The idea of erase-ism ties into what Stuart Hall reefers to as meaning through absence. This is the notion that what is not included in an image is just as important in conveying meaning as what is included.

Final Thought: This is one of the funniest things I have seen in a while. It is a response written on behalf of the lowest rated player in John Madden Football 07’. This is funny concept to hear the responses of the real players who are sculpted in virtual worlds. Of course, the superstars are happy they can dodge tackles and throw it a mile, but how do the 3rd stringers feel that they can’t catch a 5 yard pass?

http://www.thephatphree.com/features.asp?StoryID=3159&SectionID=2&LayoutType=1

Yesterday in class we squabbled over the nature of the panoptical surveillance, a way for authorities to use the potential for being watched to control the citizenry. This type of big brotherism is meant to multiply control and use the fear of the potentially watched to promote appropriate behavior. We brought up the nature of surveillance cameras, both dummy and real to garner a panoptical environment. This exact environment exists in London. In the 1980’s, the city of London installed a universal surveillance system with cameras on virtually every street corner meant to reduce crime and bring criminals to justice. This system has done neither according to this NPR debate from last year: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4748483

The reason I know this is because I did a documentary about the installation of domed cameras into my high school, Highland Park High School, when I was a senior. We interviewed the dean, the superintendent, and the president of the Chicago branch of the ACLU. Both the dean and the super cited safety as the number one reason for installation, but the ACLU president refuted the point citing the London system, and furthered the argument by saying that a leering sense of big brotherism is damaging for the overall morale of the students. He claimed that people would still break the rules; the cameras would simply tell them where not to do so.

According to defensetech.org, there is "very little substantive research evidence to suggest that CCTV works," the U.K.’s National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders reports. CCTV stands for close circuit television.
http://www.defensetech.org/archives/001665.html

However, the article brings up the idea of “smart cameras,” something we talked about in class when discussing Negropante. The cameras would use algorithms to decipher human behavior and alert authorities when something suspicious occurs. Then the responsibility lies with the law enforcement. Have we such little faith in the notion of good police work that we have to invent technology to prevent all crime? After all, it was police work, not “intelligence” that foiled the plotting of a terrorist attack in London.