COM 215 Media History

Outline

Video games and convergence cultureHeavy Rain

Gaming and violence Violence, Moral Panic

Games Social change

History of Video Games

Genres, Platforms, Technologies“Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device”

History of Video Games

Genres, Platforms, Technologies

History of Video Games

History of Video Games

History of Video Games

History of Video Games

History of Video Games

History of Video Games

History of Video Games

History of Video Games

History of Video Games

History of Video Games

History of Video Games

Video game graphics

convergence culture

content flows across multiple media platforms

cooperation between multiple media industries

migratory audiences in search of new entertainment experiences

convergence culture – transmedia stories

Digital games and Hollywood filmsNarrative element

Motion Pictures

Video games

Storytelling No control User control

Character development

Rounded (personality)

Flat (personality)

Interactivity Less interactive Highly interactive

User/audience skills

Interpretive motor skills, analytic skills, social skills

plot More linear Less linear

POV Third Person First Person

Character Development

yes ?

Conflict reconciled ?

Video game and Motion Pictures

Convergence How are games like films, and how are films

like games? 

Video game and Motion Pictures

Tron (1982)The first significant interface between a motion

picture and a video game.

Photorealism and narrative immersion

Heavy Rain (Quantic Dream, 2009) interactive drama four characters (Ethan, Scott, Norman,

Madison) “Origami Killer” – serial killer of children

Virtual acting• Body motion

capture• Facial capture• Voice

Video games, photorealism, and narrative

Empathy first, story second.

Violence in video games

The legacy of Death Race (Exidy, 1976)

Video gaming’s first moral panic –

“consumers readily made the connection between the game's pixilated graphics and the film's orgy of automotive violence” (Kocurek, 2012)

Pattern for future moral panic around games . . .

Legacy of Death Race (continued)

Normalized violence Challenged culturally acceptable forms of

violence

Alternatives

Spec Ops: The Line (Zombie Studios, 2012)

Gaming as a social medium

Communities at play

How are MMORPGs, virtual worlds, and online fantasy sports built around social interaction?

Gamification - Speed Camera Lottery Drivers earn $ by driving speed limit

50% of corporate innovation will be “gamified” by 2015.

Gamification (future trend) Use of game mechanics, feedback loops,

and rewards to spur interaction and boost engagement, buy-in, loyalty, fun, and/or learning

Game-like approaches to education and problem-solving

50% of corporate innovation will be “gamified” by 2015.

Social impact games

Using games to solve real world problemsturn scientific challenges into multi-

player computer gamesolved AIDS research

problem (in 3 weeks!)

Gaming and social change

Using games to save the world and solve real world problems

Gamer superpowersurgent optimismtight social fabricblissful productivityepic meaning

Jane McGonigal – we have to start making the real world more like a game.

Gaming and social change

1. Identify a real world problem you’d like to see solved

2. What game would you create to solve real world problems?