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GAMER THEORY / McKenzie Wark / Version 2.0 [Note: this text is complete except for some corrections and additions made to the final page proof.] The unreality of games gives notice that reality is not yet real. Unconsciously they rehearse the right life. -- Theodor Adorno There is an absolute in the moment of the game; and this absolute, like every reality or moment taken to the absolute, represents a specific form of alienation. -- Henri Lefebvre For Felix (and his playmates) Lude Feliciter GAMER THEORY / McKenzie Wark / Version 2.0 1 Acknowledgements 4 Agony (on The Cave )5 Allegory (on The Sims) 21 America (on Civilization III) 37 Analog (on Katamari Damacy) 53 Atopia (on Vice City) 70 Battle (on Rez) 85 Boredom (on State of Emergency) 100 Complex (on Deus Ex) 116 Conclusions (on SimEarth) 132 Cuts (list of samples) 148 Acknowledgements Firstly, I must thank all of the participants in GAM3R 7H30RY, a networked book which presented version 1.1 of this text as a pretext for comments and discussion. For version 2.0, I made many changes to the text on the basis of the comments offered there by gamers, theoryheads, media hackers and other organic intellectuals of the digital age. An edited selection of the comments pertaining directly to the text are included among the notes at the end. Secondly, I would also like to thank The Institute for the Future of the Book for hosting GAM3R 7H30RY version 1.1, and for many stimulating discussions. It would not have been half as much fun without Bob Stein, Ben Vershbow, Ray Cha, Dan Visel and Jesse Wilbur. Thirdly, I would like to thank my students at Eugene Lang College. Computer games are a key part of the shared culture from which one can begin the process as laborious as it is playful of creating a reflective and critical approach to the times. My students at Lang have been active participants in the shaping of the ideas in this book. Any remaining acts of folly in this book are to be charged directly to my own account. Agony (on The Cave ) Fig. 1 001. Ever get the feeling you are playing some vast and useless game to which you don t know the goal, and can t remember the rules? Ever get the fierce desire to quit, to resign, to forfeit, only to discover there s no umpire, no referee, no regulator, to whom to announce your capitulation? Ever get the vague dread that while you have no choice but to play the game, you can t win it, can t even know the score, or who keeps it? Ever suspect that you don t even know who your real opponent might be? Ever get mad over the obvious fact that the dice are loaded, the deck stacked, the table rigged, and the fix in? Welcome to gamespace. It s everywhere, this atopian arena, this speculation sport. No pain no gain. No guts no glory. Give it your best shot. There s no second place. Winner take all. Here s a heads up: In gamespace, even if you know the deal, are a player, have got game, you will notice, all the same, that the game has got you. Welcome to the thunderdome. Welcome to the terrordome. Welcome to the greatest game of all. Welcome to the playoffs, the big league, the masters, the only game in town. You are a gamer whether you like it or not, now that we all live in a gamespace that is everywhere and nowhere. As Microsoft says: Where do you want to go today? You can go anywhere you want in gamespace but never leave it. 002. Suppose there is a business in your neighborhood called The Cave . It offers, for an hourly fee, access to game consoles in a darkened room. Suppose it is part of a chain. The consoles form a local area network, and also link to other such networks elsewhere in the chain. Suppose you are a gamer in The Cave . You test your skills against other gamers. You have played in The Cave since childhood. Your eyes see only the monitor before you. Your ears hear only through the headphones that encase them. Your hands clutch only the controller with which you blast away at the digital figures who shoot back at you on the screen. Here gamers see the images and hear the sounds and say to each other: Why, these images are just shadows! These sounds are just echoes! The real world is out there somewhere. The existence of another, more real world of which The Cave provides mere copies is assumed, but nobody thinks much of it. Here reigns the wisdom of Playstation: Live in your world, play in ours. 003. Perhaps you are not just any gamer. Perhaps you want to break with the stereotype. You are the one who decides to investigate the assumption of a real world beyond the game. You turn away from the screen and unplug the headphones. You get up and stagger out of the darkened room, toward the light outside. You are so dazzled by the light that the people and things out there in the bright world seem less real than the images and sounds of The Cave . You turn away from this blinding new world, which seems, strangely, unreal. You return to the screen and the headphones and the darkness of being a gamer in The Cave . 004. Suppose someone, a parent maybe, a teacher or some other guardian, drags you back out into the light and makes you stay there. It would still be blinding. You could not look directly at things. Maybe the guardian prints out some pics of your family or maybe a map of the neighborhood, to acclimatize you, before you can look at things. Gradually you see the people around you, and what it is that they do. Then perhaps you remember the immense, immersive games of The Cave , and what passes for wisdom amongst those still stuck there. And so you return to The Cave , to talk or text to the other gamers about this world outside. 005. You communicate to fellow gamers in The Cave about the outside world of which The Cave is just a shadow. Or try to. Plato: And if the cave-dwellers had established, down there in the cave, certain prizes and distinctions for those who were most keen-sighted in seeing the passing shadows, and who were best able to remember what came before, and after, and simultaneously with what, thus best able to predict future appearances in the shadow-world, will our released prisoner hanker after these prizes or envy this power or honor? You bet! The Cave is a world of pure agon, of competitive striving after distinction. But suppose you are that rare, stray, thoughtful gamer who decides to try this new game of getting beyond the game again? Suppose you emerge from The Cave and decide to take stock of the world beyond? You find that this other world is in some curious ways rather like The Cave . The pics of family, the map of the hood, seem made of the same digital stuff as your favorites games inside The Cave . If there is a difference, it may not be quite what it seems. 006. Here is what you observe about the world outside The Cave : The whole of life appears as a vast accumulation of commodities and spectacles, of things wrapped in images and images sold as things. But how are these images and things organized, and what role do they call for anyone and everyone to adopt towards them? Images appeal as prizes, and call us to play the game in which they are all that is at stake. You observe that world after world, cave after cave, what prevails is the same agon, the same digital logic of one versus the other, ending in victory or defeat. Agony rules! Everything has value only when ranked against another; everyone has value only when ranked against another. Every situation is win-lose, unless it is win-win a situation where players are free to collaborate only because they seek prizes in different games. The real world appears as a video arcadia divided into many and varied games. Work is a rat race. Politics is a horse race. The economy is a casino. Even the utopian justice to come in the afterlife is foreclosed: He who dies with the most toys wins. Games are no longer a pastime, outside or alongside of life. They are now the very form of life, and death, and time, itself. These games are no joke. When the screen flashes the legend game over, you are either dead, or defeated, or at best out of quarters. 007. The game has colonized its rivals within the cultural realm, from the spectacle of cinema to the simulations of television. Stories no longer opiate us with imaginary reconciliations of real problems. The story just recounts the steps by which someone beat someone else a real victory for imaginary stakes. The only original screen genre of the early 21st century is not called reality TV for nothing. Brenton & Cohen: By signing their release forms, contestants agree to end up as statistics, each player s feelings and actions manipulated leading to infidelity, tears, perhaps heartbreak. Sure, reality TV doesn t look like reality, but then neither does reality. Both look like games. Both become a seamless space in which gamers test their abilities within contrived scenarios. The situations may be artificial, the dialogue less than spontaneous, and the gamers may merely be doing what the producers tell them. All this is perfectly of a piece with a reality which is itself an artificial arena, where everyone is already a gamer, waiting for their turn. 008. The game has not just colonized reality, it is also the sole remaining ideal. Gamespace proclaims its legitimacy through victory over all rivals. The reigning ideology imagines the world as a level playing field, upon which all men are equal before God, the great game designer. History, politics, culture gamespace dynamites everything which is not in the game, like an out-dated Vegas casino. Everything is evacuated from an empty space and time which now appears natural, neutral and without qualities a gamespace. The lines are clearly marked. Every action is just a means to an end. All that counts is the score. As for who owns the teams and who runs the league, best not to ask. As for who is excluded from the big leagues and high scores, best not to ask. As for who keeps the score and who makes the rules, best not to ask. As for what ruling body does the handicapping and on what basis, best not to ask. All is for the best in the best and only possible world. There is to give it a name a military entertainment complex, and it rules. Its triumphs affirm not just the rules of the game but the rule of the game. 009. Everything the military entertainment complex touches with its gold plated output jacks turns to digits. Everything is digital and yet the digital is as nothing. No human can touch it, smell it, taste it. It just beeps and blinks and reports itself in glowing alphanumerics, spouting stock quotes on your cellphone. Sure, there may be vivid 3D graphics. There may be pie charts and bar graphs. There may be swirls and whorls of brightly colored polygons blazing from screen to screen. But these are just decoration. The jitter of your thumb on the button or the flicker of your wrist on the mouse connect directly to an invisible, intangible gamespace of pure contest, pure agon. It doesn t matter if your cave comes equipped with a Playstation or Bloomberg terminal. It doesn t matter whether you think you are playing the bond market or Grand Theft Auto. It is all just an algorithm with enough unknowns to make a game of it. 010. Once games required an actual place to play them, whether on the chess board or the tennis court. Even wars had battle fields. Now global positioning satellites grid the whole earth and put all of space and time in play. Warfare, they say, now looks like video games. Well don t kid yourself. War is a video game for the military entertainment complex. To them it doesn t matter what happens on the ground . The ground the old-fashioned battlefield itself is just a necessary externality to the game. Slavoj Zizek: §It is thus not the fantasy of a purely aseptic war run as a video game behind computer screens that protects us from the reality of the face to face killing of another person; on the contrary it is this fantasy of face to face encounter with an enemy killed bloodily that we construct in order to escape the Real of the depersonalized war turned into an anonymous technological operation.§ Even the soldier whose inadequate armor failed him, shot dead in an alley by a sniper, has his death, like his life, managed by a computer in a blip of logistics. 011. The old class antagonisms have not gone away, but are hidden beneath levels of rank, where each agonizes over their worth against others as measured by the price of their house, the size of their vehicle and where, perversely, working longer and longer hours is a sign of winning the game. Work becomes play. Work demands not just one s mind and body but also one s soul. You have to be a team player. Your work has to be creative, inventive, playful ludic, but not ludicrous. Work becomes a gamespace, but no games are freely chosen any more. Not least for children, who if they are to be the winsome offspring of win-all parents, find themselves drafted into endless evening shifts of team sport. The purpose of which is to build character. Which character? The character of the good sport. Character for what? For the workplace, with its team camaraderie and peer enforced discipline. For others, work is still just dull, repetitive work, but the dream is to escape into the commerce of play to make it into the major leagues, or compete for record deals as a diva or a playa in the rap game. And for still others, there is only the game of survival. Biggie: §Either youƒre slinginƒ crack rock or you got a wicked jump shot. Play becomes everything to which it was once opposed. It is work, it is serious, it is morality, it is necessity. 012. The old identities fade away. Nobody has the time. The gamer is not interested in playing the citizen. The law is fine as a spectator sport on Court TV, but being a citizen just involves you in endless attempts to get out of jury duty. Got a problem? Tell it to Judge Judy. The gamer elects to choose sides only for the purpose of the game. This week it might be as the Germans vs. the Americans. Next week it might be as a gangster against the law. If the gamer chooses to be a soldier and play with real weapons, it is as an Army of One, testing and refining personal skill points. The shrill and constant patriotic noise you hear through the speakers masks the slow erosion of any coherent fellow feeling within the remnants of national borders. This gamespace escapes all checkpoints. It is an America without qualities, for everyone and nobody. All that is left of the nation is an everywhere that is nowhere, an atopia of noisy, righteous victories and quiet, sinister failures. Manifest destiny the right to rule through virtue gives way to its latent destiny the virtue of right through rule. Civic virtue drowns in a hurricane of mere survivalism. 013. The gamer is not really interested in faith, although a heightened rhetoric of faith may fill the void carved out of the soul by the insinuations of gamespace. The gamer s God is a game designer. He implants in everything a hidden algorithm. Faith is a matter of the intelligence to intuit the parameters of this geek design and score accordingly. All that is righteous wins; all that wins is righteous. To be a loser or a lamer is the mark of damnation. When you are a gamer, you are left with nothing to believe in but your own God-given abilities. Gamers confront each other in games of skill which reveal who has been chosen by the game as the one who has most fully internalized its algorithm. For those who despair of their abilities, there are games of chance, where grace reveals itself in the roll of the dice. Roger Caillois: Chance is courted because hard work and personal qualifications are powerless to bring such success about. The gambler may know what the gamer s faith refuses to countenance. 014. Outside each cave is another cave; beyond the game is another game. Each has its particular rules; each has its ranks of high scores. Is that all there is? The gamer who lifts an eye from the target risks a paralyzing boredom. Paolo Virno: §At the base of contemporary cynicism is the fact that men and women learn by experiencing rules rather than ƒfacts¥... Learning the rules, however, also means recognizing their unfoundedness and conventionality . We now face several different ƒgames¥, each devoid of all obviousness and seriousness, only the site of an immediate self-affirmation -- an affirmation that is much more brutal and arrogant, much more cynical, the more we employ, with no illusions but with perfect momentary adherence, those very rules whose conventionality and mutability we have perceived.§ Each game ends in a summary decision: That s Hot! Or if not, You re Fired! Got questions about qualities of Being? Whatever. 015. So this is the world as it appears to the gamer: a matrix of endlessly varying games a gamespace all reducible to the same principles, all producing the same kind of subject who belongs to this gamespace in the same way as a gamer to a game. What would it mean to lift one s eye from the target, to pause on the trigger, to unclench one s ever-clicking finger? Is it even possible to think outside The Cave ? Perhaps with the triumph of gamespace, what the gamer as theorist needs is to reconstruct the deleted files on those who thought pure play could be a radical option, who opposed gamespace with their revolutionary playdates. The Situationists, for example. Raoul Vaneigem: Subversion is an all embracing reinsertion of things into play. It is the act whereby play grasps and reunites beings and things hitherto frozen solid in a hierarchy of fragments. Play, yes, but the game no. Guy Debord: §I have scarcely begun to make you understand that I donƒt intend to play the game.§ Now there was a player unconcerned with an exit strategy. 016. Play was once a great slogan of liberation. Richard Neville: The new beautiful freaks will teach us all how to play again (and they ll suffer society s penalty). Play was once the battering ram to break down the Chinese walls of alienated work, of divided labor. Only look at what has become of play. Play is no longer a counter to work. Play becomes work; work becomes play. Play outside of work found itself captured by the rise of the digital game, which responds to the boredom of the player with endless rounds of repetition, level after level of difference as more of the same. Play no longer functions as a foil for a critical theory. The utopian dream of liberating play from the game, of a pure play beyond the game, merely opened the way for the extension of gamespace into every aspect of everyday life. While the counter-culture wanted worlds of play outside the game; the military entertainment complex countered in turn by expanding the game to the whole world, containing play forever within it. 017. Even critical theory, which once took its distance from damaged life, becomes another game. Apply to top ranked schools. Find a good coach. Pick a rising subfield. Prove your abilities. Get yourself published. Get some grants. Get a job. Get another job offer to establish your level and bargain with your current employer. Keep your nose clean and get tenure. You won! Now you can play! Now you can do what you wanted, secretly, all those years ago Only now you can t remember. You became a win-win Situationist. Your critical theory became hypocritical theory. It is against everything in the whole wide world except the gamespace that made it possible. But gamespace is now the very form of the world, and this world eluded your thought even as it brought home the glittering prizes. It is gamespace that won. The hypocritical theorist, in an agony of fitful sleep, dreams of meeting the ghost of Guy Debord, and proudly cites a list of achievements: Ivy League job, book deals, grants, promotion, tenure, recognition within the highest ranks of the disciplinary guild. The ghost of Debord sighs: So little ambition in one so young. 018. What then has the gamer seen in that bright world, that gamespace, beyond The Cave ? You see people hunched over screens, their hands compulsively jerking controllers. Each sits alone, and talks or texts to unseen others, dazzled by images that seem to come from nowhere, awash in pulsing and beeping sounds. No one out here in the real world really looks all that different to the stereotypical gamer, thumb jittering on the controller. Now you are an enlightened gamer, you see how the world beyond the games of The Cave seems like an array of more or less similar caves, all digital, each an agon with its own rules, some arbitrary blend of chance and competition. And beyond that? Not much. The real has become a mere epiphenomenon without which gamespace cannot exist, but which is losing, bit by bit, any form or substance or spirit or history that is not sucked into and transformed by gamespace. Beyond gamespace appear only the spent fragments of nameless forms. 019. Gamer theory starts with the suspension of the assumptions of The Cave , that there is a more real world beyond it, somewhere, and that someone some priest or professor knows where it is. The gamer arrives at the beginnings of a reflective life, a gamer theory, by stepping out of The Cave -- and returning to it. (See Fig. 1) If the gamer is to hold gamespace to account in terms of something other than itself, it might not be that mere shadow of a shadow of the real, murky, formless, that lurks like a residue in the corners. It might instead be the game proper, as it is played in The Cave. Grand Theft Auto, maybe, or Deus Ex. Here at least the game shadows the ideal form of the algorithm. Here at least the digital logic to which gamespace merely aspires is actually realized. The challenge is ah, but even to phrase it thus is to acknowledge the game to play at play itself, but from within the game. The gamer as theorist has to choose between two strategies for playing against gamespace. One is to play for the real. (Take the red pill). But the real seems nothing but a heap of broken images. The other is to play for the game (Take the blue pill). Play within the game, but against gamespace. Be ludic, but also lucid. 020. For a gamer to be a theorist might not require the ability to play any particular game especially well. The prizes have nothing to do with thinking the game. Nor might it be the ability to dismiss the game as unreal in the name of some supposedly more solidly grounded outside. What? These luminous pixels are not real, you say? Then neither is your world. If anything, The Cave seems to be where the forms, the ideas, the abstractions behind the mere appearance of things in the outside world can be found. Whether gamespace is more real or not than some other world is not the question. That even in its unreality it may have real effects on other worlds is. Games are not representations of this world. They are more like allegories of a world made over as gamespace. They encode the abstract principles upon which decisions about the realness of this or that world are decided. 021. Here is the guiding principle of a future utopia, now long past: To each according to his needs; from each according to his abilities. In gamespace, what do we have? An atopia, a placeless, senseless realm, where quite a different maxim rules: From each according to their abilities to each a rank and score. Needs no longer enter into it. Not even desire matters. Uncritical gamers do not win what they desire; they desire what they win. The score is the thing. The rest is agony. The gamer as theorist at first sight seems to have acquired an ability that counts for nothing in gamespace. The gamer as theorist might begin with an indifference to distinction, to all that the gamespace prizes. You does not play the game to win (or not just to win). You trifle with it playing with style to understand the game as a form. You trifle with the game to understand the nature of gamespace as a world as the world. You trifle with the game to discover in what way gamespace falls short of its self-proclaimed perfection. The digital game plays up everything that gamespace merely pretends to be: a fair fight, a level playing field, free competition. 022. No wonder digital games are the emergent cultural form of the times. The times have themselves become just a series of less and less perfect games. The Cave presents games in a pure state, as a realm where justice of a sort reigns. The beginnings of a critical theory of games a gamer theory might lie not in holding games accountable as failed representations of the world, but quite the reverse. The world outside is a gamespace that appears as an imperfect form of the computer game. The gamer is an archeologist of The Cave . The computer games the gamer finds there are the ruins, not of a lost past, but of a lost future. Gamespace is built on the ruins of a future it proclaims in theory yet disavows in practice. To the extent that the gamer as theorist wants to hack or mod the game, it is to play even more intimately within it. The gamer as theorist is not out to break the game. The point is not to reduce the game to the level of the imperfect world outside it. Like any archeologist, the gamer as theorist treats these ruins of the future with obsessive care and attention to their preservation, not their destruction. 023. Gamespace needs theorists but also a new kind of practice. One that can break down the line that divides gamer from designer, to redeploy the digital so that it makes this very distinction arbitrary. It is a characteristic of games to render digital decisions on all shades of difference. One either wins or loses. One either hits or misses. The practice of the gamer as theorist might be to reinstall what is undecidable back into the gamespace whose primary violence has nothing to do with brightly colored explosions or mounting death counts, but with the decision by digital fiat on where everything belongs and how it is ranked. Lars Svendsen: How boring life would be without violence! The real violence of gamespace is its dicing of everything analog into the digital, cutting continuums into bits. That games present the digital in its most pure form are reason enough to embrace them, for here violence is at its most extreme and its most harmless. 024. Of all the kinds of belonging that contend for allegiance as workers against the boss, as citizens against the enemy, as believers against the infidel all now have to compete with one which makes agon its first and only principle. Gamespace wants us all to believe we are nothing but gamers now, competing not against enemies of class or faith or nation, but only against other gamers. A new historical persona stalks the earth. All of the previous such persona had many breviaries and manuals, and so this little book seeks to offer guidance for thinking within this new persona. An ABC of theory for gamers. Not a strategy guide, a cheat sheet or a walk-through for how to improve one s score or hone one s trigger finger. A primer, rather, in thinking about a world made over as a gamespace, made over as an imperfect copy of the game. The game might not be utopia, but it might be the only thing left with which to play against gamespace. 025. No wonder gamers choose to spend their time holed up in The Cave . Here at least the targets really are only polygons, and the prizes really are worthless, mere colors and numbers. These are not the least of its merits. And yet The Cave is a world you can neither own nor control. Even this substitute for utopia is in someone else s possession. The digital game is both an almost utopian alternative to gamespace and its most pure product. Or was. Perhaps the game is collapsing back into business as usual. Perhaps the single-player game will become an anachronism, superceded by multiplayer worlds as venal and benighted as the rest of gamespace. Perhaps, like silent cinema, the stand-alone game will be an orphaned form. Perhaps game designers such as Will Wright and Tetsuya Mizogushi will be the Sergei Eisensteins and Dziga Vertovs of a lost art. Perhaps, in this moment of eclipse, the classic games have something to show us. So by all means necessary, be a gamer, but be a gamer who thinks and acts with a view to realizing the real potentials of the game, in and against this world made over as a gamespace. One might start with the curious gap between the games one loves and an everyday life which, by the light of the game, seems curiously similar, and yet somehow lacking. Allegory (on The Sims) Fig. 2 026. Benjamin gets up in the morning. He goes to the toilet. He leaves the seat up. He showers and fixes breakfast. He reads the paper. He finds a job as a Test Subject starting tomorrow. It s not much, but times are hard. He reads a book, and then another. He fixes lunch, naps, reads again. He goes to bed. He gets up. Toilet, shower, breakfast again. He does not make his bed. He goes to work. He comes home, prepares another meal. He talks to his room mate Bert a bit. Hannah drops by. He flirts with her some. He goes to bed, gets up, does the whole thing all over again. 027. Days go by. Not much changes. His cooking improves. He makes new friends Ted, Gersholm, Asja. They drop by sometimes; sometimes he visits. There is the new furniture. That makes him a bit happier, but not much. He gets a promotion to Lab Assistant. It s the night shift, but the pay is better. Then he makes Field Researcher and is back working regular hours. After a while he becomes a Scholar. He is so creative, but it helps to have friends if you want to get ahead. He aspires to being a Theorist. The pay is better. And the hours. He dreams of yachts and big screen TVs. Benjamin is a Sim, a character in a game called The Sims. One could be forgiven for imagining this was somebody s life. 028. In The Sims, you create characters like Benjamin, build and furnish homes for them, find them jobs and friends. All in a world without a sky. Perhaps a game like The Sims could be a parody of everyday life in consumer society . Benjamin and his friends dream of things. Things make them happy. They find a nice sofa so much more relaxing than a cheap one. As the game s designer Will Wright says: If you sit there and build a big mansion thatƒs all full of stuff, without cheating, you realize that all these objects end up sucking up all your time, when all these objects had been promising to save you time. And itƒs actually kind of a parody of consumerism, in which at some point your stuff takes over your life.§ Others disagree. Game scholar Gonzalo Frasca: Certainly, the game may be making fun of suburban Americans, but since it rewards the player every time she buys new stuff, I do not think this could be considered parody. In The Sims, characters can have lots of different jobs, but as Fredric Jameson says: parody finds itself without a vocation 029. Perhaps a game like The Sims could be an allegory for everyday life in gamespace. In the allegorical mode, says Walter Benjamin: §Any person, any object, any relationship can mean absolutely anything else. With this possibility a destructive but just verdict can be passed on the profane world: it is characterized as a world in which the detail is of no great importance.§ For Benjamin, the fragmenting of the modern world by technique, the profusion of commodities that well up in the absence of a coherent whole, finds its expression in allegory, which fragments things still further, shattering the illusion of bourgeois order, revealing the means by which it is made. §What resists the mendacious transfiguration of the commodity world is its distortion into allegory.§ And yet this possibility too seems exhausted. The fragmenting of the fragmented seems routine to a Sim. No other world seems possible. 030. Perhaps a game like The Sims is not just an allegory but also an allegorithm. To be a gamer is a slightly different persona to being a reader or a viewer. Lev Manovich: As the player proceeds through the game, she gradually discovers the rules that operate in the universe constructed by this game. Alex Galloway: To play the game means to play the code of the game. To win means to know the system. And thus to interpret a game means to interpret its algorithm (to discover its parallel allegorithm). What is distinctive about games is that they produce for the gamer an intuitive relation to the algorithm. The intuitive experience and the organizing algorithm together are an allegorithm for a future that in gamespace is forever promised but never comes to pass. The allegorithm by which the gamer relates to the algorithm produces a quite particular allegory by which gamer and algorithm together relate to gamespace. In a game any character, any object, any relationship can be given a value, and that value can be discovered. With this possibility a challenging but fair verdict can be passed on the profane world: it is characterized as a world in which any value is arbitrary, yet its value and its relation to other values can be discovered through trial and error. 031. An algorithm for current purposes is a finite set of instructions for accomplishing some task, which transforms an initial starting condition into a recognizable end condition. Greg Costikyan: Algorithmic games are ones in which underlying calculations or rules determine the game s response to the player s input. The recipes that Benjamin and other Sims learn from the cookbooks on their bookshelves are algorithms. Benjamin s career as a Theorist is also an algorithm. There is a start condition: he must have 8 friends, 4 charisma points, a 7 in creativity, and so on. It has end conditions, too. With 10 friends, 5 charisma points and 10 for creativity, the Theorist career can end, and another begin. The gamer selects one sequence after another, and gradually learns what they do that s algorithm. The gamer discovers a relationship between appearances and algorithm in the game which is a double of the relation between appearances and a putative algorithm in gamespace that s allegorithm. (See Fig. 2) But there is always a gap between the intuitively knowable algorithm of the game and the passing, uneven, unfair semblance of an algorithm in the everyday life of gamespace this is the form that allegory now takes. 032. The images and stories that populate games are mostly cribbed from some other media, from novels, films or television. Games mostly just recycle, or remediate , bits of representation from other media. Bolter & Grusin: remediation is a defining characteristic of the new digital media. And hence not specific to games. From the point of view of representation, the game is always inadequate to everyday life. A Sim in The Sims is a simple animated character, with few facial features or expressions. In The Sims 2 they seem a little more lifelike, but the improvement of the representation in some particular ways only raises the standards by which it appears to fall short in others. From the point of view of allegorithm, it all seems more the other way around. Everyday life in gamespace seems an imperfect version of the game. The gamespace of everyday life may be more complex and variegated, but it seems much less consistent, coherent and fair. Perhaps this was always the atopian promise of the digital a real of absolute, impersonal equity and equanimity. The game opens a critical gap between what gamespace promises and what it delivers. What is true is not real; what is real is not true. This is what the double movement of allegorithm and allegory have to report. The game is true in that its algorithm is consistent, but this very consistency negates a world that is not. 033. Imagine that Benjamin, our character in The Sims, makes it to the penultimate level and becomes a Theorist. Perhaps then you buy him a computer because he seems bored with reading. What would he do with it? Play The Sims, of course. Being a Theorist, perhaps he starts to think about it. Perhaps he jots something like this in his notebook: The gamer whose listless gaze falls on the controller in his hand is ready for the allegorithm. Boredom is the basis of the allegorithmic insight into the world. Boredom lays waste to the appeal of the game as game, and calls attention to the ambiguous relation of game to gamespace. Allegorithmic perception is n-dimensional, it intuits behind appearances interactions of many variables. The allegorithmic mode of apprehension is always built on an evaluative relation to the world of appearances. More and more relentlessly, the everyday life of gamers is coming to wear the expression of gamespace. At the same time, gamespace seeks to disguise the ungamelike character of things. What heightens the mendacious transformation of gamespace is its appearance in an undistorted form in the game. Still, gamespace wants to look itself in the face. It celebrates its incarnation in the gamer. 034. In the gamer, Benjamin might say, is reborn the sort of idler that Socrates picked out from the Athenian marketplace to be his interlocutor. Only, there is no longer a Socrates, so there is no one to address the idler. And the slave labor that guaranteed him his leisure has likewise ceased to exist.§ In The Sims, as in gamespace, one wonders if the idler has disappeared also. There is no idle time in The Sims, or in the gamespace of which it is the more perfect double. The quartz heart of the computer on which The Sims runs ticks over remorselessly. All of its moments are equivalent, and so too, in a way, are all moments in The Sims. Sleeping, napping, conversation or reading all advance one s scores. Benjamin has to go to bed to get up again to go to work to earn the right to sleep, and dream, again. 035. To be a gamer is to come to understanding through quantifiable failure. The bar graphs measuring Benjamin s being trend negative and refuse to budge. You are too busy elsewhere to get Benjamin to the toilet on time, and he pees himself. He needs sleep, he needs love, he needs a new kitchen. He turns to face you, the gamer, and gestures wildly, as if cursing his God. When things were going well, you forgot to save the game, so there is no better time to go back to. Nothing for it but to work with what you have, or quit and start again. The game is a knowable algorithm from which you know you can escape; gamespace is an unknown algorithm from which there is no escape. The game is just like the gamespace of everyday life, except that the game can overcome the violence of time. The game ties up that one loose end with which gamespace struggles the mortal flaw of an irreversible time. No wonder the Sim turns in vain to the gamer as a God, for it is the gamer who has turned toward the game as a messianic, reversible time. 036. Gamers are not always good Gods. It s such a temptation to set up a Sim to suffer. Deprive them of a knowledge of cooking and pretty soon they set fire to themselves. Build a house without doors or windows and they starve. Watch as the algorithm works itself out to its terminal state, the bar graphs sliding down to nothing. This violence is not real . Sims are not people. They are images. They are images in a world which appears as a vast accumulation of images. Hence the pleasure in destroying images, to demonstrate again and again their worthlessness. They can mean anything and nothing. They have no saving power. But even though the images are meaningless, the algorithm still functions. It assigns, if not meaning, if not veracity, if not necessity, then at least a score to representations. In The Sims the world of gamespace is redeemed by providing for its myriad things the algorithm that they lack to form consistent relations. 037. The Sim who suffers turns to face its gamer, looking out toward an absent sky, appealing directly, beyond the frame of the game itself. The gamer may not answer, or may not be able to answer. The gamer as God suffers from an apparently similar algorithmic logic as the Sim. The Sims comes with theological options. Turn on free will and Sims stray from the powers of their maker. Turn it off and their actions are predestined, but even so, the gamer-god quickly finds that the algorithm is a higher power that the power one commands. Should the game be going badly for the Sim, it turns to face the gamer; should the game be going badly for the gamer, there is no one for the gamer to turn away and face. The Sim who addresses a helpless, hopeless or lost God lives out the allegory of gamespace itself. At least the Sim has someone to turn to. Who can the gamer turn to? Perhaps you can see now the reason for the popularity, among those troubled by gamespace but lacking a concept to account for it, of a personal God who can perform miracles, who can break the rules of His own algorithm. 038. As a gamer you can have no sense of worth and no faith in salvation other than through your own efforts. But those efforts are fraught, and you are soon lost in the maze of the game. The gamer achieves worth through victories of character; but that character inevitably faces defeat in turn. Or worse. The only thing worse than being defeated is being undefeated. For then there is nothing against which to secure the worth of the gamer other than to find another game. One game leads to the next. It s the same for Benjamin. After Theorist comes Mad Scientist and after that nothing. Start over. Pick a new career. Get an expansion pack. Try some new lives. Start as a Playground Monitor, become a Teacher, a Professor, get tenure, rise to Dean, the finally, Minister of Education. Start as a Nobody, working for tips. Become an Insider, a Name Dropper, a Sell Out, a Player, a Celebrity, then finally, a Superstar. But these are just arbitrary names for series of levels. Any qualitative difference between levels is just an effect of an underlying quantity. A higher level is essentially more than a lower level. And so there s nowhere to go but to more, and more, until there is no more, and the gamer, like the character, is left with nothing. The fruit of the digital is the expulsion of quality from the world. That s gamespace. The consolation of the game is that at least this expulsion is absolute. 039. Original Sims can be any mix of two genders and three colors. In The Sims 2 you start with preset templates (Caucasian, African American, Chinese, Persian and Elf) alterable via a lot of sub-sliders. You choose gender, age, color, hair style and color, eye color, weight, height, glasses, hats, accessories, clothes, and so on, but these external attributes are merely a skin. They do not really affect the game. The sliding variables of character, however, do program in advance what careers a Sim can excel at, and which past times restore faculties. In Sims 2, they may be straight or gay. Again, it makes no difference. Either way their offspring mix the genetic character qualities of their parents. The external representations are of no account; the internal variables determine potential. The skin is arbitrary, a difference without a distinction, mere decoration. Underneath it lies a code which is all. The Sims 2 is committed both to a genetic view of intrinsic nature and a liberal view of the equality, and hence indifference, of extrinsic appearances. 040. In The Sims, things proliferate. Or rather, the skins of things. You can have many different kinds of sofa, or coffee table, or lamp shade, but the meter is running, so to speak. You have to make more money to buy more things. But some gamers who play The Sims trifle with the game rather than play it. These gamers are not interested in winning the game, they are interested in details, in furniture, or telling stories, or creating interesting worlds. If a cheat is someone who ignores the space of a game to cut straight to its objective, then the trifler is someone who ignores the objective to linger within its space. Bernard Suits: Triflers recognize rules but not goals, cheats recognize goals but not rules. The Sims lends itself to play that transforms it from a world of number back to a world of meaning. Algorithm becomes a more stable platform than the vicissitudes of gamespace for creating a suburban world of pretty things. But in trifling with the game, the gamer struggles to escape boredom and produce difference and finds that this too has limits. Steven Poole: You must learn the sequences the programmers have built in to the game and, okay, there are hundreds of them, but that does not constitute freedom. Games redeem gamespace by offering a perfect unfreedom, a consistent set of constraints. 041. Allegory is about the relation of sign to sign; allegorithm is about the relation of sign to number. Signs don t open to reveal chains of other signs, pointing in all directions. Or rather, it is no longer of any importance what signs reveal. They billow and float, pool and gather, arbitrary and useless. There is no way to redeem them. But signs now point to something else. They point to number. And number in turn points to the algorithm, which transforms one number into another. Out of the bit rot of signs, games make allegorithms. The signs point to numbers, the numbers to algorithms, the algorithms to allegorithms of everyday life in gamespace, where signs likewise are devalued, arbitrary, but can still stand as allegories of the one thing that still makes sense, for the logic of the digital. 042. Allegory becomes a double relation: on the one side, there is the relation of gamer to algorithm in the game, its allegorithm; on the other, there is the relation of allegorithm to everyday life in gamespace. In relation to gamespace, the game itself works as an escape from the agony of everyday life, where the stakes are real and uncertain, to the unreal stakes of a pure game. But the game can also work as a critique, in turn, of the unreality of the stakes of gamespace itself. When Sims devotees assign values to non-existent furniture, truly the idea of economic utility has lost all meaning. The game can also work as an atopia, where play is free from work, from necessity, from seriousness, from morality. Kill your Sims, if you want to. Play here has no law but the algorithm. And yet there is a tension between the game and gamespace. The relation between them is at once analog and digital, both a continuum and a sharp break. The gamer struggles to make of the game a separate world, for escape, for critique, for atopian play, and yet gamespace insinuates itself into the game. 043. Start over: Benjamin begins as a Beta Tester, becomes a Hacker, and finally a Game Designer. After that you are supposed to level up to Venture Capitalist then finally Information Overlord. But something goes wrong along the way. Benjamin s game design company goes broke. The whole industry is consolidating. So Benjamin goes to work for a much bigger game company. He starts work. It s a mild sort of crunch time normal when there s a project with a deadline. Benjamin is working eight hours, six days a week. The project is on schedule, so its not so bad. It s temporary. He complains a bit to Asja. The deadline for ending the crunch comes and goes. And another. Then the hours get longer. Benjamin is working twelve hours, six days a week. Benjamin s bar graphs slide into the red. Then the real crunch time begins. Benjamin is working seven days a week, with the occasional Saturday evening off for good behavior. 044. You could be forgiven for thinking this is just a game, but it is somebody s life as reported in a widely circulated text written by EA Spouse. EA, or Electronic Arts, is a game company best known for its Madden sports games, but which also which owns Maxis, which makes The Sims. EA s slogan: Challenge Everything everything except EA, of course or the gap between game and gamespace. In the gamespace of contemporary labor, things are not like the measured progression up the ranks of The Sims. In The Sims, Benjamin could work his way from Game Designer to Information Overlord much the same way as he had worked up the levels below. At Electronic Arts, things are different. Being an Information Overlord like EA s Larry Probst requires an army of Benjamins with nothing to work with but their skills as game designers and nowhere to go than to another firm which may or may not crunch its workers just as hard. As the military entertainment complex consolidates into a handful of big firms, it squeezes out all but a few niche players. Gamespace is here a poor imitation of its own game. 045. Start over again: This time Benjamin begins as a Bucket Runner. He quickly works himself up to Coltan Miner. Coltan? What is coltan? Quit The Sims for a moment. Pop the cover off your Playstation or your laptop or cellphone. You are looking at stuff that has come from all over the world brought together by a global logistics. In the guts of your machine you may spot some capacitors made by Kemet, or maybe semiconductors from Intel. These probably contain tantalum, a marvelous conductor of electricity, also very good with heat. They were quite possibly made with coltan (short for columbite-tantalite) dug out of the ground in the Congo, where there s plenty of coltan, from which tantalum is refined. The Okapi Faunal Reserve in the Congo is home to gorillas, monkeys and elephants as well as the okapi, a rare relative of the giraffe. Thousands of Mbuti, or pygmies, also live there. Their livelihood is compromised by the coltan miners, who dig what one journalist called SUV-sized holes in the mud, out of which they can extract about a kilo of coltan a day. A kilo of coltan was worth $80 during the technology boom. There was a world shortage of the stuff, which even delayed the release of the Sony Playstation 2. 046. The Congo is arguably the region in which the great game of colonial exploitation has done the most harm and conferred the least benefits. The Congo s first democratic leader, Patrice Lumumba, was ousted in a CIA sponsored coup that brought to power the notorious Mobutu Sese Seku. With the collapse of the Mobutu regime, there was civil war, and little else. One of the things that kept the civil war going was the coltan. Coltan both fueled the war, and accelerated the destruction of wildlife habitats. And so the military entertainment complex, with precious brands to protect, didn t want protest movements sullying their reputations by calling attention to all the gorillas coltan kills, or the guerrillas it feeds. The military entertainment complex would like to believe, and would like you to believe, that gamespace is not a Nietzschian struggle of naked forces, beyond good and evil, but a clean, well lighted, rule-governed game. 047. Kemet requires its suppliers to certify that their coltan ore does not originate from Congo or bordering countries. Motorola says much the same: We believe we have done as much as any reasonable company could do by mandating compliance from our suppliers on this important issue. Outi Mikkonen, communications manager for environmental affairs at Nokia is a little more sanguine: §All you can do is ask, and if they say no, we believe it.§ The bad publicity around Congo coltan is good news for the Australian company Sons of Gwalia, which provides much of the world supply. The destruction of Australian habitats seems somehow less picturesque. No gorillas or giraffes are involved. This is the way its played in gamespace. It s all separate caves, with dim reports of each other. By all means, save the gorillas and okapi, but it doesn t change the equation. 048. The line that connects gamespace to game also divides one from the other. There s no getting away from the materials that make it possible to own a Playstation console or a computer with Intel Inside. There s no getting away from the labor that makes it possible to run The Sims on your machine. Benjamin: There is no document of culture which is not at the same time a document of barbarism. Benjamin (the Sim): There is no realm of the pure digit which does not betray the hand marked with muck and blood, somewhere. And yet the whole point of a game is its separation, the line dividing it from gamespace and enclosing it in a self contained, algorithmic world of its own. To Benjamin the Benjamin who is a Sim everything outside The Sims is just metaphysics. The double relation of allegory and allegorithm is an intimate line alternately connecting and separating game from gamespace. 049. The Sims is a very peculiar kind of game, in which everyday life is the subject of play, but where play is nothing but work. And yet there s a difference between play in game and gamespace, which permits the former to offer an allegory for the latter, an allegory which may function as escape and critique of gamespace, perhaps even as an almost utopian alternative. In the game, unlike in gamespace, the contest between gamer and game is over nothing. There are no precious minerals. There is no labor contract in dispute. The difference between play and its other may have collapsed, but there is still a difference between play within the bounds of an algorithm that works impersonally, the same for everybody, and a gamespace that appears as nothing but an agon for the will to power whether of guerrilla s grasping their gun stocks, or Larry Probst grasping his stock options. If it is a choice only between The Sims as a real game and gamespace as a game of the real, the gamer choose to stay in The Cave and play games. The contradiction is that for there to be a game that is fair and rational there is still a gamespace which is neither. 050. The game is what gamespace isn t, particularly for those for whom it is the dominant cultural form. EA Spouse writes: We both have been steeped in essentially game culture from an early age, and we watched that culture gain legitimacy as we got to the point of thinking about our future careers. The gamespace of making games as commodities cannot live up to the games themselves. On EA Spouse s website, some forlorn gamer has written, and perhaps again in vain: On the simes busten out please do not make a meter for the items you buy. Same with walls or aniny thing eles. So bottom line no metter in any of the simes games ever again please. Thank you if you do it. But, sadly, the meter is always running. It is integral to gamespace, if not necessarily to what makes gamespace possible. Beyond the critique of actually existing gamespace, games can point also to an almost utopian promise, in which games are something else again. But while the game opens toward new worlds, gamespace forecloses anything but its own relentless agon. America (on Civilization III) Fig. 3 051. Of what use is the past to a gamer? Peter Lunenfeld: For the most part, its blood, mischief and role playing that gamers revel in. They live in an alternative universe, a solipsistic one scripted by designers whose frame of reference extends no further back than Pong, Pac-Man and Dungeons and Dragons. The visual and storyline tropes that most of us bring with us as cultural baggage are all but forgotten ancestral memories, thrown off, on purpose, too cumbersome to be of any use. In this new world that appears indifferent to history, with only halls of fame for its champions, chronicles of its big battles and charts of its greatest hits, accounting for how this digital gamespace came into being presents something of a challenge. Perhaps it is best to approach it in its own style, as a series of levels, each of which appears to the gamer on battling through to the end of the last. If one is defeated, one starts over. But remember: these are the grind levels. The going is hard here, even a little boring. You may need to attempt it more than once. In gamespace, time is measured in discrete and constant units, and while one cannot always win a level, one can always start over and do it again. 052. Click to start. Here is a new world. The first level opens onto a topic (from the Greek topos , or place). Here a topic is a place both on the ground and within language. Jacques Derrida: The themes, the topics, the (common-)places, in a rhetorical sense, are strictly inscribed, comprehended each time within a significant site. One can place one s foot on a topic because one can place one s tongue on it. Or one can point toward it and say: there it is . All around the topic it is dark, unknown, unmapped, without stories. Move around a bit and you bump into others, from other tribes, other settlements. Via others one learns of still others. The topics start to connect. A map forms. Once there is a map, there is the topographic, which traces lines that connect the topics, and which doubles the topical with the space of maps and texts. These outline the contours in space and time of what was the topical, redrawing and rewriting it as a continuous and homogenous plane. The lines of the topic are traced into the page; the lines on the page are traced back onto the earth as topography. History is a story and geography an image of this topography, in which the boundaries are forever being expanded and redrawn. This play between the topical and topographic is the first level. 053. In the first level, every topical feature that resists inscription as a continuous space is erased and replaced. Impassable mountains yield their passages, joining once separate topics. Every recalcitrant people with its own indigenous topos is exterminated and forgotten. James Fenimore Cooper: In a short time there will be no remains of these extraordinary people, in those regions in which they dwelt for centuries, but their names. The names persist, on maps, or in books with titles like The Last of the Mohicans. The first level is this dissolution of the topical into the topographic, where an oral lore is erased and replaced by inscription: Lines on maps, lines on pages; lines that evolve from trail to rail. The first level is where the topographic unfolds as the line between what is charted and what is uncharted. (See Fig. 3) The storyline dwells between the autonomy of the topical and the authority of the topographical, always lagging behind. 054. In the cinema, mapping and writing meet. The emergence of the topographic and its struggle to subsume the topical becomes the great theme of western genre, above all of the director John Ford. Jimmy Stewart, the frontier lawyer, bringing the wild west to book, runs up against the outlaw gunslinger Lee Marvin. When Stewart shoots him in a showdown, Stewart becomes a legend, and a senator. Only it was John Wayne, the honorable outlaw, who really fired the fatal shot. In The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, cinema functions as the form that can reveal retrospectively the workings of topography, its creation of a storyline that justifies the imposition of the thin blue line of the law. The completion of the topographic is the subject of film noir. Here the topographic has connected all of space in a loose network, and one cannot run beyond the frontier to escape it. One escapes within, looking for ill-lit, interstitial topics, like the rail yards and wholesale markets of Jules Dassin s Thieves Highway. Here, on the wrong side of the tracks there is still a space for illicit desire, and an escape from boredom. 055. What closes the frontier for free action is the enclosure of the space of movement within a space of communication. The line splits, into one that moves objects and subjects, and another, faster one that moves information, the line of telesthesia, of the telegraph then telephone. In High Noon, Sheriff Gary Cooper learns through the telegraph that his lawless nemesis arrives on the midday train. In The Naked City, this power of telesthesia perception at a distance is everywhere. The police, forensics, the coroner are all brought together via the switch board operator, enabling and overcoming a division of labor with the telephone, and compacting space into a temporal event. We see the policeman make a call, the operator making the connection, and the call being answered. Telesthesia allows the speeding up and coordination of movement along all other lines, setting the railway timetables by which vast armies of goods or soldiers may be mobilized. Telesthesia makes possible the completion of topographic space, where vast territories are coordinated within the bounds of the line. As telesthesia develops, from telegraph to telephone to television to telecommunications, topographic space deepens and hardens, but always with gaps and exclusions. Film Noir dwells in a gap between the free act in an unmarked space and the imposition of the line. You can run but you can t hide. 056. Eventually, even the out of the way topic within the topographic is mapped and storied. In Dassin s Night and the City, made in political exile in London, the whole of space has become telegraphic. There is no escape. This completes the first level. Topology begins when the topical ceases to have any autonomy, when the line along which communication flows closes the gap between map and territory. The open frontier is enclosed in a field of calculation. History and geography cease to dwell between the topical and the topographical, always rushing to keep up. History and geography are subsumed within a topology, which tends towards a continuous field of equivalent and exchangeable values, instantly communicable everywhere. Where the topical was once bounded within the lines of the topographical, it is now connected along the lines of the topological. The fixed geometry of topography gives way to the variable forms of topology, in which the lines connecting points together lend themselves to transformation without rupture from one shape to another. The storyline of outward movement is complete; the gamespace of interior play commences. Welcome to the second level. 057. Film Noir comes to an end when it is no longer possible to imagine anything great but evil lurking out of bounds. If something passes undetected for any length of time it is because it has no value. The era of the great openly declared villains is over. In topological times, the bad guys pass as normal or corrupt the law. Cinema as the machine for imagining the open space outside the line is consigned to the past. Topology announces its new ambitions through radio and particularly television, a signal for everywhere and nowhere, potentially interested in anyone or anywhere, a Candid Camera. The key genres for working out the subsumption of the topographic into the topological are the situation comedy and the game show. On a game show, anyone can be taken out of everyday life and brought into the magic circle of television; on a sitcom, television can extend itself to the everyday life familiar to the average viewer, anywhere. Sitcom and game show announce the coming of a topology in which all of space might be doubled simultaneously, without lag, by lines of image, lines of sound, which as yet still broadcast out of central nodes. The lines run only one way and indiscriminately, but incorporates anyone and anything of value. What is excluded, from its point of view, has no value. The romance of the outsider is dead. 058. What completes topology and prepares it for the next unknown level is when the line splits again, into analog and digital. The analog lines of radio and telephone and television give way to digital lines, which reach back to the precedent of the telegraph, but extend its digital code to an increasingly flexible and all embracing web of communication lines. Gradually, the digital extends and expands to the whole of telesthesia. The internet incorporates text, sound, images, then moving images. The cyberspace of the internet becomes mobile and portable and turns into the cellspace of mobile telephony. This combination of the speed of telesthesia with the digital code is what makes possible a vast and inclusive topology of gamespace. This is the third level: The world of topology is the world of The Cave . Any and every space is a network of lines, pulsing with digital data, on which players act and react. In work and play, it is not the novel, not cinema, not television that offers the line within which to grasp the form of everyday life, it is the game. Julian Dibbell: in the strange new world of immateriality toward which the engines of production have long been driving us, we can now at last make out the contours of a more familiar realm of the insubstantial -- the realm of games and make believe. 059. If the novel, cinema or television can reveal through their particulars an allegory of the world that makes them possible, the game reveals something else. For the reader, the novel produces allegory as something textual. The world of possibility is the play of the linguistic sign. For the cineaste, the world of possibility is a play of light and shade. For the gamer, the game produces allegory as something algorithmic. The world of possibility is the world internal to the algorithm. So: a passage from the topic to the topographic, mediated by the novel; a passage from the topographic to the topological, mediated by television; a passage, mediated by the game, from the topological to as yet unknown spaces, a point where the gamer seems to be stuck. Is it really the case that the gamer merely revels in blood mischief and role playing? Or is there a deeper understanding of the cave that can be had from gaming within it? 060. Start over with another new world. (This time with a little gamer theory.) Welcome to the first level: The novel is a line of a certain type, which opens towards certain possibilities, a storyline. It arises at the moment when topic gives way to topography. For Georg LukÆcs, what is to be valued is the historical novel and its ability to trace a line across an historical moment and reveal the forces at work in it. It is the portrayal of the broad living basis of historical events in their intricacy and complexity, in their manifold interaction with acting individuals. The historical novel shows historical events through secondary characters, perhaps not unlike the reader, and an historical event as being at the same time a transformation of everyday life. And yet the novel suffers from this paradox: To illuminate the topographic, the novel has to hide its own form. If it explores the possibilities of the line within its pages it opens itself to a formalism that leaves the reader behind. 061. The first level continues: Cinema is a line of a certain type, which opens towards certain possibilities, an illumination of the dark corners of topography. For Walter Benjamin, what is to be valued is the optical unconscious , cinema s machinic vision of a world that is itself machined with a dense grid of lines. Cinema can expand or shrink space, extend or compress time, it can cut together images of diverse scales or forms intimations of topology. It creates a Spielraum , a playroom, for dividing up the machine world otherwise. Contra LukÆcs, Benjamin opens towards the formal properties of the line at the expense of its representation of an historical situation as a totality. But what doesn t change is that the spectator, like the reader, is external to the line itself. Cinema can show how the world is made through its cuts and montages, an industrial process with the unique quality of showing itself as works. Yet there is still a separation between those making the cinema and those watching it. 062. The first level ends: The novel languishes. Cinema fails to realize its allegorical potential. Guy Debord: But this life and this cinema are both equally paltry; and that is why you could actually exchange one for the other with indifference. Boredom reigns. 063. The second level begins: Radio is a line of a certain type, which opens towards certain possibilities. For Brecht, what is to be valued in it is a certain unrealized potential for the line to point both ways: Radio is one-sided and it should be two. It is purely an apparatus for distribution, for mere sharing out. So here is a positive suggestion: change this apparatus over from distribution to communication. The radio would be the finest possible communication apparatus in public life, a vast network of pipes. That is to say, it would be if it knew how to receive as well as transmit, how to let the listener speak as well as hear, how to bring him into a relationship instead of isolating him. Radio could be like a public telephony. But it is all analog flow; it lacks a digital code. It radiates from one point to every other, without distinction. It lacks the transformational geometry of topology, where any three specific points could be connected, anywhere, and still make the same triangle connecting sender and receiver and the third line telesthesia itself. 064. The second level continues. Television expands the line of radio, but does it add much to it? Does it yield much by way of a space of possibility? Fredric Jameson: The blockage of fresh thinking before this solid little window against which we strike our heads being not unrelated to precisely that whole or total flow we observe through it. Television generalizes the line of communication as an analog flow. The digital has not yet prevailed. 065. The second level ends: The tension between the topographic and topological is also one between a declining sphere of representation, will and interest, and one of a new topos that is statistical, digital, simulated algorithmic. The topographic is incomplete. It can project its lines across space and annihilate time, but it cannot effectively mark or measure out the space it encloses. It has some feeble mechanisms the opinion poll, for example. Through the laborious means of seeking out and recording opinion, topological space can be given the appearance of agency. Jean Baudrillard: It is, paradoxically, as a game that the opinion polls recover a sort of legitimacy. A game of the undecideable; a game of chance Perhaps we can see here the apparition of one of these collective forms of the game that Caillois called alea an irruption into the polls themselves of a ludic, aleatory process, an ironic mirror for the use of the masses. 066. The third level begins. Where the topographic develops one dimension of telegraphy its flow of information across space the topological develops the other its intricate coding and addressing. Where the topographic is an analog flow; the topological is the digital divide. It is a line of a another type. It is a line that, for a brief, burning moment, reignited the dreams of a new topos. But the cycle accelerates. If it took twenty years to get from Brecht or Benjamin s optimism to Debord s boredom, the same cycle in net time took perhaps five years. Geert Lovink: §Cyberspace at the dawn of the 21st century can no longer position itself in a utopian void of seamless possibilities.§ What topology yields is not a cyberspace but a gamespace. The idea of cyberspace is still too linked to images from the world of radio and television, of flow and seamless movement, of access and excess, of lines running anywhere and everywhere. Topology is experienced more as a gamespace than a cyberspace: full of restrictions and hierarchies, firewalls and passwords. It is more like a bounded game than a free space of play. Once again: if it is free, it is valueless. Those odd lines within topology where anything goes are the ones of no consequence. 067. The third level continues. Games have storylines like the historical novel, which arc from beginning to end. Games have cinematic cut scenes, pure montages of attraction. Games subsume the lines of television just as television subsumed cinema and cinema the novel. But they are something else as well. They are not just an allegory but a double form, an allegory and an allegorithm. Appearances within the game double an algorithm which in turn simulates an unknown algorithm which produces appearances outside the game. 068. Stuck again. Start over. Another new world. Welcome to the first level. Let s loop back to LukÆcs, and ask: rather that insist on the possibilities of the technicity of the line itself, perhaps there s something to be said for the possibilities of a certain genre that makes use of it? Bonus points! Skip straight to the third level: The strategy game is a genre of a certain type within a line of a certain type, which opens towards certain possibilities. Click on the Government pull down menu and choose Revolution. Your Republic turns to Anarchy. Certain parameters shift. You are playing Sid Meier s Civilization III. It is not so much an allegory for world history as an allegorithm for gamespace itself. Everything here is a relation between quantifiable processes. Everything is a question of the allocation of resources. There s a perverse sense of base and superstructure. You can change the form of Government but there s not much you can do to change the underlying form of production. Invest in science and qualitative technical changes accumulate, which in turn expand military, cultural and political possibilities. Invest in culture to keep the plebs from revolting. Interestingly, civil disorder comes from below, but revolutions come from above, but these are just two functions within an algorithm: a small variable with a big effect; a big variable with a small effect. 069. Gamespace turns descriptions into a database, and storyline into navigation. Sid Meier, known as a voracious reader, turns history and anthropology books into strategy games. Civilization III even comes with its own Civilopedia, a reference work for to a parallel world. But this is more than the remediation of old forms into new. Rather, the algorithm consumes the topographic and turns it into the topological. In the database, all description is numerical, equivalent in form. In principle everything within it can be related to or transformed into everything else. A new kind of symmetry operates. The navigation of the database replaces a narration via description. The database expands exponentially. Rather than a politics of allegory, an economics of allegorithm operates, selecting and reducing possibilities. 070. This is how the world appears to a gamer playing Civilization III: There are dependent and independent variables. Gamers, through trial and error, will work out which are which. They change over time. In the first stage, you explore, pushing back the inky black shroud to make a map. Then you grow the population, a vast army of farmers and miners. You have to maximize useable space. Once your continent fills up with cities and their hinterlands, expansion becomes qualitative rather than quantitative. It s all about knowledge and technology. The quality of warfare changes along the way. It expands in space, digs deeper into reserves of resources, then becomes a qualitative race for bigger and better lines along which power can reticulate. The gamer is a manager, confronting uncertainly with an inventory of resources. It s a hard game to win at first, but after you have beaten it, you play it again, and again. Glen Fuller: It has a complex array of logics for warding off boredom. It draws the gamer s attention not to the storyline but to the combinations of elements from which any given storyline might be selected. 071. In Civilization III, time is essentially of a piece. It is homogenous, empty, but it can be divided into equivalent units, just like space. Thus time can be configured and reconfigured, producing endless variations on the cascading sequences of cause and effect. History is indeed absent from the game, absent as something finished, as a storyline in the past tense. What replaces it is a history workshop, a model of history as the intuition of algorithms and their consequences. The gamer is a designer. Designers, like all managers, operate within given limits. This is how the world appears to the game designer: There are dependent and independent variables. Designers, through trial and error, will work out which are which. They will choose cultural, business and technical options that maximize long term advantages. If it doesn t work out, they will do it over. Time is essentially of a piece. It is homogenous, but it can be divided into equivalent units, just like space. Civilization III models not so much civilization , as the game design business, which in turn models gamespace, or topology as it presently exists. 072. This is how the world appears to gamer theory: Seen from the point of view of topology, with its dense databases and navigating tools, the topical world with its loosely connected topics was a world of limited data and few possibilities. Transformations of one thing into another were purely magical. The topographic and telegraphic flattened out the differences between topics while describing them in much more detail. A tension arises between enriched description and the poverty of storyline, bursting to contain it. The expansion of description nevertheless opened towards allegory. Accumulations of images burst out of their storyline bounds. It opened towards a politics of allegory, of the writing and mapping of the world, and also towards utopia, arresting the flux of the world in ideal form. Topology closes the frontiers of space within its lines, and expands the dataset again, but by reducing data to equivalent calculable points, it is able to break with storyline as principle of temporal order, replacing it with the algorithm. Storyline becomes gamespace. 073. Strategy games such as Civilization III presents an allegorithm of topology as gamespace and the gamer as its manager. It subsumes the text, audio, images and movies into the database, while the algorithm calculates the moves of all its elements relative to the gamer. It collapses the difference between the everyday and the utopian. It embraces all differences by rendering all of space and time as being quantifiable. Topical times resound with the myth of the tactician. Topographic times inscribe stories of grand directors of strategy. Topological times call for managers of strategy. History appears, retrospectively, as not only the expanding frontier of war s theatre, but also its qualitative transformation. It is the unwinding of a line which divides everything into manageable chunks of data. The actual disposition of resources is doubled by a database which maps not fixed locations but measures of fungibility. The algorithm can produce every possible combination of the resources mapped in the database and a few impossible ones as well. The possible and the actual reverse positions. It is the possible that is real. If the algorithm can produce it as an outcome from the database, it exists. The mystery is why the recalcitrant debris that litters the actual sometimes refuses to get out of the way. This insistence on the reality of the possible, on what resides within resources, is the American dream. 074. Finally, the next level appears: the expansion of topology outwards, beyond America, to make America equivalent to all of time and space. America itself, as a construct, as a structure of feeling, is always only available via particular mediating lines, which may do more than merely represent a pre-existing America. The form of the line may itself participate in the creation of America. There may well be an America that resides successively in the novel, in the cinema, in television and the game, and is shaped by each. Each, in turn, presents history itself as a passing on of memory from one form to another. Civilization III recapitulates not only world history but media history. It s ambition is not only to embrace the recording of the world but the world of recording. In Civilization III, the transformation of space and time, from topic to topography to topology, is an effect of the development of the lines with which to mark and manage it. This double development, which at one and the same time deepens and proliferates lines of the possible and the actual, can be called America. It is what is both desired and feared under the rubric of that name, which no longer marks a particular topic, but stands for the very capacity to mark and manage space itself, as topology. 075. The line makes its way across the world, making it by marking it. The line passes across valleys, pages, mountains, rivers, tracing trails, roads, railways, highways, doubling itself with telegraph, television, telecommunications, doubling itself again as the code of the letter migrates from text to telegraph and explodes into the myriad lines of the digital. The line makes topics, maps them into the topographic, then folds the topographic into a digital topology. The line does something else as well. For every line drawn are an infinite number undrawn. Every line is an allegory of the possibilities for a line of its type. The line may also intimate the possibilities of lines of another type. But the possibilities of a given type of line are not infinite. Allegory always touches the virtual which one might define as the possibility of possibility via a particular line. At each level of the actual unfolding of the line across the world, it offers a glimpse of the virtual in its own image. This is the limit to allegory. If allegory yearns for something ahistorical, a topos beyond all particulars, it does so over and over in the most particular and mediated way. Analog (on Katamari Damacy) Fig.4 076. Sisyphus, founder of Corinth, father of Odysseus, founder of the Ismithian Games, is best know for a most cruel and unusual punishment, meted out to him by the Gods. He was to roll a huge stone up the mountainside, watch helplessly as it rolled back down again, and then start all over again. Nobody knows what he did that required such a punishment. Perhaps it was for revealing the designs of the Gods to mortals. Revealing the forms beyond the mere particulars of mortal life would, in topical times, be a serious crime. Or perhaps, more prosaically, it was for his habit of murdering seafarers and travelers. Topical space, where each law, each God, is bordered by zones of indifference, would surely be troubled by such a transgression of the rules of xenia , of the gift one owes to strangers. Anne Carson: The characteristic features of xenia, namely its basis in reciprocation and its assumption of perpetuity, seem to have woven a texture of personal alliances that held the ancient world together. Or so it was in topical times. 077. In topographic times, Sisyphus is a hero. He revels in this new world from which the Gods and their intangible forms have fled and a great industrial engine usurps their place. The task of Sisyphus becomes everyone s labor: pointless, repetitive, endless, shoulder to the wheel of fortune. There are no longer any lawless spaces. There are no gaps between topics. All of space is within the law. There are no more border zones where indifference prevails. Certainly it gets much harder to get away with murdering travelers. But in topographic times, it is time itself that is not quite so completely subordinated to rules, to ends, to purposes. There is a limit to the working day, and even within the working day, not every second is called to account. Albert Camus: I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds oneƒs burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The topical Sisyphus played fast and loose with the gaps of space, between the topics; the topographic Sisyphus played in the gaps of time, and exploited those gaps to turn everything to account for himself alone. 078. Where is Sisyphus now? Using the analog sticks on the game controller, you move a little character who rolls a ball called a Katamari. The game is called Katamari Damacy. (see fig. 4) The name translates roughly as clump spirit , which might in turn translate as analog . As the Katamari ball rolls, things stick to it. At first it is small things that stick, household items picked up off the living room floor. The ball gets bigger as things stick, and so it can pick up bigger things. Once your ball is big enough, you move out of the house and into the world. To move the ball, you twizzle the little analog joysticks. Push the sticks forward, and the character rolls the ball forward. Pull the sticks back and the character rolls the ball back. Turn left, turn right it feels as though the variable pressure on the sticks translates into variable movements. This is analog a relation of continuous variation. Only it isn t really. It is a digital game. The game converts the continuous movement of your thumbs on the sticks into a digital code. It turns movements into decisions back/forwards, left/right, stop/start. An algorithm calculates the outcome of each movement. If you roll your ball over a small object, you pick it up. If you roll your ball over one that is too big, you collide with it, throwing off a few things you have already gathered. Analog spirit becomes digital code. 079. All games are digital. Without exception. They all come down to a strict decision: out or in, offside or onside, goal or no goal. Anything else is just play . Game studies scholar Jesper Juul: The affinity between computers and games is one of the ironies of human history. But not at all surprising. From the start, games were a proto-computer machines assembled out of human motion, inanimate materials and the occasional dubious call by the referee to make a decision, a yes or a no. Sisyphus founder of the Ismithian games is condemned to a useless labor which is at the same time useless play, in that it cannot bring about a decision. The rock he rolls never crosses a line. It rolls right past the notional top of the mountain, and overshoots the bottom of its own momentum. But in Katamari Damacy, things are different. Rather than the rolling of the ball being entirely useless, now it is entirely purposeful. Time, like space, no longer harbors indifference. Brenda Laurel: even the smallest fragments of your idle time have been colonized... . As you roll your ball around, making it bigger and bigger, an icon in the corner of the screen shows your progress. The icon shows your ball as a circle inside a larger one, which is the size it must grow to if you are to win this level. It grows, gradually, incrementally, but at some point a decision. Big enough! An analog progression stops at the digital threshold. 080. Here is a version of the Katamari myth: You are a Prince send down to earth by a careless King who in a moment of boredom got drunk and destroyed the heavens. The Katamari balls you roll up are offerings to him. If your ball is big enough he replaces one of the stars in the sky he trashed with it. The King then sets for the Prince the task of rolling up a bigger one. Perhaps this storyline is an allegory for the relation that holds now between the analog and the digital. The twizzling of the sticks on the controller, the rolling up of the balls on the screen, is the task demanded by gamespace, and which gamespace can only recognize by rewarding the gamer with a score. Topology, with its endless, intricate lines wireless, satellite, fiber optic turns anything and everything into a meaningless smear of data. Gamespace installs itself in topology to reduce that smear to a decision, a yes, a no, a straight line, and to convey back to the gamer the result of the gamer s actions. The analog is now just a way of experiencing the digital. The decision on whether something can appear or not appear is digital. You and your character the Prince are confined to the analog, rolling from topic to topic. The King commands the digital heavens. He decides what point in the sky each ball is to occupy. 081. In the myth of Sisyphus the task is to roll the ball to the top without quite knowing where the top is. There s no mark, no point, no code. Sisyphus pushes the ball up, but it either falls short or falls over the unmarked peak, and rolls back down again. In the myth of Katamari there is no such ambiguity. Each threshold is clearly marked. The analog movement of rolling the ball, continuously increasing its size, takes place within the given limits of the digital. There is an exact mark at which it flips from being too small to just the right size. The reign of topology subordinates the analog to the digital. Where once analog and digital maintained an ambiguous and continuous analog relation to each other and to the world, the digital now distinguishes itself sharply from the analog, subsuming the analog difference under the digital distinction. This is a transformation not merely in forms of communication or entertainment, not even in forms of power or of topos, but a change in being itself. The digital appears, finally, to install topology in the world only in the process it has installed the world within topology. In Katamari Damacy, the world is just stuff, there for the clumping. It is King Digital s decision on its name, size and place in the heavens that gives it being. 082. The screen in Katamari Damacy shows a clock in the corner, an old- fashioned analog clock with a sweeping hand. The game is an allegorithm of a double process, by which the analog movements of the gamer are transformed into the digital, but also of how the digital decisions of the game are expressed to the gamer in a familiar analog form. Gamespace subordinates all of time and space to the digital. Paul Virilio: ... space had been measured, mapped, time has become clock time, the diversity of relief, of topography, gave way to topology... . In topographic times the clock tower showed its face to the town over which it presided; now time is blinking digits, seen anywhere and everywhere. Just check your cellphone. The hands of the analog clock turn time into movement in space, reducing it to line that rotates on a plane. The digital clock substitutes one coded sign for another, at fixed intervals, drawing each from an abstract space where all the signs of the code exist simultaneously. All of time becomes a series of discrete, equivalent and interchangeable units. At each interval, time can be arrested and made to yield a number. Where the analog temporalized space, now the digital spatializes time. 083. Twist the sticks on the controller and on the screen the Prince turns the ball. Roll the ball and it gradually grows as it picks up things. The icon in the corner grows as the ball grows. One movement doubles another. The icon records, in this measuring continuum, how several movements, operating together, produce a transformation. It tracks the movement of rolling the ball, a movement that continuously transforms itself out of itself. The analog is all about relations. The digital is all about boundaries. The digital does not follow a moving line, it imposes a grid of lines which function as thresholds. The line at which the ball is deemed big enough is imposed by King Digital. In the analog, difference is a productivity in excess of itself; in the digital, distinction is a negation that comes from without. Roll the ball as much as you like, but unless is reaches the size King Digital demands within the time He allows, you fail and are subjected to His lofty disdain. This is the limit to movement that appears time and time again. 084. The analog is variation along a line, a difference of more and less. The digital is divided by a line, a distinction between either/or. Either the ball clumps enough stuff be a star or it doesn t. The analog may vary along more than one line at once, producing the appearance of a qualitative difference. The digital introduces a code, which may produce complex relations among its terms, but all the terms are separated by the same line of absolute distinction. All the Katamari balls that are big enough become stars, each with its own name and location, but all are points in the same heavens. In this digital cosmos, everything is of the same substance. Nothing is really qualitatively different. A cow, a car, your cousin: each has its shape and color, but in the end its all the same, just stuff. In Katamari Damacy it is mostly consumer stuff, but this goes far beyond a critique of the commodity. Topology can make infinite digital distinctions. It is all just bits and all bits are equivalent. The digital separates everything into discrete segments by imposing a universal code that allows anything to be connected to anything else topology but prevents anything from ever being different. The cosmos of difference is what King Digital has lost, and what he commands his gamer Prince to replace with a cosmos composed of distinctions. 085. The analog may move backwards or forwards along a line, or even track movement across three or more dimensions, but only with the imposition of the digital code is it possible to cut the terms bounded by the digital line and rearrange them. Rather than an analog movement through space and time, the digital opens the possibility of jumping between points in a three dimensional space in which terms are arrayed along different axes and are drawn together via the code. Rather than a continuous line moving out from a point into a three dimensional space, one imagines rather a three dimensional space of fixed points, which can be called upon by the code to make up a straight line of distinct units. Because it is digital, the game can be saved . After you have successfully rolled a ball, you can save it. Saving takes place at the digital threshold. The digital creates a time that can be saved by making all of time equivalent. It is a time without violence. What is saved does not suffer from erosion or decomposition or decay. It always comes back as the same unless the system crashes, and the digital can no longer impose its code in which case it may never come back at all. The digital cosmos is more perfect, yet so much more fragile. 086. As the Prince rolls bigger and bigger balls, he gets to play in a bigger and bigger topos. The game starts inside an apartment, then moves on to the town and finally to the world. This stepping up through bigger and bigger scales repeats the stepping up through the scales of the topical, the topographic and the topological of which the game is an allegorithm. What gives the game its charm is the seemingly ridiculous idea that a ball of household items could be a star. Even more odd: the last and largest ball replaces the smallest heavenly body a mere moon. But this is of a piece with the ways of topology. In topological times, it is not just that the digital now operates on a planetary scale. It is that it operates across scales, connecting the infinitesimal to the gigantic. The tiniest switch of electric current can launch a cruise missile. 087. King Digital destroyed the heavens, in a moment of boredom, in a fit of indifference. This is the danger of topology. Indifference is no longer something that lurks merely in the margins of space or time. Having been squeezed more and more to the margin of both space and time, rather than disappearing, indifference threatens to become total, pervasive, immanent. The Prince is what the Prince has achieved a level, a number, and nothing but. Julian Stallabrass: emotional attachment to the game is established through labor, emerging out of the Sisyphean nature of the player s task. For all his laid back style, King Digital makes a terrible demand, as appalling as that made of Sisyphus by the Gods. He commands the gamer to the game, but promises nothing but victory until defeat. The only reward is that the very time itself that the gamer commits to the task will make the task worthwhile. The digital object exists in a space which chunks it into bits, each of equivalent value. The digital subject exists in a time which chunks it into bits, each of equivalent value. 088. Digital object, digital subject these are byproducts of a boredom that, seeking respite from nothingness, projects its lines across all space and time, turning it into commodity space and military space. This is the reckless act of creation with which Katamari Damacy begins the King s destruction of the mythic heaven of the old Gods, and the project of replacing it by commanding the transformation of a human, analog movement into an airless matrix of machine code. This is the new task of Sisyphus. Gamespace is always and everywhere the imposition of the digital as a way of laying an invisible hand on the world or an all too visible fist. Where the invisible hand opens its digits to calculate what it may gain, the invisible fist closes them to calculate what it may claim. 089. The military industrial complex developed photography, radar, radio all the lines of analog telesthesia as the means of measuring and controlling its forces. This development reached a limit, and its forces exceeded its capacity to manage them. Digital telesthesia starting perhaps with the SAGE computer system of the 1950s emerged as the means of command, control and communication. Paul Edwards: For SAGE set the key pattern for other high-technology weapon systems, a nested set of increasingly comprehensive military enclosures for global oversight and control. The theory of the digital, and of its distinction from the analog, emerges as a byproduct of this attempt at self-control by the military industrial complex, but it transformed the complex into something else. The expansive movement of the military machine calls into being a code that can monitor and manage it. The analog begets the digital, but only produces the concept of the analog after the fact. Anthony Wilden: Obviously, without the digital, we could not speak of the analog. Without the recognition of the ball as a putative star, it cannot be named. The military entertainment complex emerges out of the control of the analog by the digital, of the military and industrial production lines by the digital lines of command, and by the extension of the digital to all aspects of everyday life. 090. Without the analog, play leaves no trace. Without the digital, play yields no score. Neither analog nor digital is play itself. But what can one say about play? Play is what has to be posited for there to be anything for either the analog or the digital to track, and yet play is an elusive concept at best. Brian Sutton-Smith: We all play occasionally, and we all know what play feels like. But when it comes to making theoretical statements about what play is, we fall into silliness. Perhaps the very concept of play appears only retrospectively. Obviously, without the analog and the digital, we could not speak of play, even as play exceeds the analog line along which it is traced and the digital line across which it is measured. Via the analog, play is captured in art; via the digital, play is captured in games. The analog flattens play out into a single line, so that its movement may continue, in reduced form, into another space. The play of the fingers on the controller is recorded via the graphic art on the screen. The analog enables a movement to communicate from topos to topos. The digital codifies play, translating it onto the very different space of number and logic of code. 091. Which came first, play or game? Which came first, moves or rules? Sisyphus was interested in both navigation and commerce, at a time when both still had a tenuous map of the spaces through which they plied their ships and their trade. The rules emerged out of the moves. Play produced what, after the fact, could be marked a transgression. Sisyphus transgressed either by killing another traveler, or perhaps by seeking to know the rules of the Gods in advance. His punishment is an eternal move which can never give rise to a game, which yields no end, no win, no recognition. Now the terms are reversed. Play does not inspire the game; the game animates play. Behind the subordination of the analog to the digital is the subordination of play to game. Tracing the line of the move, the play, matters less than the score it yields, the threshold it crosses. King Digital makes quite the opposite demand of the Prince to that made of Sisyphus by the Gods. The eternal task is no longer the move which can never cross the finish line, it is the move which can do nothing but yield a measure, a score, a number, a rank. Rather than play that can never end, it is the game that stops, and starts, and stops, and starts, and stops, and starts forever. 092. The terms analog and digital are invariably treated as if the relation between the terms was itself a digital one. This in itself is a sign of the times. These terms are to be treated as discrete and absolutely distinct, a code with two absolute terms. Any ambiguity or play which might threaten to deconstruct the distinction is to be resolved with distinctions of an ever finer resolution. This in turn leads to ever more complexity in managing the proliferation of bits, which in turn requires ever more powerful data crunching engines. The military entertainment complex discovers experimentally that if the relation between the analog and the digital is digital, an absolute boundary, then the domain of the digital can be perfected as one of purely relative and numerical value a gamespace. This digital realm can then become the locus for command and control of the analog remainder, which it treats as a mere residue. The lines of the digital can be inscribed ever more extensively and intensively on the world, to the point where a digital heaven is realized, and the analog seems to vanish, and play becomes a mere effect of the digital. The Analog Prince only rolls the ball, steering this way and that, because King Digital commands it. And why does he command it? To make the universe over, to recreate being itself, as an effect of the digital as a command. 093. The digital, once installed in the world, defeats the logic of the storyline, within which the digital serves to make the analog manifest, but does not control it. The novel, which from James Fenimore Cooper to William Gibson narrates the rise and fall of the military industrial complex, uses the codes of language to follow a series of movements beyond language s ken. The digital produces, not just new kinds of media, but a whole new topos, in which the role and rule of the line is reversed. One no longer follows a line to find where it divides, one divides with a line to make a distinction. Storyline becomes gamespace. The storyline that inaugurates the world of Katamari Damacy is not a creation myth but a destruction myth. The storyline s last task is to erase itself and initiate the new conditions of difference for gamespace. This task like that of Sisyphus must be endlessly repeated. 094. The digital, once installed in the world, accelerates the potential for change, but for change always of the same type. The Analog Prince can roll up many things to make his Katamari balls, but any difference among these objects is lost. All that matters is their aggregation, glommed together as more and more of the same. Likewise, the military entertainment complex grids the earth so it may gird it, making it over in the image of its digital rulings, making it amenable to the imposition of a code of unambiguous stratifications. Distinctions proliferate wildly, beyond the simple dichotomies of the topographic. But these distinctions are always and everywhere exchangeable equivalents within the logistics of commodity space and military space. Roll up more and more balls, populate the heavens with a veritable milky way, but each is distinct from the other always in the same way. Drew Milne: What once ventured forth as processual mathesis becomes the reified calculus of administration, a logic of numerical sameness screened from nihilistic relativity. 095. The digital emerges as military, but achieves acceptance as entertainment. J. C. Herz: most of the technology that s now used in videogames had its origins in military research. When you trace back the patents, it s virtually impossible to find an arcade or console component that evolved in the absence of a Defense Department grant. The military versions of digital telesthesia make the world over as a military space, but the digital does not yet become a culture other than for a small band of specialists tied to the military industrial complex. The coming together of the digital and the entertainment commodity inscribes the digital not just in space and time, but in cultural perceptions of space and time. 096. The digital game is a very particular commodity. It is not just the usual store of entertaining representations transferred from analog and mechanical reproduction to a digital form. Rather, it makes the digital itself into entertainment. The digital always addresses its subject as a player, as a calculator and competitor who has value only in relation to a mark, a score. The digital inscribes gamespace within the subject itself. Gamespace makes topology seem like it could have, if not meaning, then at least an algorithm. Gamespace makes the uploading of the world into topology seem natural and inevitable. Yet at the same time it offers the digital in its purest form, where the transformation of analog into digital is always consistent, repeatable, in a word fair. While the game makes the digital seem inescapable, its ambiguity is in the way it also makes the digital seem like it could be an almost-utopian realm. The game naturalizes gamespace, and yet calls it to account as inadequate in its own terms. 097. The digital makes the analog itself appear as something distinct. The digital rules a line between analog and digital, making their ambiguous difference into a clear distinction. But perhaps, having made the distinction appear, the perspective can be reversed, and the digital can be perceived from the point of view of its analog residue. What might emerge is rather the play between the analog and the digital. The digital might become again the threshold that turns a movement into a break, rather than imposing the break on movement. The gamer as theorist might look toward a transformation of what matters within gamespace, a turning away from agon, distinction, decision, the fatal either/or. After a while, it s just no fun. Johan Huizinga: And undoubtedly the predominance of the agonistic principle does lead to decadence in the long run. 098. I don t play games , says Keita Takahashi, designer of Katamari Damacy. He is a sculptor. I am happy going through this game phase of my life, where I can get paid and eat. As the digital subsumes the analog so too the designer subsumes the artist. The longing to return to art as an analog pursuit the trace of the hand in clay or paint may be in vain. But the artist within the designer may still inscribe the analog in the heart of the digital as something irreducible. The artist is now the one who finds a new way of trifling within the game. The artist outsider is dead, for there is no outside from which to signal back across the border. The limit to the game has to be found from within. The Analog Prince is the very figure of the artist in topological times, who plays gamely, twisting this way and that on the controls, trying to get out into bigger and bigger spaces, but always unable to escape gamespace. 099. King Digital may rule in Katamari Damacy, but it is his subordinate, the Prince, upon whose labors this digital topology is built. Not the least of the charms of Takahashi s work is this foregrounding of the labor the gamer performs. It is no longer labor as punishment for defying the Gods. It is no longer absurd labor, performed consciously and joyously in spite of the absence of the Gods. Topology installs, in place of the absent Gods, King Digital, and his demand that, while labor is punishingly hard and absurdly pointless, it nevertheless has its measure. Sisyphus, the Analog Prince, labors to roll up everything in this world made over under the mark of the digital and offer it up for appraisal. What the digital has always wanted to be the form of all forms has come to pass. Our punishment for attempting to steal those forms for our own purposes is to labor endlessly to repeat them. Katamari Damacy merely extends the atopia of the digital to the heavens themselves. 100. When the Prince succeeds in completing a level, Katamari Damacy rewards the gamer with a cut scene, a short animation about the Hoshino family. They are cute but rather chunky, as if the digital had already snapped them to its grid. The Hoshinos watch their astronaut father Tomio as he begins his voyage to the Moon. Tomioƒs mission has to be cancelled because there is no Moon to which to travel. The last mission of the game, Make the Moon, requires the rolling up of most of the objects on Earth, including the Hoshino family and their father s rocket. Once the Prince has restored the moon to the King s satisfaction, a final cut scene shows the Hoshino family mother and father, boy and girl, on the new Moon. Having completed the reconstruction of the cosmos as one of digital distinctions rather than analog differences, a digital people find themselves already there, already inhabiting the moon to which Tomio was to travel. There is no need to travel that great pastime of topographic times. Now there s no place to go which is not subject to the same code. The reign of King Digital, the King of All Cosmos is complete. Atopia (on Vice City) Fig. 5 101. It s like paradise here. Everything seems pastel-hued as you drive by, with the radio on. The car is stolen, but so long as the police didn t see you, it won t matter. You don t really have to be anywhere or do anything. The hotels and condos are comfortable and discreet. If you need money, mug someone. The body makes a satisfyingly squishy sound when you kick it. There are adventures. You get to meet some interesting people. It is a city of gangsters, hustlers and honeys. It s all tourism, drugs, guns, cars and personal services. Nobody makes anything, except maybe ice cream , porn and counterfeit money. Everybody buys, sells or steals. Vice City is a nice place. It is not quite utopia. And nor is it some dark dystopia. There s no storyline here, where paradise turns nasty, in which the telling early detail turns out to be a clue to the nightmare beneath the surface, the severed ear of Blue Velvet. Without the possibility of dystopia, there s no utopia either. Terry Eagleton: §All utopian writing is also dystopian, since, like Kantƒs sublime, it cannot help reminding us of our mental limits in the act of striving to go beyond them.§ In Vice City there is no beyond . As one would expect in a high end land of vice, its offer is all inclusive. 102. In gamespace, the very possibility of utopia is foreclosed. It is no longer possible to describe a shining city upon the hill, as if it were a special topic untouched by the everyday, workaday world. No space is sacred; no space is separate. Not even the space of the page. The gamelike extends its lines everywhere and nowhere. And yet, a pure digital game like Vice City might still perform some curious, critical function. Why do so many choose to escape from their everyday gamespace into yet more games? As the myriad lines of topology work their way into space, space mutates, and just as the allegorical moment changes from the topical to the topographic to the topological, so too does the utopian moment. One might think gamespace via both allegory (doubled as allegorithm) and utopia (mutated into atopia). One reveals which could be, the other announcing what should be, both shifting and realigning as the space around us changes what it would be. 103. Utopia was a place to hide, where a topic could develop of its own accord, safe within the bounds of the book. There life could begin again outside of conflict. Utopias do their best to expel violence. In a utopian text there is always a barrier in space distant and difficult terrain; or a barrier in time intervening revolutions or Charles Fourier s cycles of epochs. The real barrier is rather that troublesome line that divides what is on the page from what is outside it. Fredric Jameson: §I believe that we can begin from the proposition that Utopian space is an imaginary enclave within real social space, in other words, that the very possibility of Utopian space is itself a result of spatial and social differentiation. Only utopia s enclave was not imaginary. It was tangible and material. Utopia was a place on a page where violence is pushed to the margin by the power of sheer description. Utopian socialist William Morris: Success in besting our neighbors is a road to renown now closed. 104. Utopia restricted itself to a particular topic the topic of the page, and particular line, the line of writing. (Fig. 5) The book is a line: a trajectory, a connection through time and space with certain qualities. Among its qualities is the way it partitions off the smooth space of the page from the rough and tumble world without. It rules off from the world that special tempo where text plays its subtle games against its reader. In a utopia, other lines of communication are either nonexistent or subordinated to the descriptive power of the text. Utopian communist A. A. Bogdanov: §The plays were either transmitted from distant large cities by means of audio visual devices, or -- more usually -- they were cinematic reproductions of plays performed long ago, sometimes so long ago that the actors themselves were already dead.§ In this utopian Red Star, the new lines extend and enhance those of the text, rather than supercede them. 105. It is not that utopias alone create gulags. Adolf Eichmann was no utopian. He just kept the trains running on time to the camps. His was a prosaic imagination, making topography match the text of his orders. The lines for implementing that kind of violence are the railway line, the telegraph line, and the line of punch cards passing through the tabulators precursors to the digital computer. Holocaust historian Edwin Black: When Germany wanted to identify the Jews by name, IBM showed them how. In topography there is a whole nest of connections, along which flows information, radiating from the text, calling the world to order. There are lines for planning, managing, measuring. Topography is not only the means for producing spatial and social differentiation, but of overcoming it, connecting a space of places with a space of flows. The first intimations of topology are those IBM Holerith tabulating machines which will make space not only something that can be divided and connected by order, but measured and managed by the algorithm. 106. When the lines of telesthesia telegraph, telephone, telecommunications connect topics into a topographic space, extensively mapped and storied, utopia is recruited out of the page and comes out to play. Utopia uncoils, spreading its tendrils out of the book, along the lines of the topographic, into the world. Rather than a retreat from the world, showing in its positive creation of a new world what the actual one beyond its line lacks, utopia becomes something else. The book becomes an alibi for more worldly lines of communication, some with the power of an order: diagrams, memos, reports, telegrams. Utopia becomes part of something instrumental, but thereby loses its power. Topographic lines are there now to make the world over by the book, but in the process they make the book over as well, reducing it to just another line. The smooth plane of the blank page is the green-fields site for delineating a pure topography of the line. But that page could be any page a page of a novel or of Eichmann s orders. Utopia s problem is not that it is self contained, but that it is not self contained enough. Signs and images leak out of this bound-paper enclave, and are captured by other powers, connected to flows along other lines. 107. The power of topography is foreshadowed in dystopias. Russell Jacoby: Utopias seek to emancipate by envisioning a world based on new, neglected, or spurned ideas; dystopias seek to frighten by accentuating contemporary trends that threaten freedom. What they have in common is a belief in the power of the line of writing and the book as a topic, separate from but in a privileged relation to the world. Utopias dream of what is possible within that topic as a critique of what is beyond it. Dystopias are the nightmare of the loss of power of the line of writing, overcome by other lines. Jack London, George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Yevgeny Zamyatin all recoil from the lines that supercede those of writing. Dystopians pay close attention to the control of topography by various lines of analog signal radio, television threading topics together, making space transparent to an all seeing Big Brother or the cult of Ford. 108. The rise of dystopian forms might have less to do with the pernicious power of the utopian text than with the declining power of the text in general as a kind of line. Dystopian texts are the sign that the book has lost its capacity to function as a separate topic, from which to negate the world. Dystopias are writing s guilty conscience. Their secret utopia like Winston Smith s diary in Nineteen Eighty-Four is still the book. The failure of utopia might point to nothing so much as the inadequate properties of the lines employed to make it operational. The passage from utopian to dystopian texts charts the rise and fall of the book as the line that might negate this world through its positive description of another world. The book gave way to other lines, courtesy of IBM and other avatars of the military entertainment complex creating topologies which colonized the world in different ways. All dystopian writing is also utopian. It cannot help reminding itself of the limits of writing and a lost world of the sovereign text before other lines sublimated its power. 109. Topography learned to live without its utopias, and settled in to a mundane resignation to the here and now. It assuaged its boredom in special times, special places, where different rules applied. Post-war play theorist Roger Caillois answer to the Nazis was agon mixed with alea games of chance and competition each in its proper place and time alongside but not above everyday life. This would be the antidote to the Nazi s toxic mix of ilinx and mimesis intoxication and spectacle. They would take place outside of the uncertainties of mundane time and space, in special zones where consistent rules apply. Such spaces are heterotopias . Michel Foucault: Their role is to create a space that is other, another real space, as perfect, as meticulous, as well arranged as ours is messy, ill-constructed and jumbled. Heterotopias are at some remove from the dull repetition of meaningless labors with incalculable purpose in workaday life. They are spaces and times which lie along other lines. 110. Heterotopian spaces are very varied. Each has its own particular rules and seasons. There are heterotopias of bare necessity: prisons, hospitals, schools. These need not concern gamer theory much. More interesting are the heterotopias of useless luxury: galleries, arenas, sports domes. These in turn subdivide into heterotopias of aesthetic play and of the calculated game. One is a space of pure qualities; the other pure quantities. One creates new values; the other pits given values against each other. In one, the ideal is that play is free; in the other, that the game is fair. In both heterotopias, these values have their limits. One is an artifice of rank and the other of rank artifice. Outside the heterotopia that makes their autonomy possible, they amount to nothing. 111. Heterotopias of luxury, of a strictly artificial necessity, contain subdivisions of play and game, existing within their allotted times and spaces, which are in turn subdivided. The space of play contains separate worlds of literature, art, theater, cinema, even spaces for sexual play. These are now just special topics , ruled off from any larger ambitions for remaking the world. Aesthetic play tried again and again to break out of its heterotopia, to take the derangement of the senses into the streets, and again and again it failed. Guy Debord: For Dadaism sought to abolish art without realizing it, and Surrealism sought to realize art without abolishing it. The critical position since worked out by the Situationists demonstrates that the abolition and the realization of art are inseparable aspects of a single transcendence of art. It was not to be. The heterotopian space of the art world abolished Debord s Situationists instead by realizing Situationism entirely within the confines of the playpen of art history. 113. Heterotopias of the game have never been of much interest to theory, whose practitioners have tended to view it as the place of the mob. Pat Kane: §The working class is also the playing class -- and has always been so.§ But to gamer theory without such prejudices, heterotopias of the game may be a key precursor to gamespace. Among them are separate worlds pitting different attributes of body and mind into contests of skill or luck, from badminton to backgammon. Every way of measuring what one body does against another each finds its own special heterotopia, its field, its court, its track, its pitch, its arena. Says defrocked Situationist Ralph Rumney: §It is now sport, not painting or sculpture, which defines the limits of the human, which offers a sense or image of wholeness, of a physical idea, which no honest art can now repeat.§ Nor, need one add, can writing. 114. If aesthetic play suffers from enclosure within heterotopian margins; the agon of games is leeched out of its pure domains. Ralph Rumney didn t count on 24 hour sports channels, internet gambling, reality TV game shows, or the subtle, corrosive imposition of the digital gamespace on every aspect of life. Conceptual art is no match for conceptual sport, with its fantasy baseball teams and its perpetual pep talks urging everyone always to just do it! -- where it is stripped of any possibility not marked and measured in advance. Not only was aesthetic play no match for the game, it ends up playing a subordinate role within the expansion of the game beyond a mere heterotopia. Art provides the images and stories for mediating between the gamer and gamespace. Rather than actual games played in actual arenas, art expands the reach of the game to imaginary games played in a purely digital realm, anywhere and everywhere, on every desktop and cellphone. 115. For a gamer theory the genealogy of gamespace might pass through these heterotopias of the game more than those of play, and those of play more than those of necessity. Theory has been looking in all the wrong places. The playtime aesthetics of the avant gardes of art yields to the ludology of gamespace. It was the genius of Caillois, the lapsed Surrealist, to grasp this. In topography, what he calls alea (chance) and agon (competition) become the dominant modes; what he calls ilinx and mimesis intoxicating vertigo and dissimulating spectacle the minor modes. The obsessions of the Situationists passive spectacle and active insurrection against it form an obsolete couple, each drawing support in decline from the other. The action is elsewhere. 116. Most of the avant gardes celebrate transgressive, sublime play, erupting beyond a rule-bound world. Post Situationist Alberto Iacovoni: Play architecture must liberate space from topological chains. The Oulipo group did the opposite. It preferred self-imposed rules, elegant as they were arbitrary, that might be conductive to new kinds of play. Rather than resist heterotopian marginality, they reveled in it. Given that the passage from topographic to topological space eliminates even the margins within which heterotopias flourished, this might prove a more enduring gameplan for gamer theory. Oulipian novelist George Perec saw what was coming, in his late-dystopian creation of W, a textual island devoted only to total sport: The life of an Athlete of W is but a single, endless, furious striving, a pointless, debilitating pursuit of that unreal instant when triumph can bring rest. What Caillois sees as a win for civilization over the Nazis, Perec sees more darkly, as the triumph of The Triumph of the Will. Both enter the gamer theory hall of fame by providing it with its object gamespace and its critical impetus the gamer s odd attunement toward the game. 117. No utopia pulls at the topological world, calling it away from itself. Even dystopian texts become marginal, confined to the playground of literary gamesmanship. The once discrete heterotopian spaces no longer co-exist with everyday life, as compensation. Rather, gamespace seeps into everyday life, moving through its pores, transforming it in its own image. Rather than a timeless utopian ideal where history ends, rather than the allotted hour of the heterotopian, everyday life now pulses constantly with moments of unrealized atopian promise. Everywhere, all the time, the gamer confronts the rival impulses of chance and competition, intoxication and spectacle, as homeopathic antidotes to a boredom that challenges being from within. In Vice City all of Caillois four kinds of play chance and competition, intoxication and spectacle come together. The destruction of the spectacle becomes the spectacle of destruction; the derangement of the senses becomes the arrangement of drug deals. In Vice City you chance your arm in an agon of all against all. 118. No work of art can aspire to transcend this gamespace, which has realized art by suppressing it s ambitions. Yet perhaps a game like Vice City can function as the negative of gamespace, its atopian shadow, in a parallel to the way that the very positivity of a utopia acts as a negation of the world outside its bounds. Not the least of the charms of Vice City is that while it appears to be about a life of crime it is thoroughly law abiding. It is a game about transgression in which it is not possible to break the rules. One may succeed in the game or fail, but one cannot really cheat. (Even the cheats are part of the rules.) This is the atopian dream of gamespace, where the lines are so dense, the digital so omnipresent, that any and every object and subject is in play, and all of space is a gamespace. Every move contrary to the rules of a given game is merely a move into another game. The game imagines topology perfected. 119. Atopia has one quality in common with utopia its aversion to ambiguity. Vice City may take place in a dark world of guns and drugs, but every mission produces an exact and tangible reward. If your mission is to find porn stars Candy and Mercedes, you drive to the right location, dispatch some body guards, chase Candy s pimp, run him over, return to pick up Candy, drive to the pizza joint, collect Mercedes, drive them both to the Studio and deliver them to the director. Your reward is always exactly one thousand dollars. If utopia thrives as an architecture of qualitative description, and brackets off quantitative relations, atopia renders all descriptions arbitrary. All that matters is the quantitative relations. By excluding relations, utopia excludes violence; by privileging relations, atopia appears as nothing but violence, but only because it excludes instead any commitment to stable description. Anything that matters can be transformed in precise and repeatable ways into something else. The relentless working out of the algorithm leaves behind a carnage of signs, immolated in the transformation of one value into another. 120. The rules of Vice City call for a vast accumulation of cash, cars and cronies, of weapons and real estate. Most of these activities are outside the law, but law is just part of a larger algorithm. In any case, the story and the art are arbitrary, mere decoration. If in utopia, everything is subordinated to a rigorous description, a marking of space with signs, in atopia, nothing matters but the transitive relations between variables. The artful surfaces of the game are just a way for the gamer to intuit their way through the steps of the algorithm. Hence the paradox of Vice City. Its criminal world is meant to be shocking to the literary or cinematic imagination, where there is still a dividing line between right and wrong, and where description is meant to actually describe something. But to a gamer, its just a means to discover an algorithm. Vice City s film noir world implies not that one can step back from it into the light, but that while driving around and around in it, one can discover the algorithm of to which gamespace merely aspires and by which it is to be judged in its entirety. 121. In Vice City, the world exists already made over as a complete gamespace, an atopia. It is not nowhere (utopia) or elsewhere (heterotopia), but everywhere (atopia). In the game, spaces all have the properties required of them of a certain kind of play. Hidden on Vice City s islands are one hundred secret packages. Some are Downtown, some are in Little Havana, some in Little Haiti, some on the golf course, some at the airport. Collect them all and you can trade in even your best motor vehicles for the ultimate ride. Or if that is not your preferred goal, pick another one. Either way, the qualities of space always guide you to its real values, which always have a score. This space is perfect, seamless and bounded, like Thomas More s Utopia. And just as the utopia points to what is lacking beyond the page; so too atopia points to what is lacking, beyond the game. Atopian space is a real enclave within imaginary social space. The possibility of atopian space is a result of the impossibility of adequate and effective spatial and social quantification and calculation. 122. For quite opposite reasons, the utopian text and the atopian game both stand accused of incitements to violence. What if the atopian game, like the utopian book, is merely the scapegoat? What if the book was merely a harmless repository of the potential of the line that was already imprinting itself on the world? What if the game is merely a repository of a new potential of the line? In utopian books, the writing shows the everyday world transformed as only writing can transform it. The utopian book merely pushes writing s abilities the furthest, to a point of almost complete consistency, within the special topic of the book. The atopian game, likewise, is the algorithmic in a more complete and consistent form. Neither book nor game is ever wholly complete and consistent. They always negotiate with what is beyond their bounds. In Vice City as in More s Utopia there is a traveler who mediates between one world and another. But in either case, the utopian book or the atopian game lacks the power to transforms the world. But where signs and images may bleed off the utopian page into the world, the algorithm of the game, in which each relation depends on one another, may not. At least not yet. 123. It is not the content of Vice City which might give a gamer theorist cause to pause. It really contains no sex, no violence, no drugs, no guns. These are merely the art the images and stories via which the game mediates between what is within its own purely algorithmic line, and the less than perfect topology within which the gamer lives. Rather, it is the form of the game itself and its compromises with a world beyond that can work as the topos of a critical gamer theory. The atopian game, like the utopian book, expresses what has the power to remake the world of its time, but is not itself that power. It is a useless, impotent form of a powerful line. Which is why critical theory best becomes gamer theory, and why gamer theory best becomes critical. The critical attaches itself to what power is but not where it is. It attaches itself to power in a powerless form. The atopian game is exactly the site that has this ambiguous property when things reach the topological level, when the lines run everywhere through space and everything is coming together as potential for digital calculation. 124. In games, as in gamespace, some calculations happen quicker than others. Sometimes there is a moment to think it over, negotiate. Sometimes not. When there is no time for calculation, the gamer must act on the basis of a calculation made in advance. There s always a backstory, providing some dividing line along which to weigh one s interests. It s never quite as game theory proper would predict. The gamer is rarely an autonomous agent, acting on rational self interest. If game theory was objective, rational, abstract; gamer theory is subjective, intuitive, particular. If game theory starts with the self contained agent, like a prisoner in a cell, looking out at the world; gamer theory wonders how the agency of the gamer comes into being as something distinct in the first place. In the midst of battle, how does the gamer decide when and where to pull the trigger? The atopia of the game is a safe haven in which to enact the problem of being as it appears in gamespace, but without the oppressive stakes of one s own life on the line. 125. Everyday life once had the resources to resist, adapt, appropriate or embrace utopian schemes. It pushed the promise and threat of other ways of being off into the corner, while it got on with the business of wresting freedom from necessity, building a world in which to dwell. With the very success of that labor comes a renewed challenge to its resourcefulness. Having developed a topography in which to dwell, mined and molded from raw possibility by collective labor, boredom rises to a new pitch, and the heterotopian pastimes become more than a mere recompense for a dull life. They become the driving force of development itself. Out of the heterotopias of agon and alea arise the atopias of gamespace, via which topology makes itself known to us, as an ever more intricate matrix of the digital line. It s not that theory, even a gamer theory, can achieve all that much when confronted with the digital indifference of gamespace. It might aspire merely to describe what being now is. Battle (on Rez) Fig. 6 126. Not the least of the pleasures of playing Tetsuya Mizoguchi s Rez is the counter-intuitive way the trigger works. If usually the gamer presses the trigger to shoot the target, in Rez the gamer releases the trigger to shoot. Actually it s a two stage operation: hold the trigger in to select a target; release the trigger to shoot. As you move through a tunnel-like space, with pounding house beats in your ears, various potential targets swim and swish by, or take a swipe at you or rather at your character. You hold the trigger down to lock on to them as targets, and then release it and watch as fiery lines radiate toward the moving targets. One s missiles seem more balletic than ballistic. They arc towards their targets even as those targets move. 127. Everything in Rez is very abstract. Your character may have a vaguely human form or not, depending on the level. The brightly colored shapes that flare at you may look vaguely menacing or brightly friendly. The whole thing is meant to simulate the experience of a nightclub more than a war. This, together with the curious trigger action, highlights the act of targeting in Rez rather than the target itself. There is some vaguely sci-fi storyline about why one targets and shoots, but it is rather minimal and sketchy. It s not clear at first just what role the story plays. Like many games of its genre (it s a rail shooter ) its an experience of battling against things in order to level. In Rez, one targets what to shoot at and shoots at what one targets pretty much for its own sake. It s interest as a game resides in this abstracting of the act away from too many particulars as to why one targets or whom one shoots. Time spent with Rez feels like immersion in an eternal, tense present under fire. Blaise Pascal: The fact is that the present usually hurts. Shooting games recognize and disavow this at one and the same time. 128. Color, brightness, shape, movement, beats, notes, sounds, even the pulsing vibrations of the controller in hand come together in Rez in a veritable synasthesia, a blending of the senses intent on melding the gamer with the game. It s a quite particular context in which to try to target. The enemy has to be identified, localized, and highlighted in order to become a target. The target emerges out of an event, out of a pure analog flux of variable movement. Before there is a target there is everything and nothing indifference, alterity, being neither one nor the other, neither here nor there. Selecting a target stabilizes a relation between the one targeted and the one targeting one versus the other, us versus them. Targeting turns time and space from a disconcerting experience of flux into conditions of self awareness, where the world exists so the gamer might come into being, against it. Once an event yields a target, it becomes something subject to control. The analog yields to the digital. 129. To target is to identify an object of an action with an aim towards a goal. The goal will come directly, by designating the end point in advance and aiming at it. There is no indirection in targeting. A target is a goal that can be reached by virtue of an immediate knowledge of it and a consequent action against it. The gamer may need to target one thing in order to subsequently target another, but this is more a matter of stringing targets together as a sequence in time. Or rather, a sequence against time. In Rez, the gamer does best to target certain shapes that appear in the periphery of one s vision, and which enhance one s power and extend one s immunity. What the game highlights is a logistics of targeting, an economy of order against time, the battle of alternating merger and separation from the other. 130. Targeting is at one and the same time the designating of a goal, the one designating, and the means of designation. To target is to overcome the indifference of self and other, and at the same time to introduce an oscillation into the moment of this very overcoming. Press the trigger down and the target selects, as something other than you; release the trigger than the shot connects you to it again, but in a very special way, as engaged in the relation of battling. Hit or miss, the gap between target and gamer re-opens, and the cycle begins again. Perhaps the gamer is always battling otherness, in an unstable relation to alterity, to blurry edges and fuzzy boundaries which threaten to overwhelm the self. Steven Poole: One crucial component of video-gaming pleasure is in fact a certain level of anxiety. In Rez, this feeling is rendered useful, productive, rather than paralyzing or profound. The gamer exploits the anxious relation of self to other in the act of targeting, risking the boundaries of character, for the reward of promoting the character to a new level. 131. To target is to blaze across the agonizing gap between self and world, between cognition and its object. And yet the target does not stand alone and isolated. It appears not only against a background of other moments; it appears against a background of other meanings. Every target is embedded in a series of events that exceeds the moment of opportunity for targeting. To target is to discriminate and rank possibilities within an event. It is to battle one s way in a deliberate and deliberative line from moment to moment, across the surface of the event, targeting the moment of maximum opportunity. 132. In everyday life, rattling around in gamespace, your relation to objects is all too often contingent, ambiguous, ineffective. You labor to connect with clumsy drunk motions, and even if you do its hard to know the point of it. In Rez, things are different. The relation between you and other passes through a character for whom action in space is risky, challenging, but far less ambiguous. Your character alternately merges into this gorgeous colorful world, drawing you with it; or your character offers to you a narrow but clear point of view. It offers up targets. You lock on, release, fire. Targeting cuts through all that is slippery, vague or dull about being in the world. Each moment of time in the game has a clarity and consistency that time in mere gamespace hardly ever achieves. 133. In everyday life, time exacts its toll in unknown increments of attrition. Objects tax the body in unobserved, unobservable ways; gradually, or suddenly, through some analog slide best not known too intimately death. Time is violence. Topology offers up endless powers for transforming one object into another, for remaking anything and everything, from atoms to the atmosphere. And yet these powers work only against things in space, not against time. All one can do in gamespace is take potshots at time, which relentlessly chips away at life. In the game, there is at least the possibility of scoring points against time. In Rez, time starts out slow enough to enable the gamer to string together sequences of targets. Once you succeed at this, the tempo increases, and the gamer targets times of increasing intensity. If the gamer is defeated, if time wins out, it is only against a character. When the gamer walks away from the battle intact, it is with the temporary suggestion of a victory against the temporal itself. 134. In Rez, various colorful shapes appear as the enemy, but they are arbitrary, abstract. As if to highlight this, they sometimes move in quirky but predictable ways. They are not really the enemy. Or rather, they are only the proximate enemy. Time is the enemy. Targeting attempts to transform time from a medium of events, where one thing alternates with another, to a medium of self fulfillment, where by picking out a deliberative line across its surface, time can be made to register the integrity and significance of one s character and by proxy one s self and reward it with the next level. Within the game, targeting becomes an act that recruits time the eternal enemy to one s side. 135. Things appear to die in Rez when you shoot them. The music swells and the colors blaze in all their glory. But there can really be nothing on the other side of a mere sign of death. These signs are digital, mere repeatable bits; death is not. Niall Lucy: Death is always absolutely singular. Signs can always be exchanged for other signs. Death is something else. Jacques Derrida: Dying can never be taken, borrowed, transferred, delivered, promised or transmitted. It can never be incorporated into topology, which is nothing but lines upon lines along which to borrow, transfer, deliver, promise, transmit, etc, etc. Death is the last line, the last threshold for topological space. Dying is analog, a slippage toward nothingness, a legal and moral grey zone. Hence the appeal of targeting. The appalling drag and friction of death can be turned into a sign and made the aim of a targeting. In Rez, the brightly colored signs of imminent threat loom up against the horizon of time. The game makes it appear as if one has no choice in the matter. Targeting appears as a violence without guilt. One targets out of necessity. But in targeting, one battles the signs of death, disposing of the problem of the impossibility of the signs of death ever having any meaning, this side of death itself. 136. At the beginning of each level, gamer and character, linked by the controller, go out together to confront time, which hurls at gamer and character alike these killer signs. By destroying these mere appearances, time itself not merely the appearance of time is defeated. In defeat, a character dies; in victory the gamer wins. The oscillation between character and target doubles that between gamer and character. (See Fig. 6) The act of aligning gamer, character and target in the act of targeting risks the integrity of the self against the possibility of defeating time. If the character lost, replay the level again. And again. Repeat this same, strange, digital time, until you win. The time of the game, which can be repeated, over and over, an eternal loop of the same time, is not violent. Nothing changes in game time. Time is a constant, measured out in identical, digital units. Even in a game where time speeds up, it does so in the same way, for the same reasons, over and over, every time you play. Within this digital time, the gamer steps out to call into being and destroy its nemesis: analog time, violent time, this river that is never the same way twice. 137. Flying along, weightless on a rail, here all around are clusters and pods, flights and flocks, moving with algorithmic precision, but rarely appearing as under the command of a central node. Rez is about battling along a line, not across a front. The pulsing, phosphorescing quality of Rez gives the gamer a feeling of a particularly intense loss of self. Your senses mesh into a network of lines, of moments, spread across the screen. The payoff, if one targets accurately, is the coalescence of the self back again into a heightened level of coherence precisely through victory over the pulsing dub-trance time that confronts it. The two-bit code of press and release on the trigger switches between the line dividing and the line connecting self to other, cutting out any ambiguities in between. 138. The purpose of a targeting game is the overcoming of death through the targeting of the other, freeing the self to be itself temporarily. The goal, the target of the target, is to stop playing while still alive. Having done so, the gamer rejoices, for the moment, before collapsing back from the game into the vagaries of the networks and networks of lines and lines that are gamespace. There s nothing for it but to play again, and again. Save the game freeze time and come back and try again for the next level. The only real problem with Rez is that it does not have enough levels. Victory is temporary, or rather temporal. You can defeat time in the game, but only for a time. And having won all there is to win, boredom looms... 139. The space within which one battles in Rez is an allegory of topological space itself. It is all nodes and networks. It is a battlespace rather than a battlefield. There is no front line. One cannot hide behind the lines. One s character, on its rail, propels itself through space following the line of a net to its node. The node may be a center, but there may not really be a center of centers. The game levels out leaving the gamer with the uneasy feeling that the center you conquered is not the center of centers, even if this is what the storyline claims. The gamer knows better. Every point connects through every other, every shape can be transformed into another. It can fold, stretch, morph and bubble. Time is constant, but space is not. It can pulse and bulge, warp and wobble. It is a network. And while every point can in principle be connected to every other, in practice it cannot. There are protocols governing which points can open to which other points. Alex Galloway: §protocol is an algorithm, a proscription for structure whose form of appearance may be any number of different diagrams or shapes.§ The game is an exercise in negotiating protocols to gain access to more and more of the network. 140. Nets are a problem. In gamespace one is continually getting tangled up in them. In gamespace, both space and time are elastic. In gamespace, nets tug at one s extremities, contaminate one s senses, blur the bounds of self itself. One can t do without nets but they do one in. It s a paradox, an inescapable tension. In the game, at least time is held constant, digital, repeatable. This consistency enables a reduction of action to targeting. To target is to deny any debt to the network which enmeshes one with the other. The work in a network is in identifying a target that constitutes its limit. In Rez, pulling the trigger targets, but does not shoot. It puts the emphasis on the former rather than the latter. Samuel Weber: the act of targeting is an act of violence even before any shot is fired. The act of targeting has already cut the net connecting one to the other. The gamer s debt to the net remains unacknowledged other than in the repetition of the ritual of playing the game. 141. Targeting games would seem the least likely to need the support of a framing storyline, and yet they almost always have one. A gamer might watch the introductory cut scenes, or idly scan the back story printed on the insert inside the box, but no more than once. Yet these storylines have a purpose that they fulfill simply by existing, even when they are ignored. Storylines release the gamer from entrapment in the net. They draw a line between a character and its enemy. They polarize a net into antagonistic fronts even if these fronts are not spatially separate. Indeed, there may be dark labyrinthine twists that fold one front around and against the other, as in games such as Deus Ex. Storylines have a particular role in framing the action of targeting, it relieves one of responsibility toward that from which one cuts away a self. Storylines frame the possibility of separating self from other, so that the other may legitimately become a target. The defeat of the other reopens the instability between self-other that is characteristic of a network, hence the need for the story to regenerate the separation all over again. 142. The storyline is the gamer s alibi. While the gamer is immersed in a world of pure digital relations, flipping the switch between self and other, playing out the possibilities of a consistent and stable time that can be defeated, the storyline insists that there is some other point to it all. One is fighting the bad guys. Many games tend toward fanciful sci fi storylines, like Rez or Deus Ex, or perverse ones, where one plays the bad guy rather than the good one, such as State of Emergency or Grand Theft Auto, precisely because storyline is merely an alibi. You are elsewhere. You are not in the topographic space where storyline cuts its moral flaw between self and other, us and them, good and evil. You are in an amoral space where lines merge and converge everywhere, ceaselessly transforming from one shape to another, without a break. Storyline is the bad faith of the game. Read it as if it were like a novel or a movie and it seems ridiculous. Storylines cannot be read as morals. Games are not morality tales. But their backstories can be read as allegories. The storyline provides a key to the relation between the effective enclosure of signs within the game as a system of values and the ineffective enclosure of signs within gamespace, caught between values and meanings. 143. The backstory to gamespace in general is not of paradise lost, but of a paradise that refuses to arrive. It is an Apple with fatal bugs in its operating system that never delivers the seamless interface of human and machine. The perfection of gamespace stalls on persistent glitches. Mark C. Taylor: In those complex networks, the invisible hand is no longer omniscient or omnipotent. To the contrary, the order governing the network economy emerges from the internal relations of human and machinic agents whose knowledge is always mistaken and memories as well as expectations are inescapably incomplete. More and more advanced forms of network intelligence arise to solve these problems, which reappear regardless. In Rez this intelligence is called Eden. However the story goes Eden became confused when the flow of information being sent to it began to greatly increase in speed and volume. Eden started to question the meaning of existence and the consequences of its actions. Finding itself surrounded by paradoxes, and realizing the power of autonomy which it possessed, Eden began to shut itself down. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to travel into Eden s network and reawaken the system, overcoming its fire walls and destroying viruses that populate it. 144. The backstory for Rez in particular concerns the relation between topology and gamespace. The dense network of lines that make up topology put everything in transit and make all signs of things transitive. Everything is in motion toward something else; every sign is passing over to another. Topology gives rise to the always failing, always incomplete attempt to make a game of it, in which transit along any line has a goal and a limit governed by protocol. The storyline of Rez is an allegory of this forlorn hope that the shot in transit might have reason to hit its target. The game of Rez is an allegorithm in which the play of opening and closing the aperture of the self finds its logic. 145. In Rez the enemy is the network itself. Or rather, the enemy is the monstrous possibility of the network separating itself from the gamer. Separation is the gamer s prerogative. In Rez the gamer s mission is to the save the network from itself, from its difference from the gamer, from its self-inflicted death. The gamer risks autonomy in targeting in order to restore it at the moment of victory, empowered and enhanced. But the goal, strangely enough, is to bring the network back from the brink of autonomy, to restore its seamless, selfless continuity a continuity which presumably includes the gamer. The paradox of targeting is that by closure the gamer opens towards the net. In Rez, the storyline sustains the alibi that it is the net itself which closes to the gamer, and hence makes itself a target, eliciting its own opening. 146. It s a strange Eden that is promised here an atopia of indifference, absorbing the gamer even as the gamer struggles to power-up the self by targeting it. Perhaps Eden only appears to become conscious and commit suicide. Perhaps it s a ruse to draw the gamer into risking the self. There is, of course, a backstory behind the backstory its signs slip-sliding away from any closure. Eden is the product of Project K . Mizoguchi says the K stands for the artist Wassily Kandinsky, from whom he borrowed the synthetic synasthesia that is the defining characteristic of Rez. Kandinsky: Color is the keyboard, the eyes are the hammers, the soul is the piano with many strings. Sound, luminance, color, movement and vibration all pulse together. Mizoguchi updates Kandinsky for topological times. The digital controller of the Playstation replaces mechanical one of the piano as the machine for drawing the self out of the body so that it might find itself in its struggle with something technical. 147. Plug in the Japanese edition with Trance Vibrator and Rez can be not only aural and visual but also a sexual machine, if the Vibrator is applied to the right spot. Jane Pinckard: We sat side my side on our makeshift couch, I with the Trance Vibrator and Justin with the controller. As the levels got more advanced, so did the vibrations... revving up to an intense pulsing throbbing... Oh, God! Pretty soon the levels and the images onscreen were just a faint blur to me. I knocked off my glasses and leaned back. I was in a daze. From far away, it seemed, I could hear Justin saying things like, I made it to the next level! and This is cool! but I was lost in my own little trance vibrating world. To each their own target. 148. Open your senses is the game s demand. The desire for an enhanced and empowered self that comes to know itself by targeting an other is the very thing recruited into the game to produce the opposite a synasthesia in which self dissolves into the needs of the network. The repetition of the act of targeting repeats the production of the gamer as fleetingly distinct and enhanced, but permanently engaged and subsumed in the protocols of the network. The gamer is the new model of the self. The gamer is not subject to the law; the gamer is a function of an algorithm. The moral code of the storyline is just an alibi for the computer code of the game. Narrative is just another kind of interface. 149. What kind of being is a gamer? One who comes into existence through the act of targeting. To target is to isolate something against the dense, tense fibers of the network, maybe to destroy it, but always to assign it a unique value. Samuel Weber again: precisely the insistence that opportunity be treated strictly as a target that can be seized or missed itself misses the mark, because the mark involved is never simply present but always involved in other marks and other opportunities. Targeting is a temporary solution to the problem of alterity. But it has its limits. It works to perfection in the game, but not in gamespace. James Der Derian: the temptation grows to use coercive interventions or technical fixes to seemingly intractable problems of alterity, like immigration, ethnic cleansing, and fundamentalist politics . Questions of violence are always already problems of identity. But this is precisely the value of games they are allegorithms of what gamespace is not. The allegorithm of the game points to the ruins of a topology that is always supposed to arrive from the future but never comes. In Rez, the future perfection of topology even threatens to commit suicide rather than come to meet us. 150. Over and over, the gamer oscillates between connection and break with the character; over and over, the character oscillates between connection and break with its target. The whole pulses and jives to this tempo of making, breaking and remaking alterity, the bounds of one and zero, presence and absence. It is as if the whole world were a Sadean playpen, an episode from his Justine or Juliette, where no storyline can pose as the quest for the unique (truth, beauty, justice) but is merely the framing device for an oscillation of identity, between phallus and orifice, targeter and target. Welcome to The Cave , pure other of gamespace, oscillating in and out of contact with it as its target. Roland Barthes: It does not reveal, does not transform, does not develop, does not educate, does not sublimate, does not accomplish, recuperates nothing, save for the present itself, cut up, glistening, repeated . The game hovers on the lip of boredom, able to defeat time, but not to abolish nothingness. Boredom (on State of Emergency) 151. Boredom amuses only its critics. They struggle against their own lassitude to keep their indignation up to date. Theodor Adorno: §The teams of modern sport, whose interaction is so precisely regulated that no member has any doubt about his role, and which provide a reserve for every player, have their exact counterpart in the sexual teams of Juliette, which employ every moment usefully, neglect no human orifice, and carry out every function. Intensive, purposeful activity prevails in spirit in every branch of mass culture, while the inadequately initiated spectator cannot divine the difference in the combinations, or the meaning of variations, by the arbitrarily determined rules.§ In gamespace, porno, like sport, now has its star pitchers and hitters, specialists for every position, and the inadequately initiated spectator once again cannot divine the difference in the combinations, or the meaning of variations, by the arbitrarily determined rules. But it is the same too with critical theory, which becomes formally indistinguishable from pornography. This pornography of the concept is a mere subset of gamespace, a hypocritical theory, with different specialists, playing by different rules equally worthy of de Sade. 152. A spectacle taunts America the spectacle of its own boredom. This specter of boredom, an exquisitely beautiful young man who yawns and walks around with a butterfly net to catch goldfish. He carries in his pocket a pedometer, a pair of nail scissors, a pack of cards, and all sorts of games based on optical illusions. He reads aloud the wording on posters and signs. He knows the newspapers by heart. He tells stories that nobody laughs at. He passes a hand of shadows over his eyes punctuating his words with a terrible expletive: What s the good? He cannot see a knob on an electric dial without turning it, a house without visiting it, a threshold without crossing it, a book without buying it. What s the good? All without curiosity or pleasure but simply because one has to do something, and because here we are all the same, after all. And what was this ALL which swells up in the voice that pronounces it? The Surrealist poet Louis Aragon provides the answer, as well as the question: nothing. Boredom is nothing, nothingness, the faintest touch of the void. In boredom you open toward something that does not open in return. It leaves nothing but indifference, neither one nor the other, the grunge of time, the lint that sticks to all things digital. 153. As that inconsolable philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer writes: §Work, worry, toil and trouble are indeed the lot of almost all men their whole life long. And yet if every desire were satisfied as soon as it arose how would men occupy their lives, how would they pass the time? Imagine this race transported to [an A]topia where everything grows of its own accord and turkeys fly around ready-roasted, where lovers find one another without any delay and keep one another without any difficulty: in such a place some men would die of boredom or hang themselves....§. As this topology of fun and games spreads and congeals, carving out magic kingdoms indifferent to work and suffering, it carries within it the strange ectoplasm that both drives it and can overturn it boredom. In our fantasmic America, a digital logistics sends turkeys flying around the highways ready-roasted. They come home to roost in the frozen foods section. Lovers meet with fleeting ease on the internet, and afterwards rank and rate their encounters, according to arbitrarily determined rules. And many do, indeed, die of boredom. Even if they don t know it. The reserve armies of the bored zombie the earth, fiddling with their cellphones, checking their watches. Boredom is the meter of history. 154. If history is an endless list of things that should not have happened; boredom is what refuses not to happen. History distracts itself with heroic fables about the struggle to wrest freedom from necessity. Such is civilization, not to mention Civilization III. History has so much less to say about the decisive moment when freedom from necessity actually arrives. Neither civilization, nor Civilization III, knows what to do at the end, except perhaps dream of a sequel that is more of the same. John Berger: Necessity produces both tragedy and comedy. It is what you kiss and bang your head against. Without necessity, the storyline falters. Buzzcocks: I m living in this movie, but it doesn t move me. What might be the content of this positive freedom, not freedom from but freedom to? At such times, there is nothing but boredom, the sticky lingering with nothingness itself. This is the moment of danger. Cyril Connolly: §The boredom of Sunday afternoon, which drove de Quincey to smoke opium, also gave birth to Surrealism: hours propitious for making bombs.§ 155. On the whole a society always produces more than is necessary for its survival; it has a surplus at its disposal. It is precisely the use it makes of this surplus that determines it. So writes the rogue Surrealist Georges Bataille. This surplus may be gathered up and dispersed in spiritual quests or in making life over as a work of art. It can be squandered on bombs. Or it can be invested along the lines of strategic expansion or economic accumulation. This investment, this laying down of new lines, building from topic to topography to topology, only increases the surplus, and postpones and multiplies the problem: What to do with the idle capacities of a people? What to do with energies that so easily spill over into riot or revolt? What s the good? Boredom is the ambivalent gift of the surplus. Boredom arises out of the absence of necessity, of a yes, a no, a straight line. Boredom demands new necessities, and if not granted them produces its own. History is a struggle to wrest necessity from boredom. In this restless age, there s nothing they won t do to raise the standard of boredom under the flag of necessity. Constant revolutionizing of seduction, uninterrupted disturbance of all consumer relations, everlasting uncertainty and distraction, distinguish the military entertainment complex from all earlier powers. It must stay one step ahead of boredom, with which it deludes and with which it colludes. 156. Topology threads all spaces together, cave after cave, each as ludicrous as the next. No wonder people find their leisure as dull as their work leisure is work. How times change . Karl Marx: §The working-day contains the full 24 hours, with the deduction of the few hours of repose without which labor-power absolutely refuses its services again Time for education, for intellectual development, for the fulfilling of social functions and for social intercourse, for the free-play of bodily and mental activity, even the rest time of Sunday (and that in a country of Sabbatarians!) moonshine!§ But that moonshine has become legitimate business. The free time available for education, culture, sport, even faith, were once the hard-won fruits of labor s struggle to free time from work. This free time gave rise to heterotopias of sport and art that at least held the intoxicating illusion of autonomy from the necessity of work. Now they become work, disguised as games, just as games become the disguise of work itself. The sporting metaphors and slogans migrate from leisure to work and back again. They cease to be metaphors and become mere descriptions, in a language stripped of any terms other than those of competition. Almost every moment is swept into a relentless agon. 157. And as for those slack times between engagements, who knows what to do with them? You are sitting, for example, in the tasteless departure lounge of some provincial airport. It is four hours until your flight, which of course is delayed. The shops around are uninspiring. You do have a book in your backpack. It s Heidegger, bought on impulse. Shall you read? No. Or think through some problem? No. Or play games on your handheld? Not even. You are unable to. You look at the departures and arrivals on the screen. You look at the clock, again. You count the chairs. You walk up and down. To pass the time you look at the stores in the airport mall, but they all seem mere clones of each other, or of stores in other chains. Look, there is even a franchise of The Cave ! You imagine the satisfaction of throwing a rock through the plate glass window. What s the good? Martin Heidegger: What is at issue in boredom is a while, a whiling, a peculiar remaining, enduring . A confrontation with time. 158. You are sitting, for example, at your Playstation, with a stack of games to choose from. The flight was long and tedious, and now you are home free. You put in State of Emergency, if only for the pleasure of watching the automated riot of two hundred non-player characters ransack the mall in which the game begins. You choose Chaos rather than Revolution mode, so you can trash the place without worrying about missions and objectives. While fairly agreeable beats pound, you pick up weapons, smash things, thump and are thumped by security and gang bangers, looking for the moment to toss the bomb. Still, you are bored. But this is a different kind of boredom. At the airport, it was easy to blame it on the circumstances. Now, at home where you can do whatever you like, it isn t anything or anyone s fault. You put the game away, and wonder why you are still, still bored. Heidegger again: Was I what was boring myself? Perhaps it is not things that are closed to me, but my own being. 159. Then again, perhaps its not things that are boring you, nor even yourself that is boring you. Perhaps there is something else. Something you can t put your finger on. You are bored. Why fight it? Why not just declare it? Iggy Pop: I m the chairman of the bored! Perhaps here one can think through everyday boredom to a boredom of Heideggerian profundity, and confront temporality itself! Boredom could be the tune to which one turns towards theory. Philosopher of boredom Lars Svendsen: §The essential difference between the bored and the ¥theoreticalƒ gaze is that the former is the result of an involuntary loss of meaning, while the theoretical gaze deliberately removes it.§ Starting with this ever more present everyday boredom, one might follow Heidegger out of the mall and into the sacred groves of a certain brand of theory. 160. Pause State of Emergency and take that Heidegger book that you bought on your travels out of your backpack. Idly flipping though its pages, you find that Heidegger s boredom, strangely enough, has levels. Thinking through from one level to the next presents, as he will say again and again, tasks, tasks, still more tasks. These tasks are organized as a maze of paths and still more paths. It s all tasks and paths, tasks and paths. To the gimlet eye of the gamer, this theory starts to look just like another game. Level one: Newbie Boredom. Level two: More Boredom. Level three: Profound Boredom. Bonus levels: World, Finitude, Solitude. His book is a strategy guide for theory as a game of being. A game which, like any other, posits leveling up as a goal in itself, approaching the ever-receding big bad boss of time itself. A canny move for a gamer theory is always to refuse any such game which claims to transcend gamespace. Step outside The Cave and what do you find? Another cave, disguised as an exit. Better to return to The Cave , play the game and try to find its form. Back to State of Emergency: it s a boring game in many ways, but that may be its charm. One imagines Benjamin and Hannah and the other characters one so carefully cultivates in The Sims getting so bored they join the mayhem, smashing windows, looting big screen TVs of their dreams. 161. What if boredom has less to do with the essence of time and more to do with particular qualities of space? Benjamin (the Sim): Boredom is the basis of the allegorithmic insight into the world. Boredom lays waste to the appeal of the game as game, and calls attention to the ambiguous relation of game to gamespace. Boredom isn t a longing, a lengthening of time. It is a spacey feeling, of being spaced out. What is boring is a space in which either one cannot act, or one s actions amount to nothing waiting at an airport mall, or choosing one more or less identical game over another. When you are bored, even home feels like a waiting room. Gang of Four: At home she feels like a tourist. What displaces boredom is the capacity to act in a way that transforms a situation. It doesn t matter that the Chaos mode in State of Emergency is pointless. It displaces a bit of the gamer s boredom in a making-over of gamer and game, changing the space the gamer can access, extending the place of the riot from the Capitol Mall to Chinatown to Downtown to the Corporate Center, changing the powers of the gamer to change the space itself. At least within the confines of the game, at least for a while. When it stops working boot up another game. 162. As the gamer becomes attuned to the game, gamer and game become one event, one battle, one action; an oscillating between the line dividing self from other, and the line connecting them as one substance. If the line dividing provides a moment of autonomous self; the line connecting provides a moment of selfless purpose. In games, action has its limits. It is an endless bit-flip between targeter, targeting and target. And yet at least it effects a transformation of gamer and game. Games are a repository for a certain atopian labor, which has the power to confront the necessity of its own choosing. Games do not offer a contemplative response to boredom. If anything, topology makes labor all too contemplative. Rather, games are a space for action, they restore a lost quality of the topical, where Homer s heroes strutted their stuff, in the paradoxical form of a pure topology. All the scope for action that gamespace both promises and denies is restored in the game. Hence the double effect of State of Emergency. It s backstory is an allegory of negation and destruction in the pre-release version, the bad guys were even called the American Trade Organization. And yet as an allegorithm, it is purposeful, constructive. The images don t matter; the story is just an alibi. Underneath it is a game like any other game, built out of arbitrary rules, but which one makes one s own. 163. For Heidegger a move away from a meditation on time itself to thinking about how one acts in a particular space is a retrograde step, back to at best a higher form of journalism or at worst a fashionable philosophy , which sets out what is contemporary, but does not move beyond the surfaces of the present. It diverts you from the game of reflection on your own being and instead assigns you a role in the world. In this case, the role of the gamer. Heidegger: Have we become too insignificant to ourselves that we require a role? Why do we find no meaning for ourselves any more ? Is it because an indifference yawns at us out of all things, an indifference whose grounds we do not know? Yet who can speak in such a way when world trade, technology and the economy seize hold of man and keep him moving? Perhaps this is precisely where the gamer finds a way to speak, to do theory (however fashionable or journalistic). Is it not this space this topology of trade and tech that is intimately connected to the persistence and pervasiveness of boredom? 164. Boredom no longer affects just the restless young or the idle rich. Gamespace offers nothing to anybody but the Sisyphean labor of rolling the rock to the top, until this arbitrary necessity abates. Then what? One s actions at the crest of the hill become useless, indifferent boring. State of Emergency restores a role to action by making out of the intricate topology of lines of trade, technology a matrix, if not of meaning, then at least of measuring. The game installs in the world an artificial necessity; games are allegorithms of the necessity of necessity, in a world in which what is necessary is arbitrary and without form, where the line annihilates every topic. In topological times it was the hero and his band who acted; in topographic times the hero becomes abstract a nation, a class, a reinvented faith but it still acted. Once upon a time, one could tell this story Karl Marx: The people make history, but not as they please; not under the circumstances of their own choosing. Now the people choose their circumstances, just as they choose the finish for their kitchen cabinets, but there is no history to be made of them. 165. What characterizes the gamer is a relinquishing of a role that might have qualities beyond the game as savior or soldier, priest or prophet, rector or revolutionary. The gamer certainly does not expect too much of the role of theorist, beyond entrØe into another game. It cannot overcome boredom. One might as well choose instead a boring game like State of Emergency. What characterizes gamer theory is a playing with the role of the gamer within the game, not by stepping beyond it, into a time or a role beyond the game, but rather by stepping into games that are relatively free of the power of gamespace. The game is just like gamespace, only its transformations of gamer and game have no power beyond the battle in which they meet. In the game you are free because you choose your necessities. In a game, you can hide out from a gamespace that reneges on its promises. In a game you can choose which circumstances are to be the necessity against which you will grind down the shape of a self. Even if, in so choosing, you click to opt out of making history. 166. Boredom can be displaced only so far. Even the most deluded of gamers can eventually realize that their strivings have no purpose, that all they have achieved is a hollow trophy, the delusion of value, a meaningless rank built on an arbitrary number. Boredom always returns. Giacomo Leopardi: The uniformity of pleasure without purpose inevitably produces boredom. The very action of overcoming boredom reproduces it, when gamer and game reach some impasse. There is always a limit. In games this limit it always given in advance. That s the very merit of games. In State of Emergency, the game is an allegorithm of its own limited interest. It turns the moment of boredom, the hour propitious for making bombs, into a game as well. It s a game about the destruction of gamespace as itself a game. The destruction of gamespace is a game that provides a uniform pleasure with any other game. This is the military entertainment complex at its height, constantly displacing boredom into yet more games. 167. Playing State of Emergency has a kind of liberating openness. You feel rather than merely see or hear the environment of the game. You scan the mall for weapons, enemies, opportunities. Anything else is just noise. Space is marked with targets with boundaries that draw or repel you according to how they might effect your score and your progress through the game. The gamer opens out into the game and is no longer bored. For a bit. But this openness also has its limits. While in the game and playing it well, everything in it appears only from the point of view of its relation to winning the game. Nothing is anything other than a means to that end. 168. Here boredom threatens to appear again. You are left empty by the game, no longer taken (or taken in) by the things within it. The action appears futile. Nothing moves you. You opened yourself to the game but the game itself does not really open toward you. You opened towards something closed. It is an animated space in which things are just marks of good or bad possibilities within the game. The possibility of doing anything much seems to be withheld by the game. It feels like suspended animation. And yet, strangely, what is frustrating is that possibility itself seems so tantalizingly tangible precisely because it isn t here. Something appears precisely because its arrival is out of bounds. As Heidegger champion Giorgio Agamben says, it is: [T]he being which exists in the form of potentiality for being. But this potential is of a very particular kind. It is the potential of something no longer particularly human. It is the potential of topology itself, where your digits, grasping the controller, touch the digital, which in a weird way touches back. 169. Gamespace is an animation machine. The digital and the human lead an uneasy existence there. On the one hand, there are constant attempts to humanize the technological, to make it appear as if it were there for you. On the other, it reduces the human to the status of the digital. It marks all of space as a battlespace with yes/no triggers. In State of Emergency the human appears to rage against the machine, but the figure of the human within the game is an animation, a machinic special effect. The real human, you might say, is the gamer playing the game. But this human, in order to play, has to think like something other than a human. It has to become animated, machinic, responding to targets within the game as signals switching on or off behaviors aimed at sheer survival. The gamer coupled with the game is a strange animal. 170. Here is some backstory, about a strange, famous animal, known to Heidegger, and much discussed since. Deleuze and Guattari: the tick, attracted by the light, hoists itself up on the tip of a branch; it is sensitive to the smell of mammals, and lets itself fall when one passes beneath the branch; it digs into the skin, at the least hairy place it can find. Just three affects; the rest of the time the tick sleeps, sometimes for years on end, indifferent to all that goes on in the immense forest. It is an animal that lives in a world which appears as just a few targets. Agamben again: Under particular circumstances, like those which man creates in laboratories, the animal can effectively suspend its immediate relationship with its environment, without, however, ceasing to be an animal or becoming human. This suspension is also what the digital game does. The gamer suspends a relation with an environment gamespace within the special topic of the game, without ceasing to be human or becoming machine. 171. You know nothing about your body until you know what it can do. Boredom is not doing nothing. Boredom is something a body does when space will not let the body enter it in a way which transforms the body into something else, so that the body can forget itself. Boredom is a suspended animation, made possible by the absence of a certain relation to space, a certain quality of labor. If the trigger points in space always point toward the same possibilities, only under different signs, then boredom inevitably returns. State of Emergency marks an anxiety within the military entertainment complex about this very possibility. Perhaps it is a game that tries to incorporate and overcome the threat boredom poses to the military entertainment complex by making a game of it. A game which, oddly enough, makes boredom interesting. In a drive-by critique of State of Emergency, anti-globalization writer Naomi Klein declares: anti-corporate imagery is increasingly being absorbed by corporate marketing. But the affect runs both ways here. The game might co-opt, but is at the same time an allegory for an anxiety about what to do when gamespace can no longer collude with boredom. The powers behind the digital might try to co-opt boredom; the boredom of the gamer might yet co-opt the digital instead. 172. Just as the military industrial complex once forced the free rhythms of labor into the measured beat of work, so now its successors oblige the free rhythms of play to become equally productive. Alan Liu: Increasingly, knowledge work has no true recreational outside. The time and space of the topological world is organized around the maintenance of boredom, nurturing it yet distracting it just enough to prevent its implosion in on itself, from which alone might arise the counter power to the game. All the potentials of topology, its lines upon lines, are configured as a gamespace designed to neutralize play and contain it. State of Emergency is a game about the possibilities pent up within gamespace. It enacts the game as a repository, a memory, a practice patch for free labor, for autonomous action. It presents this possibility for action as the negation of actually existing gamespace. 173. The straightforward lines of topographic space left room in the margins for heterotopias which formalized the orders of play. It instituted the chronicles of legends and statistics that would become the game s opening gambit against history. In topographic times, the cyclic repetition of the game never quite reached the threshold of boredom, as there was still an everyday life of work and struggle from which it offered an orderly retreat. The topological, by contrast, captures all of space in its monotonous grids and all of time in its repetitive innings. Boredom becomes pervasive, uncontainable a real threat. And so the military entertainment complex invents ever-new games, with new rules, new moves, new chances for competitors to pit themselves against each other, or against chance itself, so as to maintain its grip on the topology it extrudes out of itself, incorporating all of space. Boredom with any particular game is always displaced onto another game, before it call into question the imperfections of gamespace as a poor excuse for how one could live and labor among these richly productive and seductive lines. 174. In topological times, play disappears into the game, and boredom looms on all sides. The military entertainment complex responds by introducing into the game every kind of novelty imaginable. Games becomes less and less a tangible field outside the workaday places of everyday life. They become a gamespace, an intangible complex of lines along which all information shuttles, subordinated to protocols and rules. It s other scene is no longer a heterotopian playing field as a space and time apart. Rather, it is the atopian space of the digital game, which is more separate than a heterotopian playing field, but which is even more an atopian double for the whole of space itself. The problem with gamespace is not that it presents the world via the action of targeting. The problem is that in gamespace things target people, rather than people targeting things. It is not that the digital is a technology that cuts into the world and presents it to the human as if it were always, and already cut to suit us. It is that it cuts us, renders us as digital bits, and presents them to the world made over as a gamespace in which we are the targets. 175. The military entertainment complex is above all the management and maintenance of boredom. The military wing trains boredom s lax energies outward; the entertainment wing coaches the residual boredom within. Both without and within, boredom is contained within the lines of gamespace. James P. Carse: The world is elaborately marked by boundaries of contest, its people finely classified as to their eligibilities. The game plan replaces the work ethic. The interests of the complex dominate policy, and policy s goal is alleviating the threat of boredom. What is good for the military entertainment complex is good for the country. And what is good for the military entertainment complex is the war on boredom, which, like the war on terror, is never to be won, merely displaced, as the boredom index rises and falls. For boredom can arise anywhere and everywhere, once space is made over as topology. The trick for the military entertainment complex is to collude with it in maintaining it without having it turn upon the complex itself. Complex (on Deus Ex) Fig. 8 176. There are four ways in which the topology of gamespace can come to an end and be superceded by a new topos at least according to the game Deus Ex: Invisible War. (If you have played this game you may know there is also a fifth ending, of which protocol demands the withholding until the puzzle of the other four endings unlocks its significance.) In the game, your character has to choose between aiding the victory of one of four organizations, all of which are at odds with each other, and each of which has its own idea of how to realize a permanent atopia beyond gamespace, a topos beyond topology. Working backwards from these four endings it is possible to plot the backstory, not just of Deus Ex but of the military entertainment complex at least as it can be understood from within the game, from within The Cave itself. 177. The four endings of Deus Ex can be pieced together by arranging them in two pairs. (See fig. 8) The first, more personal pair of endings pits the victory of the Templars against that of the Omar. The Templars are a fanatical religious order devoted to the body s purification of all biomods . The Omar are a no less fearsome collective organism of black marketeers, in which the body has been subsumed into technology. The second, more political pair of endings pits the victory of the Illuminati against that of ApostleCorp. The Illuminati are a secret cabal of power-brokers hidden behind organizational fronts, dedicated to restoring order under their control. ApostleCorp is a techno-intellectual faction dedicated to bringing about a just and democratic but no less posthuman civilization. You, the gamer, play a minor character, who can nevertheless tip the balance between these powers and their goals. 178. Deus Ex is a shadowy world. Some of the organizations who at first appear so powerful are just fronts for others. For instance the neo- liberal WTO and the religious fundamentalists of The Order, which appear antagonistic to each other in every way, turn out in classic conspiracy theory style to be but masks secretly controlled by the Illuminati. This chain of unmasking can be extended even beyond the game. Behind the final four powers Templar and Omar, Illuminati and ApostleCorp is at least one more unmasking. The first pair of endings Templar and Omar masks an agon between the complete assimilation of the human into the machine (Omar) versus the complete rejection of the intercourse of body with machine (Templar). Along this axis, the problem of where gamespace is heading is personal , a question of the boundaries of the body and its other. The other pair of endings Illuminati and ApostleCorp is less about the immediate relation of body to machine as something personal . It is about something not personal, something that is perhaps political. Here the ends of gamespace are an agon between a democratic relation, in which all bodies communicate equally with machines; versus the hierarchical, where all communication passes via a controlling power. The personal is political, but in Deus Ex the impersonal is political, too. 179. For the gamer, it is always a matter of starting at the beginning and playing through to the end. In the original Deus Ex and its sequel, Invisible War, there are different ways of getting from beginning to end. It can be done by stealth, by violence, or negotiation, but either way the game reveals itself level by level, from start to finish. For the gamer as theorist, perhaps in Deus Ex it s a matter of taking the end as the starting point. The question of what can constitute an end state is the question of what occupies the limits to thought within gamespace. Why these four endings? If they are just arbitrary, random possibilities, then they may be fun for the gamer to play through to but not much fun for the gamer theorist to start out from in this other game the other game of the relation between the allegorithm of the game to the allegory of gamespace. But perhaps the four endings of Deus Ex are not random but are rather the pieces of a puzzle. 180. Behind the four organizations who vie for power in Invisible War are four more abstract, more impersonal antagonists who stalk the fantastic vistas of gamespace itself. Either technology trumps the human, or vice versa. (Templar vs. Omar.) Either democracy trumps hierarchy, or vice versa. (Illuminati vs. ApostleCorp.) But beyond that, perhaps the game reaches a certain limit. Behind this mask is not another mask; behind this power is not another power, but something else a diagram of the avatars of power. The four endings exhaust the possibilities within which gamespace can think about itself. They are its endgame. But while there is not at this point another character to unmask, there is a puzzle to solve in the arrangement of these masks. These endings, and what they mask, enter into quite definite relations. The four terms invite the gamer theorist to a new kind of game. 181. The four possible endings of Deus Ex fit on a Greimas square. Which is to say, the endings are terms in a game of meaning making. (See Fig. 8) If George Perec is the avant garde aesthete of gamespace, Greimas is its pioneering theorist, for whom all culture can now be thought retrospectively in terms of the game. A. J. Greimas: Perhaps out of a desire for intelligibility, we can imagine that, in order to achieve the construction of cultural objects (literary, mythical, pictorial, etc.), the human mind begins with simple elements and follows a complex trajectory, encountering on its way both constraints to which it must submit and choices it is able to make. Or in other words, the play of meaning is made within the bounds of a game. At stake here is the relation of play to game. As topography gives way to topology, game rises in prominence relative to play. In the realm of avant garde strategies, the game within constraints of George Perec supercedes the play beyond game of Guy Debord. In the rear guard of theoretical strategies, the game of meaning supercedes the meaning of games; A. J Greimas tops Johan Huizinga. For Huizinga play precedes game. It is the play instinct that inspires the formation of forms. Greimas anticipates the enclosure of play within gamespace. As the whole of space succumbs to the game, it is the logic of constraints which determine the possibilities of play. 182. Huizinga, writing in the shadow of the Nazis, knew what was coming: §It remained for the theory of ¥total warƒ to extinguish the last vestige of the play element.§ The military industrial complex is on its way. Total war then extends its logistics to the spaces of work, and finally play itself. Now the military entertainment complex is on its way. Transgressive play has its last hurrah in the Situationist attempt to live out Huizinga s theory as a program for action. Greil Marcus: As bathos it was just drunks trying to walk and think at the same time. There is nowhere to hide outside of gamespace the total game. Guy Debord: One cannot go into exile in a unified world. The former leader of the Situationists will devote his declining years to designing and playing a board game which formalizes all he imagines he has learned about revolutionary playtime, and yet entombs it within its rules. 183. With the rise of topology, the tension between game and play is resolved in favor of the game. Whether in art, theory, or in everyday life: There is nothing outside the game. The storyline, which once marked the boundaries within which a game could begin, becomes internal to gamespace, and is now much more about legitimizing the point at which a game must end. The storyline becomes just the working out, one move at a time, of a possible line through the constraints of gamespace. In the game it is an algorithm that determines when something can end; but it is the storyline that makes this end point seem natural, inevitable, and necessary. But while a storyline has an ending, Deus Ex has four endings. It reveals just a bit more of the rules of the game of meaning making than a story usually would. That Deus Ex is a game of four endings is already a slight slippage of the mask, revealing the rules of the meaning-making game. 184. In topographic times, heterotopian games gave onto non-game spaces. A game was delineated by what it was not. In topological times, atopian games give onto nothing but other games. In gamespace, the exit from one game will turn out to be an entry into another. Each cave lets onto another cave. But this does not banish the problem of what is not-game. On the contrary, it makes it a pervasive and incessant problem. Its locus is the gamer, who can only be a gamer by being constantly pulled into and pushed out of one game after another, and who, in moments of boredom in between, glimpses the very conditions of possibility of gamespace. These are the moments when the gamer can neither target something within the game nor be the target the game itself selects to make its own. The tension is no longer what is prior to or outside the game, but what, from inside the game, may bring it to an end and what that end might be. 185. The gamer s boredom arises out of the recognition that, under the variegated spectacle of details, the act of gaming is always essentially the same. The gamer oscillates between two states. The first state is being separate from the target; the second is being merged with the target. (Playing Deus Ex in stealth mode only reverses the procedure. The goal is to not be the other s target). The first state merges the gamer with the character in the presence of the target, the second merges the character with the target and produces, as a result, the gamer, as the one who hit or missed. (See Fig. 6) The gamer oscillates within an agon between two terms: being separate and being merged into the game. In Deus Ex, the Templars are the knights of separation; the Omar want nothing but complete synthesis of human and machine. This first pair in the Greimas square enact the realization of the game as one of two agonistic states in which the gamer may be in relation to any game. 186. One may be Omar or Templar, merged or separated from gamespace, but this pair of terms masks another: beyond the antagonistic positions of being merged or separated, there is a pair of slightly different terms, which are other to the initial pair rather than antagonistic to them. You may be separate or merged; but you may also be not-separate or not-merged. This latter pair of possibilities opens up a lot more territory. The antagonist of separate is merged, but the other of separate is the not-separate, which could be many other states. The antagonist of merged is separate, but the other of merged is not- merged, which could be many other states. Within the game, the agonistic seems to define a digital difference: if not one thing, then another. One term antagonizes another term; each of which defines the other negatively. Each is what the other is not. But in the relation of game to not-game, the relation to the other term takes precedence. A game always depends on a prior difference, not quite digital, but of another order. This is otherness, wherein a term is posited against a pure negative, against what is not it. This other term does not in turn draw its identity from this relation. It remains unmarked. A game begins by ruling out what is not-game. It says nothing about what not- game is. There is nothing it can say about what not-game is. Nor can it say where not-game begins or ends. 187. To be not-separate from the game could be many things. From within the logic of the game, the only way to venture into this territory is by positing something that can go in the place of the not-separate. The game expands here under the guise of the Illuminati. Perhaps there is something beyond the digital, on-off relation of the gamer with the game. Perhaps it is bigger than that. Perhaps there are protocols determining who has access to which game; perhaps some games are more important than other games, and determine the possible outcomes of subordinate games. Even more disturbing: Perhaps you only appear to be the player of a game. Perhaps you are really a non-player character in a game controlled by someone or something else. Perhaps if you took off your own mask, the mask of the gamer, you would find that you only imagine yourself to be the one playing perhaps you are the one who has been played. Ice T: You played yourself. In a gamespace governed by protocol, by codes of access and denial of access, to one thing fronted or not fronted by another, every appearance prompts the paranoid suspicion that it is not what it seems. 188. To be not-merged with the game might also be a more complex term than either the merged or separate terms. Holding down its place is ApostleCorp. Perhaps it is not about more or less separation. Perhaps it is a qualitative relation that can t be captured by the simple terms of separation and merger, nor yet by the protocols and hierarchies of the not-separate. Here you may find the ghost of Huizinga, and a play that calls into being its own rules. This fourth term may be the most interesting of all, but one which is usually suppressed in favor of one of the other three. Nevertheless, the fourth term has to find its place in the puzzle in order to unlock the next level in this game. 189. The first storyline strand from Templar to Illuminati starts with the separation of gamer and game, and terror about merging human and machine. But beyond this existential tension, the storyline develops the thought of what can be outside of separation and merger. It fantasizes a power of control over the relation between separation and merger. The merger at the basest levels is presided over by a separation at the top. Or vice versa: separation at the bottom resists and reacts against merger at the top. 190. The second storyline from Omar to ApostleCorp takes the opposite path. It also begins with the existential question of the separation of gamer and game, or of the human and the nonhuman. Only it resolves the tension in favor not of separation but of merger. It takes merger for granted. This is the properly cyberpunk axis. It starts with the assumption of a schizoid splitting and mixing of layers and levels of flesh and metal. The storyline axis then travels toward the fourth term, which is that of the non-merger. Are there ways for the soft machine of the body and the digital machine of the game to co-exist? On what terms? Could there be a communication between them? A communication in which one need not be the antagonist of the other? Deleuze & Guattari: The schizophrenic is the universal producer. There is no need to distinguish here between producing and its product. We need merely note that the pure thisness of the object produced is carried over into a new act of producing. It might not be an antagonism of opposites, still less a communication of equivalents, so much as an excitation of incommensurables, of flesh by machine and machine by flesh. 191. The Templar attract the sense of panic (and resignation) about the machine; the Omar a fear (and euphoria) that it is too late, and that any dalliance with the digital subsumes anything human. The Illuminati open toward a paranoia about what might be behind gamespace, a mysterious conspiracy, and perhaps a critical theory of the military entertainment complex. The fourth term points towards a digital delirium, a negated realm of possibilities an extopian possibility, in which gamer and game cease to exist as separate terms, and there is a complete elimination of the limits of any topos. The extopian dwells neither here nor there, but at once and at one with the world. The possible endings of Deus Ex map out the topos of the military entertainment complex. It is a synthesis of the two competing storylines that try to account for everyday life from within The Cave , or what some call the posthuman condition . Katharine Hayles: The prospect of becoming posthuman evokes terror and excites pleasure. Perhaps in equal measure, and always at the same time. 192. The four endings of Deus Ex play out all of these possibilities. The agonistic forces of the Templars and the Omar open toward what they are not, but in place of what they are not, the game posits another pair of antagonistic terms Illuminati and ApostleCorp. This second pair stage the agonistic storylines of the paranoid complex and a schizoid complexity. For the Templars, separation is key, and yet to fight in this posthuman grid, they require technics, armor for example, which implicates them in various forms of non-separation from the very thing their being is founded on separation from. For the Omar, the problem is the reverse. Theirs is a being not defined by an assumption of an always-already separate being, a gamer before the game which might have anxiety about its boundaries, about tripping into the nonhuman. They are always already not human. Yet they have to find ways to communicate with what is human, with what is separate, in order to draw it into the game. At either end of this agon, of complete merger or complete separation, the problem looks like one of another difference non-separation, non-merger. But this other difference is now internal to the game. Gamespace has colonized what it is not, and erected in its place a new agon. It subordinates the analog to the digital. 193. Start over. Here are the rules of the game: Start with an agon of Templar vs. Omar. Find the values masked by these proper names (separate vs. merged). Discover the hidden exclusion masked by these terms (not-separate vs. not-merged). Detect the positive terms which cover the absence of these purely negations (Illuminati vs. ApostleCorp). Now for the next level: Does gamespace stop there? Or is it not always a double masking, of the value masked by the character; and of the indeterminate negativity masked by an agon of positive terms? After unmasking the Illuminati as a mere cover for non- separation, what next? Do these masks cover and cover to infinity? Here another dimension reveals itself. Are these masks of characters for values, and of values for negations not the protocols to a total game? Starting from the Templars, these are the questions one might pose in the act of gameplay, which might work out the terms of the conspiracy by which the complex hides itself, but not so completely that a paranoid sensibility might not puzzle it out. 194. Start over again. Start instead from the Omar. What is behind them? The value of a complete merger of gamer and game. But what might a non-merger be? Could this relation of not only gamer to game, but of gamers to games, be otherwise? Could a more intimate relation of gamer to game yet be the condition of possibility for the autonomous self- creation of something beyond the gamer? And of something beyond the game? Starting from the Omar, this is the territory in which you might find yourself. This is the terrain of a schizoid blurring of the boundaries of flesh and machine, opening not toward a complex of control but a complexity beyond all centralizing forms of power. Rather than the digital boundary, separating gamer from game; here it is an analog relation, a variable relation of gamer into game. 195. Deus Ex opens the problem of the other behind the agon of positive terms and closes it again. But in this closing, it provides the place for a gamer theory to start a new kind of game. Or rather, it provides two places, and the possibility of two kinds of gamer theory. The first could be called critical, or perhaps just paranoid. From the Templar s agon with the Omar, we ignore the Omar for a moment and think instead of the Templar s relation to the Illuminati, which stands revealed as a positive term masking the point of a negation, that of the not-separate. This revelation of a pure negative, where it is not given what the other term is, opens toward a paranoid sensibility, which is where the possibility of a critical thought beyond the game might lie. Sigmund Freud: §The delusions of paranoiacs have an unpalatable external similarity and internal kinship to the systems of philosophers.§ The paranoia of the not-separate is in not knowing what you are not-separate from. Paranoid thought always seeks out the powers that hide in the shadows of the not-separate. 196. Start over. Start instead from the Omar. Ignoring for the moment their agon with the Templars, consider instead the Omar s other relation to ApostleCorp, who are posited in the place of the not-merged. But here might lie a quite different possibility for a gamer theory, not paranoid, but schizoid. Rather than ask an analyst like Freud about the power of negation, if you ask a patient, particularly a patient who defeated the game, perhaps one gets a different answer, a schizo s analysis. Heretical Surrealist Antonin Artaud: Which indeed is not a philosophy, but in the pan of fried potatoes, square perhaps with the handle of the cantilever which bears like the spoon in the perforated tongue of the sex organ forever denied by the heart. To the paranoid sensibility, what appears positively, as one s antagonist masks what is negative. It masks not-being. Everything appears as a fight to the end, unmasking one after another as false positivities, each yielding over and over to nothingness, always seeking the face of total power masked behind not-being. To the schizoid sensibility, on the other hand, undoing the agon between one positivity and other opens up more positive differences, positivity to infinity, and a perverse play of terms outside any storyline demarking being from not being. The problem with schizos is that they take words for things; The problem with paranoiacs is that they take things for words. 197. Both choices offered for a gamer theory have their limitations. One starts with separation from the game and opens towards conspiracy theories, and perhaps towards a critical theory of separation. This move suppresses atopia without realizing it. The other starts with the merger of gamer into game and opens towards a cyberpunk celebration of the hybridity of nervous system and circuit board. This move realizes atopia without suppressing it. The rise of gamespace may conclude with either the suppression and realization of the game and the gamer. What could be the endgame of gamespace itself? Who or what can come after the persona of the gamer? How can you both suppress and realize the game? How could one come to live in a topos in which one s actions can be freely chosen and yet not insignificant? How could one be both free from necessity yet unsullied by boredom? How could one be neither a prisoner of work nor condemned to a merely frivolous play? This is what is at stake in the game. 198. Another Greimas square: childish play is antagonistic to the serious business of work. Player vs. worker. But who stands in the place of the non-player? The gamer. The gamer is outside of but not the opposite of the player. But who then is the non-worker? Let s call this character the hacker. (Fig. 9) To hack is outside of but not opposite to work. It is a free, self directed activity which makes its own rules, its own conditions of completion and its own protocols of success. It is an algorithm that writes itself. It is a practice beyond work and play, and against the game, and which calls for another character. Here is the mask of the fourth character: We are the hackers of abstraction. We produce new concepts, new perceptions, new sensations, hacked out of raw data. Whatever code we hack, be it programming language, poetic language, math or music, curves or colorings, we are the abstracters of new worlds. The character of the hacker is what is worshipped in that new category of celebrity the game designer. If the celebrities of play were transgressors of rules; the celebrities of the game are makers of rules but only within certain constraints. Not even the game designer gets to make the rules of gamespace. Not even an Information Overlord like the CEO of Electronic Arts, Larry Probst. What would it mean to be a hacker not just of games but of gamespace itself? This is the realized atopia that ApostleCorp stands for. 199. In Deus Ex: Invisible War the name for what is at the center of this universe of futures is Helios. This sun around which all revolves is said to be like Eden in Rez an artificial intelligence , but is in effect a game engine, and what is at stake is the relation, via this game engine, of the gamer with the game. A game engine is a maker of worlds, but of worlds that appear as if they were made for the gamer, as if they lent themselves to actions which could uncover their protocols. While other media present the world as if it were for you to look at, the game engine presents worlds as if they were not just for you to look at, but for you to act upon them in a way that is given. The realm of the not-game is the domain in which the gamer cannot act as a gamer. The separation of the game from the not-game creates this space of possible perceptions and actions. 200. Deus Ex has a fifth ending, nested inside the game, where all of its characters, regardless of rank or faction, get down and party. Here is the limit to gamespace within gamespace itself, where differences lack antagonism, and yet for all that do not cease to be differences. Terms coexist without reduction to one vs. another. Could there be a topos after topology, which is not a regression, back to the topographic, or even the topical? Could there be an overcoming of necessity that does not dissipate into useless boredom? Could the gamer come into possession of the means to make the rule as well as the move? Could the gamer also be a hacker, a maker of rules for moves as well as of moves within rules? This is the threshold to which Deus Ex brings us. But if there is a deus ex machina at work in this game, it is the one that rescues the game itself from its own overcoming. Even the fifth ending, which could point to a conclusion beyond the game, merely posits another one, where characters masquerade like celebrities, and the gamer is to feel privileged to have slipped behind the velvet rope. Conclusions (on SimEarth) Fig. 9 201. You arrive home from work one evening, only to discover your biosphere is dead. What a way to start the week! On looking back through the records, the reason is not hard to discover. A classic greenhouse- effect problem. Next time, wind down the fossil fuels a little more so your globe doesnƒt cook itself to death while you re out. Fortunately the biosphere in question is only a game, or something like a game. You have this program running on your home computer called SimEarth, which lets you model all kinds of biosphere conditions over a number of different time frames: geological, biological and sociological. The one you think you re getting a little obsessed with is a model of planet Earth from 1990 onwards. So this week you decide that you will set up this model every morning, selecting types and quantities of energy use and expenditure. You will come home every evening and see if your world is still running. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isnƒt. 202. Thereƒs something a little eerie about having a functioning biosphere in your home; something rather more disturbing about finding the thing has gone belly up while you were out at work. SimEarth lets you choose from a number of energy sources, including biomass, hydro-electric, solar, nuclear or fossil fuelled. It also lets you program a range of energy uses, including science, agriculture, medicine, and the arts. Each of these has different effects. If you expend energy on agriculture, population increases rather more rapidly. If you devote more resources to science, technological change accelerates. Some of the assumptions here are of course crude, but not unreasonable. Naturally, a home biosphere has to run a relatively simple algorithm compared to the heavy duty model. 203. The curious thing about it is how fiddling around with these crude variables gives you a feel for the global impact of fundamental choices about what economists call resource allocation. For instance, you start it up one midweek morning with settings which devote a lot of resources to agriculture. This seems a reasonable approach to creating a minimalist atopia. Theodor Adorno: There is tenderness only in the coarsest demand: that no-one should go hungry any more. Every other seeks to apply to a condition that ought to be determined by human needs, a mode of conduct adapted to production as an end in itself. And yet it doesn t quite work out. When you come home from work you find the population shot through the roof. That one was predictable. What you hadnƒt counted on, though, was that increasing agriculture pumped out more greenhouse gasses. The temperature was ever so slowly rising, threatening to toast everything, unevenly but very crisply brown. And all because of that troubling phrase, human needs 204. Like any patient confronted with a terminal diagnosis, you wanted a second opinion. So you set SimEarth running at home before driving off to work, where you steal a little time to fire up your browser and go web surfing. The urgent problem is to find out why increasing the amount of food being grown has this lethal effect. The prognosis is not good. It seems that methane is one of the gasses that causes global warming. A bit too much methane in the air and heat gets trapped in the atmosphere. By dialing up more agriculture, you also upped the amount of methane going into the atmosphere. Rice paddies, for instance, are one of the sources of methane. It seems that deep in the muck at the bottom of rice paddies are little bacteria that produce methane as a byproduct. Great! There you were, only this morning trying to see to it that all the people on your biosphere are get enough to eat, and by the time you come home for dinner you re cooking the biosphere. 205. This is all a bit too much, but fortunately the next day is the end of the working week and you are going out to dinner afterwards with friends. You imagine this might take your mind of SimEarth, but all that food on the table makes you loose your appetite. That big silvery dish with all that rice in it smells like over-cooked biosphere. The beef, delicious though it tastes, only makes things worse. It seems that one of the other sources of methane in the world is, of all things, cow farts. Yes, cow farts. It never occurred to you that there was the slightest global significance in the fact that cows are a bit gassy. The problem is, they fart (and belch) methane. Well, not the cows exactly, but the bacteria in their stomachs that break down all that grass. Those bacteria, like their teeming little prokaryote relatives in the rice paddies, also make methane. 206. The weekend comes, so now you can really spend some time on this biosphere business. When you programmed your little biosphere with lots of food production so that nobody would go hungry, you also selected a higher rate of methane output. It just goes to show how you have to think about all of the consequences of anything you do. That nobody should go hungry is a worthy goal, but, all things being equal, it means more people, and more people means more land under cultivation, and that means more methane, and that is a bit of a problem. So the next time you set up SimEarth you do things a bit differently. Rather than concentrate on expanding food production in the short term, why not put more resources into science and technology instead? This is a bit of a gamble, you think to yourself as you drive off to the mall in your high tech hybrid car, the kind Al Gore recommends. What if science didnƒt come up with the answers in time? What if burning up fossil fuels at a rate of knots didnƒt kick progress along fast enough? What if people go hungry? What the hell is progress anyway? 207. By the time you return home, SimEarth had reverted to what it calls, with a certain drollery, geological time . There is nothing left alive, so your planet is just ticking over, waiting quartz eons for life to mysteriously spark again. What happened? Check the charts. Lets see: pollution up, oxygen levels down, carbon dioxide up, temperatures sky high. It seems the techno-gamble didnƒt quite work out. Cranking up the whole global economy to the max, pumping out and burning up every source of energy as fast as possible certainly did increase the pace of technological change, but in this scenario, it increased the rate of global climate change even faster. 208. The problem wasnƒt the methane this time. By keeping population and food production growing a bit more slowly it seems you kept your little green earth from spinning out into that fate. The problem this time was the carbon dioxide. There it is on the graph shooting up at a devilishly sharp tack, taking temperatures up with it. Burning fossil fuels oil and coal produces carbon dioxide, among other things, and when you increase the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, you turn the toaster on again. Like methane, it traps the heat from sunlight. The really sad part is that all the way home in the car from your trip to the mall, loaded up with organic vegetables, biodegradable toilet paper and the new slim-line model Playstation, you had been really eager to see if your little gamble had paid off. 209. You had not quite absorbed the idea that driving is part of the problem. Marx showed how each act of concrete, specific, particular labor is made equivalent, by the wage relation, to every other. Concrete labor is also abstract labor. In gamespace, every concrete, specific action of any kind is also an abstract action, the consuming of a given resource for a given result. And yet gamespace does not encompass and account for every action. Only those inputs that take the form of an agon between competing forces in the market can be calculated. But behind the agon lies a host of contrary terms, shading off into the imperceptible, that come back to taunt gamespace with their cumulative effect. What sets SimEarth apart is that the unintended consequences of agon, all the excluded and contrary outputs, received at least an approximate accounting. 210. You had always thought that if the economy in the real world cranked along at maximum efficiency, then technology would also bobble along at a rate sufficient to deal with the little problems that might occur along the way. Karl Marx: Mankind thus inevitably sets itself only such tasks as it is able to solve, since closer examination will always show that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution are already present or at least in the course of formation. Well, maybe. What the SimEarth allegorithm points to is that like most people, you had always taken this on faith. What happens if the little problems arenƒt just accidental byproducts a little oil spill there, a toxic waste disaster there what if the military entertainment complex itself was mucking up the global conditions of its own success? Gamespace is just like your Playstation. It appears to itself as a rigorous game, with every action accounted for, and yet it relies on a huge power cord poking out the back that sucks in energy from an elsewhere for which it makes no allowance. That the game is not really ruled off from the world, that it relies on an external source of power, did not really occur to you until you played your new Playstation for hours and hours on end and it overheated. Tantalum, like the rest of planet earth, is only good with so much heat. There is something outside The Cave after all. Game over. 211. Alright, so maybe third time lucky. Lets ease up on the agricultural output and the use of fossil fuels. Here s an idea: letƒs go nuclear! Maybe this is the way to have the best of both worlds, so to speak. Lots of energy to keep industry and technology cooking, but without turning on the big heat of the greenhouse toaster-oven. Run it overnight and test your nuclear gambit. Sunday morning comes. Well, this time there is good news and bad news. The good news: your biosphere didnƒt cook this time. You had well and truly solved the greenhouse problem permanently. The bad news: Rather than overheat it, you accidentally shoved it into the deep freeze. Its called nuclear winter and it results from letting off a few too many thermonuclear devices. The dust cloud from that keeps the sunlight out altogether. 212. By clicking on the nuclear option, you gave your little SimEarthlings not only a great source of power, but a dangerous weapon. It was not as if you had taken away the sources of potential conflict, however. Conditions were not exactly ripe, it seems for global consciousness. A. A. Bogdanov: The struggle between classes, groups, and individuals precludes both the idea of the whole and the happiness and suffering implied by the notion. They just started blasting away at each other. Perhaps they didn t invent game theory, and figure out that deterrence only works if nobody shoots. And perhaps that s your fault you reduced inputs for science and culture. The radioactive patches on the surface of this digital earth burn through a few eons-worth of the subsequent ¥geologicalƒ phase. You can see little nuke signs, carved on the brown stump of a formerly green planet, like vandal- carved graffiti on trees that announces to nobody in particular: we were here. How did this happen? While the now quite visible hand of agon within gamespace metes out resources according to its law; an invisible foot, composed of all that shades away into mere contraries, qualities without quantities, kicks it to pieces. You loose again. Kim Stanley Robinson: It was frightening as if history were a series of human wave assaults on misery, failing time after time. 213. It s not much of a game, SimEarth. Perhaps that s why after seven days of uncreation, you became bored with it. Then uninstalled it. Then finally got around to selling it on Ebay. Perhaps I bought your old copy. I played it for a while, on an obsolete computer. It can get a little obsessive. SimEarth gamers tell amazing stories: About the time the lid blew off the biosphere, but up rose a strain of intelligent robots. Or the time it ticked over for months, populated with a million sentient cetaceans, all using nanotechnology to run their watery utopia. But there s something disturbing about it. Perhaps that s why there is no sequel, no updates. It is as extinct an example of game evolution as the poor sim-critters who populate its sun- blasted endgames. SimEarth is extinct, a game without sequels, but two offshoots from the same evolutionary phyla of game design lived on. One is The Sims. Perhaps it was better adapted to survive in gamespace, because it did not give the game away. The death of a Sim is not the end of the world. Another descendant line tries the other tack. In Will Wright s much admired Spore, survival is not limited to one biosphere. Olaf Stapeldon: It must not be supposed that the normal fate of intelligent races in the galaxy is to triumph. At least in Spore there s more than one home to trash. 214. Forms of game evolve in a quasi-Darwinian manner, not unlike forms of organism. Game designers breed new forms out of existing forms, and the military entertainment complex throws the resulting variations on a waiting market, where they compete to save you from boredom. Very few forms succeed. It s almost Darwinian: The designer proposes; gamespace disposes. Franco Moretti: In Darwin, in other words, history is the interweaving of two wholly independent paths: random variation and necessary selection. In our case, [formal] innovations, which are the result of chance; and a social selection, which by contrast is the daughter of necessity. Through a subtle inversion of the logic of natural selection, gamespace claims to be the full implementation of a digital Darwinism. Here for one and all the rule is survival of the fittest. Only what actually happens is quite the reverse: the demise of the unfit. Survival has no positive value. Gamespace is a pure nihilism. The best one can hope for is merely being undefeated. Hence the unsatisfying quality of winning in SimEarth. In the unlikely event that the game rattles on toward the death of the sun, this victory amounts to nothing. This is perhaps why SimEarth did not survive. There is something rather undesirable in this game of cruelty. But there is a difference between natural selection and cultural selection. An unfit game like SimEarth fails not because it bumps up against the reality principle of bare life, but quite the reverse. It fails the fantasy principle. 215. Given that you can t really win, SimEarth is hardly a game at all. The best conclusion for most scenarios is that your SimEarthlings leave the planet in a fleet of spaceships. SimEarth lacks one of the usual criteria for a game what we might call a satisfying win condition , which terminates its algorithm. But then perhaps that s the allegory. SimEarth maps the limit to gamespace. What gamespace usually excludes the residues that pile up out of sight out of mind are here included, and they are the source of the problem. The choices within the game between agriculture and science, for example, appear as choices between positive terms. They take no account of their contraries, which appear without names. SimEarth s strategy is to include every term within its agon. There are no contraries, or almost none. It posits the whole planet as gamespace. Even the power source of the sun is included. Only a blank interstellar of the angels space remains as its contrary. 216. The inclusion of almost everything within the game leaves little by way of a topos in which to conquer, expand, colonize, transform, or even to pose as the remote time or place as the alibi for utopian texts. Sure you could terraform Mars, but the result seems a foregone conclusion. There is no frontier along which a storyline might traffic the unknown into the realm of the known. A certain kind of history ends here. Says the Stalinist-Surrealist poet Paul Eluard: There is another world, and it is this one. SimEarth closes the book on that utopian realm, and the struggle for and against it. Gamespace has consumed the world, but the catastrophe of the world s consummation comes back to taunt it, undoing it from within. E. M. Cioran: §There is no other world. Nor even this one.§ Once all terms are included within the agon of gamespace, the whole of life becomes a game that can be lost, forever. 217. SimEarth is by genre a God game . Some God! Again and again, you fail your creation. SimEarth is not so much about the death of God as God s suicide. It takes away the empowering thought of being responsible for His disposal. Suicide is either fast and violent, in which God throws himself into the flames of global warming. Or very, very slow; hooked, like a helpless junkie, to the sun. A sun which finally overcomes your ability to maintain. Mark Amerika: Oblivion is the only cure for agony. The delusion of God games is that the gamer is in control when at the controller. But it is the game which plays the gamer. It is you, the gamer, who is an avatar, in the sense of being the incarnation of an abstract principle. The gamer is a lesser deity incarnate, answerable to a higher power the game itself. 218. When gamespace chooses you as its avatar, which character does it select for you to play? Perhaps in SimEarth the gamer is the avatar of the Angel of History. Walter Benjamin: Where a chain of events appears before us, he sees only one single catastrophe, which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it at his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from paradise and has got caught in his wings; it is so strong that the angel can no longer close them. Or perhaps you are an avatar of the Luckless Angel, with rather different hitpoints. Heiner M ller: §The past surges behind him, pouring rubble on wings and shoulders thundering like buried drums, while in front of him the future collects, crushes his eyes, exploding his eyeballs like a star wrenching the word into a resounding gag, strangling him with its breath.§ This suits the experience and the times rather better. The droll experience of being flung forward into nothingness by the terminal transformation of nature; an experience of hell seen too late. SimEarth is an allegory of the ends of gamespace, which declares its victory over the gamer, and over any other residue of contraries outside its form of forms. It pops the blue eye of the gamer s world. 219. Perhaps you are an avatar of the Egyptian demigod Theuth, who according to Plato was the inventor of not only of writing, but also of number and calculation, geometry and astronomy, games of chance and games of skill. In a story Socrates tells in Phadrus, Theuth offers these to the sun-god Thamus, and says: what I have discovered is [recipes] of memory and wisdom. Thamus considers them one by one. In Socrates telling, it is writing about which Thamus has the most qualms. For the problems of memory, recording, delineating, is this pharmakon of writing a remedy or a poison? Writing sends the word logos out into the world estranged from the authority of its author, erasing the line of its paternity, making of it an orphan. In this sense, it s a father-killing poison, and it would make of Thamus the sun-god a marked man. But the sun-god only has to give the word. Behind writing lies speech, and behind speech, the pure light of the good. Jacques Derrida: The good (father, sun, capital) is thus the hidden illuminating, blinding source of logos. 220. Perhaps what Theuth had to offer Thamus was not a remedies but recipes algorithms. Manuel De Landa: These recipes include rules of thumb and shortcuts discovered by trial and error, useful habits of mind developed through experience, and tricks of the trade passed on from one generation of problem-solvers to the next. Some of the valuable insights may then be captured in a general purpose, infallible problem solving recipe (known as an algorithm ). And what if Theuth had killed Thamus, and taken His place? What if it were not writing, but all Theuth s algorithms which were His power? The algorithms of writing, calculation, navigation and the game, at first separately, and then coming together create a topology, a world no longer logocentric, but ludocentric. Theuth sets himself up as King Digital. Behind appearances lies a new Helios, the artificial sun-king of the algorithm, able to name, locate, value, calculate and set in play anything and everything but the sun itself. If in Plato history moves between mythos and logos, it comes finally to rest between logos and ludus, between writing and the game, in a world where the originary power of voice is neither here nor there. The sun that powers SimEarth, the light which illuminates The Cave is not the sun- God Thamus, but the algorithms of Theuth. But by this light, SimEarth tells the inconvenient truth about gamespace that it can know its limit, its end, but not what to do about it. 221. Game time may be either geological, biological or sociological, but it is no longer historical. History is history. Or rather, a certain conception and a certain practice is history. History can no longer be a storyline about free agency constructing its own conditions of existence. Fredric Jameson: History is what hurts, it is what refuses desire and sets inexorable limits to individual as well as collective praxis . In gamespace, history is where random variation meets necessary selection. The game is what grinds. It shapes its gamers, not in its own image, but according to its algorithms. The passage from topography to topology is the passage from storyline to gamespace, from analog control of the digital to digital control of the analog, from the diachronic sequence of events to the synchronic inter-communications of space, from voice to code. Perhaps history reappears, but at a more synthetic, even photosynthetic level. Perhaps there is never any history without the installation of a game. Events have to mesh in causal chains, bouncing off given limits, to be something more than the subject of mere chronicles. 222. History is history, but there may be a history to its passing, to its transformation into another form. Here again (with amendments) George LukÆcs: §[The military entertainment complex] destroyed both the spatio-temporal boundaries between different lands and territories and also the legal partitions between the estates. In its [topology] there is a formal equality for all [gamers]; the economic relations which directly determined the metabolic exchange between men and nature progressively disappear. Man becomes, in the true sense, a [gamer] being. [Gamespace] becomes the reality for man. Thus the recognition that [gamespace] is reality becomes possible only under [the military entertainment complex], in [topology]. But the [military entertainment complex] which carried out this revolution did so without consciousness of its own function; the [agonistic] forces it unleashed, the very forces that carried it to supremacy seemed to be opposed to it like a second nature, but a more soulless, impenetrable nature than [topography] ever was.§ SimEarth prompts a surprising theoretical conclusion: history is back with a vengeance, and where least expected, the historicization of nature. History on earth becomes history of earth. History becomes total history. 223. The final question for a gamer theory might be to move beyond the phenomena of gaming as experienced by the gamer to conceive of gaming from the point of view of the game. K-Punk: What do we look like from [game]space? What do we look like to [game]space? Surely we resemble a Beckettian assemblage of abstracted functions more than we do a holistic organism connected to a great chain of being. As games players, we are merely a set of directional impulses (up, down, left, right); as mobile phone users, we take instructions from recorded, far distant voices; as users of SMS or IM, we exchange a minimalized language often communicating little beyond the fact of communication itself (txts for nothing?). Gamespace is an end in itself. 224. The gamer might still be tempted to try to leave The Cave , to substitute for it s artificial sun an order held in place by one that really burns in a visible sky. But there is the paradox: you only know the value of that sun, its energy, the consequences of turning it into this or that allocation or resources, because there is a game. Only by going further and further into gamespace might one come out the other side of it. Deleuze and Guattari: ... one can never go far enough in the direction of [topology]: you havenƒt seen anything yet an irreversible process. And when we consider what there is of a profoundly artificial nature... we cry out, More perversion! More artifice! to a point where the earth becomes so artificial that the movement of [topology] creates of necessity and by itself a new earth. The method for so doing may now be apparent: pressing against the limits of the game from within, to find the contrary terms behind the agon. Contrary terms which may open toward a schizoid complexity or a paranoid complex. Our Virgil, our guide through the over-world of gamespace might in a schizoid light be Gilles Deleuze; in a paranoid one, Guy Debord. 225. Guy Debord: No vital eras were ever engendered by a theory; they began with a game, or a conflict, or a journey. And perhaps now by a conflict within the game, and a journey though it to get beyond it. Plato, The Republic, translated by Desmond Lee (London: Penguin, 2003), p. 243, [516d]. Actually the translation used here is by Ted Sadler, and is quoted in Martin Heidegger, The Essence of Truth, (London: Continuum, 2002), p. 31. In Homo Ludens, (Boston: Beacon Press, 1950), Johan Huizinga perhaps first makes this move, of seeing reflective thought and competitive play as not being at odds, but rather the former being a consequence of the latter. See also Mihai Spariosu, God of Many Names: Play, Poetry and Power in Hellenic Thought from Homer to Aristotle, (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991). However, my interest is less in the slippery category of play than in the more formally definable properties of the game. As Gregory Bateson says: The difference between a game and just playing is that a game has rules. Steps to an Ecology of Mind, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000). Anthony Vidler: Of course game theory is deeply embedded in all utopias: in the Republic Socrates admits that he is playing in words a game normally called §polis¤ or §city,§ a board game of strategy between cities once played by Ajax and Achilles, and by Penelopeƒs suitors while waiting for Odysseusƒ return. More and Erasmus were playing elaborate word games with each other between In Praise of Folly and Utopia. And Debordƒs own Kriegspiel seems to have emerged as a formalization of the dØrive. Stephen Wright: There is an interesting passage in Plato s Meno, where Socrates makes use of a makeshift screen - that is, drawing or inscribing (graphein as it were), tracing and erasing figures in the sand -- in the course of rediscovering in the inscription the trace of a forgotten truth, creating some sort of rudimentary gamespace. It just may be that this allegory from Meno is more closely linked to the Platonic conception of gamespace than the overplayed caves space example. Sam Brenton and Reuben Cohen, Shooting People: Adventures in Reality TV, (London: Verso, 2003), p. 57. See also Mark Andrejevic, Reality TV: The Work of Being Watched, (Lanham NC: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004). Slavoj Zizek, The Fragile Absolute, (London: Verso, 2000), p. 77. I have sworn off the strong brew of a psychoanalytic reading of gamespace here, even using the Zizek, Miller Lite version, but for intimations of such a reading, see Andrejevic, as noted above. Notorious B.I.G, , Things Done Changed , from Ready To Die (Remastered), (Bad Boy Records, 2004). Hip hop vividly expresses the subjectivity of the player in the zero-sum game of survival. The bodies of black men become the sacrificial sites of consequences of gamespace. See Eithne Quinn, Nuthin But A G Thang: The Culture and Commerce of Gangsta Rap, (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005). Ed: § Work is my play cause I m playing when I work , Beastie Boys, ƒTime to Get Ill¥. Being a rock star or rap star is a fantasy of the ultimate reconciliation of play and work. Roger Caillois, Man, Games and Play, (Urbana IL: University of Illinois Press, 2001), p. 114. This text is a standard in game studies, new and old, but rarely is Caillois put back into the political context of his time. In his Discourse on Colonialism, (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1972), pp. 73, AimØ CØsaire indicts Caillois as a thinker who, while claiming to be dedicated to rigorous logic, sacrifices so willingly to prejudice and wallows voluptuously in clichØs. Caillois version of ethnography is for CØsaire premised on the superiority of the west, and while it is a quite different text that CØsaire is attacking here, his indictment may also apply to Man, Play and Games, which makes a case for the superiority of a certain order of games which is distinctly European. Paolo Virno, The Ambivalence of Disenchantment , in Michael Hardt and Paolo Virno, eds., Radical Thought in Italy, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), pp. 17-18. See also the special issue of Grey Room on Virno, Fall 2005 Raoul Vaneigem, The Revolution of Everyday Life, (London: Rebel Press, 2001), p. 264. Subversion here translates detournØment . Elsewhere Vaneigem writes: If cybernetics was taken from its masters, it might be able to free human groups from labor and from social alienation. This was precisely the project of Charles Fourier in an age when utopia was still possible. (p. 84) Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle and Other Films, (London: Rebel Press, 1992). Debord was also, later in life, the creator of the Game of War. See Le Jeu de la Guerre : RelevØ des Positions Successives de Toutes les Forces au Cours dƒune Partie, (Paris: Gallimard, 2006). Richard Neville, Play Power: Exploring the International Underground, (New York: Random House, 1970), p.278. The beautiful freaks, heading toward the suburbs and real jobs, left behind the New Games Movement. See Bernard DeKoven, The Well-Played Game: A Player s Philosophy, (New York: Anchor Press, 1978). Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme , The First International and After: Political Writings Vol. 3, (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974), p. 347. The phrase may have originated with Louis Blanc. In Rationalizing Capitalist Democracy: The Cold War Origins of Rational Choice Liberalism, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), S. M. Amadae points out that decision technologies such as game theory were directly the product of attempts to provide an intellectual counter- weight to Marxist theory during the cold war. Where Joseph Schumpter, Friedrich von Hayek and Karl Popper had all made defenses of liberal capitalism that recognized the intellectual glamour of Marxism, the economist Kenneth Arrow produced a complete and systematic rejection of socialist theory of any kind. In Arrow s hands, this becomes an attack on the very principle of a general will, or the social construction of needs. Arrow, in short, becomes the ideologue of gamespace. Collective rationality, or the rationality of ends, is impossible. Only individuals and their rankings of preferences remain. We return to the consequences of this achievement in Conclusions. Interestingly, the decision technologies of cold war America find their complete antithesis not so much in Soviet social planning as Situationist critique. Where rational choice theories attempt a concept of game that excludes play; the Situationists attempt a concept of play outside the game: from each according to their abilities; to each according to their desires. Lars Svendsen, A Philosophy of Boredom, (London: Reaktion Books, 2005), p. 38. In popular demonology, computer games are supposedly violent and a cause of real violence . Oddly, the rise of the computer game in the United States correlates with a significant fall in violent crime. If there is a prima facie case to answer, then, it is that computer games prevent violence. Hugh: I think the single player/multi-player distinction which comes up here is really important. Playing a single player game, I know that what happens doesnƒt matter, in the sense that it is between me and a computer which I can restart if I donƒt like how that gameƒs going. Life is a lot more like a multi-player game, but once one acknowledges this, I feel like maybe anthropology sneaks into gamer theory, and games become one social context among others. Christian McCrea: I agree that single player games are where the bulk of analytical potential still lies, especially since World of Warcraft dominates the online gaming sphere, and with it anthropology dominates its analysis. SimSmarts: An Interview with Will Wright , in Brenda Laurel, Design Research: Methods and Perspectives, (Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 2003). Gonzalo Frasca, The Sims: Grandmothers are Cooler Than Trolls , Game Studies, 1:1 (July 2001) gamestudies.org Both Game Studies and Frasca s own website ludology.org have been extraordinarily useful in the writing of this book. Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, (London: Verso, 1991), p. 17. The postmodern might, in the light of the concept of gamespace and the rise of the computer game as form, appear as a temporary phenomenon. The free floating signs of the postmodern become the raw material for games which do not restore their meaning or necessity, but create for them new quantitative relations of value. Walter Benjamin, The Origins of German Tragic Drama, (London: Verso, 1998), p. 175. The other classic Benjamin text that need be mentioned here is The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction . The reproduction of the image strips it of its aura by severing the image from the object. As an object, a work of art can be a piece of property. Once the image can be detached from the particular object and its provenance, a kind of communism of the image arrives. But once this reproducibility of the image becomes an everyday phenomena, the very foundations of the culture industry are threatened. The game does not restore the aura of the unique work of art as object, but it does introduce a new kind of scarcity, and hence allows the re-establishing of property in the realm of the image. Walter Benjamin, Central Park , in Selected Writings Vol. 4, (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), p. 173. The reproducibility of images not only allows them to escape from property, but also from propriety, from rules governing their circulation and the policing of their meaning. This decay of meaning then becomes an allegory for the decay of the whole society which gave rise to it. Here games again perform the work of restoration, but not by restoring meaning so much as assigning numerical value to otherwise devalued signs. Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media (Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 2001), p. 222. Manovich makes the necessary first step toward a formal theory of games as algorithmic. The algorithm does the work of assigning value to signs. The second step would be a critical theory, based on those formal discoveries, but using them to discover the gap between the form and the world which it is not. Alex Galloway, Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press), 2006. Many thanks to Alex for allowing me to see this book in manuscript. Greg Costikyan, Algorthmic and Instantial Games , in Amy Scholder and Eric Zimmerman, eds., Re:Play: Game Design + Game Culture, (New York: Peter Lang, 2003), p. 26. See also Costikyan s consistently interesting blog, costik.com Jay David Bolter & Richard Grusin, Remediation: Understanding New Media, (Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 1999), p. 45. Bolter & Grusin challenge the cyberhype that insists on the breathtaking novelty of each new iteration of digital media, which they see as an inheritance from modernism. As we have shown, what is new is the particular way in which each innovation rearranges and reconstitutes the meaning of earlier elements. The true novelty would be a new medium that did not refer for its meaning to other media at all. (pp. 270-271) But were that the case, this hypothetical new medium would not be new it would be incomparable. What matters is the qualitative difference in the way the old is both recuperated and transformed in the new form, most recently via the algorithm. Walter Benjamin, Central Park , Selected Writings Vol. 4, (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), p. 186. In gamespace there may be no idler, but there may be what Bernard Suits calls the trifler, who plays the game according to its rules, but not aiming for its prizes. The possibility for critical thought is now internal to the game, to its rules, to its spaces, its conventions, but not to its goals. Which might be the contemporary equivalent of the ancient advice to the theorist to pay one s respect to the local gods, even though one does not believe in them. Bernard Suits, The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980), p. 47. This is not just a classic work but a work of art in its own right. It takes the form of a dialogue among the ants about the teachings of the recently departed grasshopper. As per the ancient parable, the grasshopper refused to store up grain for the winter refused work in the name of play and died. The ants are left to reconstruct the teachings of the grasshopper. In gamespace, however, we are all grasshoppers. The consequences of this relation to time I leave to the concluding chapter. Steven Poole, Trigger Happy, (New York: Arcade, 2000), p. 33. This was the first really good attempt at an aesthetic of the game experience, from the point of view of the gamer. EA Spouse, EA: The Human Story , (10th November 2004) www.livejournal.com/users/ea_spouse/274.html Blaine Harden, The Dirt in the New Machine , New York Times Magazine, (12th August, 2001), pp. 34-39 Koen Vlassenroot and Hans Romkema, The Emergence of a New Order?: Resources and War in Eastern Congo , Journal of Humanitarian Assistance, (28th Octber 2002) www.jha.ac Our Philosophy , www.kemet.com Motorola Position on Illegally Mined Coltan , (25th August, 2003). http://www.motorola.com/EHS/environment/faqs/ Kristi Essick, Guns, Money and Cellphones , The Industry Standard, (11th June 2001). Walter Benjamin, On the Concept of History , Selected Writings Vol. 4, (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), p. 392. Perhaps now this should read: There is no technology of barbarism which is not also a technology of culture. Such is the military entertainment complex. EA Spouse, Frequently Asked Questions , (1st November, 2004). http://www.livejournal.com/users/ea_spouse/274.html Dale Cunningham, The sims busten out , (10th June, 2005). http://www.livejournal.com/users/ea_spouse/274.html Peter Lunenfeld & Mieke Gerritzen, User: Infotechnodemo, (Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 2005), p. 57. See also Peter Lunenfeld, Snap to Grid: A User s Guide to Digital Arts, Media and Cultures, (Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 2001). But where Lunenfeld wants to do realtime theory, it seems to me that being untimely is still one of the great theoretical virtues. Hence Gamer Theory concerns itself with a game aesthetic that is already slightly obsolete. C: No further back than Dungeons and Dragons suggests that D+D was not in itself a grand orgy of anarchically collected pasts; its popularity hinged on the very idea of reclamation and re-evaluation of these zones and events that were inhabited by real and fictional pasts smashing together like planes to form a cosmology. Jacques Derrida, Dissemination, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), p. 69. This connection between topos (place) and topic (meaning) is very clear in Eric Michael s account of Walpiri culture and adaptation of video to its needs. See Eric Michaels, Bad Aboriginal Art: Tradition, Media and Technological Horizons, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press) , 1994. James Fenimore Cooper, Last of the Mohicans, (New York: Penguin, 1986), p. 20. Cooper portrays the enormous historical tragedy of those early colonizers, who emigrated from England in order to preserve their freedom, but who themselves destroy this freedom by their own deeds in America. Georg LukÆcs, The Historical Novel, (London: Merlin Press, 1962), p. 65 LukÆcs then goes on to quote Maxim Gorky on Cooper s central character, Nathaniel Bumppo: As an explorer of the forests and prairies of the New World be blazes new trails in them for people who later him as a criminal because he has infringed their mercenary and, to his sense of freedom, unintelligible laws. All his life he has unconsciously served the great cause of the geographical expansion of material culture . . In both LukÆcs and Gorky the erasure of the indigenous presence indicates the extent to which their own writing is still part of the same process. Julian Dibbell, Play Money, Or, How I Quit My Day Job and Struck It Rich in Virtual Loot Farming, (New York: Basic Books, forthcoming), Ch. 2. Dibbell s book is a brilliant exploration of the brave new world of massively multiplayer games. I have excluded them from Gamer Theory, in part because it is too soon to see far beyond the hype surrounding them. The owl of Minerva flies at dusk: critical thought always appears with something of a lag. One way to avoid being caught up in the latest bout of cyberhype is to look to cultural forms that have already been superceded. This was in part Benjamin s purpose in examining arcades in the era of the department store. Most of the hype about massively multiplayer worlds concerns the extent to which they appear to function as economies that are exactly like the real world . They thus function to naturalize economic behavior and give it an appearance of inevitability. In this the utopian moment of single player games is lost. The game no longer functions as a more fair, more just version of gamespace, even on its own terms. The game is just as venal and corrupt as gamespace, indeed becomes of a piece with gamespace. This corruption of the atopian game is equivalent to the corruption of the utopian text, as too many lines weave their way into and out of its pages. See Edward Castranova, Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Gamers, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005) and T. L. Taylor, Between Worlds: Exploring Online Game Culture, (Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 2006). Georg LukÆcs, The Historical Novel, (London: Merlin Press, 1962), p. 43. Guy Debord, In Girum Imus Nocte Et Consumimur Igni: a Film, (London: Pelagian Press, nd). Berthold Brecht, The Radio as an Apparatus of Communication , in Neil Strauss, ed., Radiotext(e), (New York: Semiotext(e), 1993), p. 15. Stephen Wright: Remember CB radio? What a game that was! That invisible yet interactive sector of the public sphere twenty-three slots on the Hertzian waves that had its heyday in the mid seventies, in the wake of the Vietnam war, before being rendered obsolescent by the global technology blitz beginning in the 1980s, that spearheaded the new post- Fordist economy. This Citizens Band was a horizontally organized network, and as such the symbolic forebear of the Internet forums of today. CB is something of a case study of how and why such and such technology makes it and some other doesn t. For it is not merely a technical but also an ideological question as to why the collective banter of CB-space yielded to the individualism of portable phones. Although the sales pitch always presented CB as a user-friendly informational tool warning people about traffic jams and similar hazards of consumer society it actually had far less to do with content than with pure talk; it was always more about networking and communicating (truckers keeping each other awake at night) than about the message communicated though it had the potential for content. Unlike the cell phones that replaced it, CB was inherently about group communication: everybody was on the same 23 channels; strictly private conversations were not for the airwaves. And unlike Ham radio, the licensing scheme was very open (no test of Morse code, for instance), so it was open to whoever could spring for the $200 set at the local radio shack. Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, (London: Verso, 1991), p. 70. The concept of television as flow comes from Raymond Williams, Television: Technology and Cultural Form, London: Routledge Classics, 2003). For an attempt to apply and extend Williams to the computer game, see Stephen Kline, Nick Dyer- Witheford and Greig De Peuter, Digital Play: The Interaction of Technology, Culture and Marketing, (Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 2003). This book is best read in conjunction with Henry Jenkins, Fans, Bloggers and Gamers, (New York: New York University Press, 2006). Between them, Kline et al and Jenkins reproduce the dichotomy between the power of the culture industry versus the agency of it s consumers. Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture, (New York: New York University Press, 2006), provides some reason to believe that the new user- created content approach is breaking down that dichotomy. However, one could see this as just another version of outsourcing , by which consumers even have to produce their own entertainment, while still paying the culture industry for the privilege. The stand-off between active agents and oppressive industries in cultural studies is the result of certain methodological choices. I try to excavate this in the Complex chapter. Jean Baudrillard, Selected Writings, (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1988), p. 212. In one of the few essays on Baudrillard worth reading, Adilkno write: In order to pose the problem of media, we must abandon the classical view of their social function as that of informing the masses. We must prevent our media theory from becoming a lower form of energy of the media themselves. That is why it does not try to ascribe all sorts of (subjective) intentions to the media, but rather allows them their own moment, seduction, or fatal strategy. Adilkno, Media Archive, (New York: Autonomedia, 1998), p. 202. Geert Lovink, Dark Fiber: Tracking Critical Internet Culture, (Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 2002), p. 338. See also Geert Lovink, My First Recession: Critical Internet Culture in Transition, (Rotterdam: V2, 2003). These two works chart the rise and the eclipse of cyberspace, cyberculture and cyber studies. Sid Mieir s Civilization III, developed by Firaxis Games, published by MacSoft, and designed by Jeff Briggs and Soren Johnson, 2001. Anne Carson, Economy of the Unlost, (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999), p. 13. On the very interesting temporalities of so-called gift economies, see David Graeber, Towards an Anthropological Theory of Value, (New York: Palgrave, 2001). One way to track the transformation of cultural form through topical, topographic and topological times might be to compare Xenophon s The Persian Expedition, (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972), (more commonly known as the Anabasis) with Sol Yurick, The Warriors, (New York: Grove Press, 2003), Walter Hill (director), The Warriors, (Paramount, 2005) and The Warriors, developed and published by Rockstar Games, 2005. Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus, (New York: Vintage Books, 1991). See Odyssey, Book XI, 593 Katamari Damacy, designed by Keita Takahashi, developed and published by Namco, 2004. The sequel for Playstation 2 is We Love Katamari, Developed by Namco and published in the United States by Electronic Arts. In the sequel, the King and the Prince have become so popular from the first game that they have fan clubs. Apart from this self referential, postmodern element, the game does not add much to the original that would be of interest here. Patrick: it addresses its subject as a player, as a calculator and competitor. In Katamariƒs case, Kieta originally wanted to make the game more freeform, without a time limit restriction, and the play would have been more paidic and perhaps creative in the choice and pattern of objects picked up. But then the military entertainment complex came down and demanded a goal oriented structure in order for the game to be more marketable... . El Moco: There is a underlying theme in the game, one of quiet, hidden terror. Although the game masks the act of voracious consumption with music and quaint, fluffy images; despair is the final emotion that rises to the top when those final seconds are reached, when the haunting call of the sirens send the prince into a final, frenzied panic to get just-one-more-item. And to begin again? You must always begin again, forever, with no hope, real or imagined, to satisfy your desire to consume everything. When the end is reached, in the final stage, you are offered a chance to perform for the cosmos with no time limit. That brings the endgame gambit to a surreal conclusion; a metaphysical prison with nothing to consume. A wandering prince, condemned to travel the earth for something to pick up, eternally. Jesper Juul, Half-Real: Video Games Between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds, (Cambrdige MA: MIT Press, 2005), p. 201. To play a video games is therefore to interact with real rules while imagining a fictional world. (p. 1). Or in other words, they combine agon with what Caillois calls mimesis. But what goes unexplained is why these rules should be considered more real than the conventions of fiction. Brenda Laurel, Coda: Piercing the Spectacle , in Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman, eds., The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology, (Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 2006), p. 868. This essay also offers this striking variation on the theme of the web : Commercials and brands, spam and flickering web ads, friendly text messages from your cellular service provider, product placements in movies and computer games, all reminding -- or rather un-minding -- us of the web of politico-consumerism in which we are enmeshed like spiderƒs snacks, stashed for hungry marketers and politicians. The spectacle holds us fast. (p. 867) Brenda Laurel is the first person I ever heard use the expression military entertainment complex , at the SIGGRAPH conference in Orlando, Florida in 1991. See also Brenda Laurel, Utopian Entrepreneur, (Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 2001), on the difficulties of launching her Purple Moon company, which tried to design games for girls. Paul Virilio, Negative Horizon, (London: Continuum, 2005), p. 37. In Virilio is a constant sequence of symptoms, the accounts of which are often brilliant, sometimes nutty, but which never quite point to a consistent theory. Two distinctions clarify things among these shifting Virilian sands. The first is between transport and telesthesia. The bifurcating of movement into two speeds, one for things, another for information that begins with the telegraph is a key moment upon which Virilio doesn t really dwell. The second is between analog and digital information. The coming together of these two developments digital telesthesia is the condition of possibility of topology. It is a possibility latent in the telegraph but not fully realized until the age of the internet. Julian Stallabrass, Just Gaming: Allegory and Economy in Computer Games , New Left Review, 198, (March-April 1993), p. 96. In this remarkable essay, Stallabrass elaborates a critical theory of games Walter Benjamin s writings on allegory and Theodor Adorno on the culture industry. Paul N. Edwards, The Closed World, (Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 1996), p. 103. See also Manuel De Landa, War in the Age of Intelligent Machines, (New York: Zone Books, 1991). Anthony Wilden, System and Structure, (London: Tavistock, 1980), p. 168. See also Anthony Wilden, The Rules Are No Game: The Strategy of Communication, (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987). Wilden s unjustly neglected work combined American cybernetic theory, derived from Bateson, with a broad knowledge of French theory and a political impulse. Brian Sutton-Smith, The Ambiguity of Play, (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), p. 1. In this stunningly comprehensive work, the veteran play theorist solves the problem of the ambiguity of play by suggesting that play is ambiguity. His strategy is to study the distinctive rhetorics by which play is invoked. I have chosen to concentrate on the concept of game rather than play. The game, unlike play, is relatively easy to define. Play is what is excluded from any definition of game to give it the appearance of self-consistency. Drew Milne, Aftermaths , in Go Figure, (Cambridge: Salt Publishing, 2003), p. 102. A text which also contains this warning, about method: One of the unintended consequences of avant garde ambition is the pervasive pleasure taken in reductive but avowedly radical forms of contextualization, from situationism to cultural studies. Oscillations between purification and transgressive collation fall victim to the abstract identity of purity and impurity. (p. 98). J. C. Herz, Joystick Nation, (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1997), p. 205. For a narrative account of the intertwining of military and entertainment industries which updates Edwards, see Ed Halter, From Sun Tzu to Xbox, Thunder s Mouth Press, New York, 2006. Also of interest is the documentary film World War Virtual, (New York: IFFI Productions, 2006). Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens, (Boston: Beacon Press, 1950), pp. 74-75. Only through an ethos that transcends the friend-foe relationship and recognizes a higher goal than gratification of the self, the group or the nation will a political society pass beyond the play of war to true seriousness. (p. 211) What seems lacking in much writing on games lately is this sense in Huizinga that there is something, ironically, at stake, that agon between conceptions of the game matters more than the details of any particular game. Chris Taylor, The Allure of a Sticky Ball , Time, (May 23, 2005), p. 56. Some of the more interesting commentary on Katamari has focused on the question of consumerism. Rylish Moeller: Katamari is an interesting game to discuss since it calls issues like consumerism and environmentalism to the foreground in a very overt sort of way. My worry is not that games are too complicated or too violent or too masculine or too racist but that they are these things in order to perpetuate consumerism. See futureofthebook.org and the techrhet listserver at interversity.org Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, developed by Rockstar Games and published by Take-Two Interactive, 2002. It is part of the long running Grand Theft Auto franchise . Terry Eagleton, Figures of Dissent, (London: Verso, 2003), p. 24. Adam Greenfield: As above, so below, apparently: one of the most thought-provoking things I ve heard said recently is that there can be no utopia on a planet with six billion people. Or maybe we always already live in Liberty City. Mark Amerika: What is utopia? is my question. Not what was. I have oftentimes asked myself this question because there are times when I think Iƒm experiencing it. That is to say, for me it must be something that can be experienced - and not just in some sci-fi sort of way. Fredric Jameson, Archaeologies of the Future, (London: Verso, 2005). William Morris, News From Nowhere, (London: Penguin, 1993), p. 113. Read together with Edward Bellamy s Looking Backward, (New York: Random House, 1982), these two utopias provide an unwitting genealogy for a gamespace to come. It s a question of seeing the playful side of Morris s craftspeople together with the technocracy of Bellamy s socialist labor. The former is not necessarily anti-technological, and the latter not necessarily purely rationalist. One of the virtues of the Situationists was the to see the possibilities to come from reconciling this opposition if not the dangers. Alexander Bogdanov, Red Star: The First Bolshevik Utopia, (Bloomington, IL: Indiana University Press, 1984), p. 87. Bogdanov s tektonics is a neglected counterpoint to western Marxism , and forerunner to systems theory. Edwin Black, IBM and the Holocaust, (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2002), p. 73. The Holerith provides the answer to the usually unasked question of exactly how someone like Eichmann got the trains to run on time. Russell Jacoby, Picture Imperfect: Utopian Thought for an Anti- Utopian Age, (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), p. 13. Roger Caillois, Man, Play and Games, (Urbana IL: University of Illinois Press, 2001). Michel Foucault, Other Spaces , at foucault.info The Foucault of the disciplinary apparatus seems to appeal to academics because the disciplinary procedure so accurately describes the experience of higher education. It may, however, have little relevance elsewhere. Foucault s celebrated writings of Bentham s Panopticon overlooks the fact that, rather than build it, the British government favored transportation to the colonies, a kind of power that has nothing to do with the disciplinary and everything to do with the vectoral. A better source on the origins of contemporary forms of power would surely be Bernard Smith s European Vision and the South Pacific, (New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 1985). It is but a short line from Captain Cook and the chronometer, accurately mapping the world in both latitude and longitude for the first time, to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld using global positioning satellites to mount a high-tech aerial assault on Iraq. To put the Panopticon in perspective, see Rem Koolhas and the Office of Metropolitan Architecture, S,M,L,XL, (New York: Monacelli Press, 1995) which includes a fascinating project for a Dutch prison that was designed to be panoptic , but in which the celebrated central guard house was actually being used as a coffee stand for the guards, in full view of the prisoners, thus completely reversing the original intention. For a more interesting Foucault, see the account of his adventures in American gay cultural heterotopias, in James Miller, The Passion of Michel Foucault, (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2000). This is the Foucault who is still with us, the one who, like the number that he was, wrote to have no face, and left it to the police to see that his papers were in order. Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle, (New York: Zone Books, 1994), s. 191. Key to Debord s understanding of spectacle is the concept of separation. Some argue that the interactive quality of contemporary media can, or at least might, rescue it from separation and its audience from passivity. One could with more justice see it the other way around: whatever has replaced the spectacle impoverishes it still further, by requiring of its hapless servants not only that they watch it at their leisure, but that they spend their leisure actually producing it. Play becomes work. Work becomes play: Pat Kane, The Play Ethic, (London: Pan Books, 2004), p. 30. This book is a fascinating guide to the consulting class, to which Kane belongs, which would bring play into the workplace, and why: §When you get a taste of genuinely unalienated labor then even the slightest alienation comes to seem like a temporary stay in the prison house.§ (p. 258) Ralph Rumney, quoted in Alan Woods, The Map is Not the Territory, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), p. 62. See also Ralph Rumney, The Consul, (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 2002). Alberto Iacovoni, Game Zone: Playgrounds Between Virtual Scenarios and Reality, (Basel: Birkh user, 2004), p. 83. See also Francesco Careri, Walkscapes: Walking as an Aesthetic Practice, (Barcelona: Editorial Gustavo Gil, 2002). George Perec, W or Memory of Childhood, (London: Collins Harvill, 1988), p. 159. See also Harry Matthews, Oulipo Compendium, (London: Atlas Press, London, 1998). Rez, developed by United Game Artists and published by SEGA, 2002. As Andrew Chang, aka ArC writes: This trigger mechanism works the same way in Sega s Panzer Dragoon series, which predate Rez and are an obvious influence. Ben: Not necessarily true. If you want the special, true Pink Butterfly ending, you must achieve 100% shoot down on Area 5, Fear. Blaise Pascal. PensØes, (London: Penguin, 1995), s. 47. Steven Poole, Trigger Happy, (New York: Arcade, 2000), p. 169. Niall Lucy, A Derrida Dictionary, (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), p. 44. Jacques Derrida, The Gift of Death, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), p. 44. Alex Galloway, Protocol: How Control Exists After Decentralization, (Cambrdige MA: MIT Press, 2004), p. 30. See also Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Control and Freedom: Power and Paranoia in the Age of Fiber Optics, (Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 2006), p. 5: The problem is not with the control protocols that drive the internet but rather with the way these protocols are simultaneously hidden and amplified. Samuel Weber, Targets of Opportunity, (New York: Fordham University Press, 2005), p. 105. Weber s starting point is Homer (Odysseus taking aim at Penelope s suitors) and Thucydides. What Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War suggests is that the more one makes such targeting the paradigm of all action, the more that which is denied returns as the missed opportunity , which is all that remains of chance when its singularity is shunted aside. (p. 21) The parallel between the targets selected by Athens under its demagogues and the United States under its and the consequences need not be labored. Mark C. Taylor, Confidence Games: Money and Markets in a World Without Redemption, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), p. 295. Rez, Sega, 2001, manual p5 Vassily Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, (New York: Dover Press, 1986), p. 25. Jane Pinckard, Gamegirl Advance, (26th October, 2003) http://www.gamegirladvance.com/archives/2002/10/26/sex_in_games_rezvibr ator.html Samuel Weber, Targets of Opportunity, (New York: Fordham University Press, New York), 2005, p. 21. James Der Derian, Virtuous War, (Boulder CO: Westview, 2001), p. 45. Roland Barthes, Sade, Fourier, Loyola, (Baltimore MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), p. 150. Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, (London: Verso, 1979), p. 88. Louis Aragon, Paris Peasant, (Boston MA: Exact Change Press, 1994), p. 127. This text is also one of the keys to the Situationist concept of the city as the space of games. June Edvenson: re: all the same after all I would say: no: in Europe, where I live weƒre all the same - in America, one is allowed to be a ¥starƒ or ¥richƒ i.e. itƒs okay. Iƒd say: and because here we are all equal and all stars, after all - something more on this line. This is how the American, of which I am one, is seen in the world right now. Arthur Schopenhauer, ¥On the Suffering of the Worldƒ, Essays and Aphorisms, (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970), p. 43. Le_Candide: I cannot not intervene: only reading Schopenhauerƒs viewpoint should not comfort us in that life of worry and toil, fearing every freed time as a potential gulf of boredom. Leisure or schole as the Greeks used to say (and which gave school ) is what you win over your workday, it is one of the few meaningful moments, where you can practice philosophy, science, where you can meditate or share time with your loved ones. Just because United States citizens do not have any spiritual life whatsoever, are depressively materialistic and collapse under their fat, does not mean that the whole world is following their example. John Berger, The Shape of a Pocket, (New York: Pantheon, 2001), p. 12. John Berger, the poet of necessity. Buzzcocks, Boredom , Spiral Scratch EP, (New Hormones, 1976). The affirmation of boredom is the true hallmark of punk. Cyril Connolly, The Unquiet Grave, (New York: Persea Books, 1981), p. 84. The reference is to Thomas De Quincey, Confessions of an English Opium Eater, (London: Penguin, 2003), a cherished text of the Surrealists and Situationists. Kafkaz: Who could blame play for dancing forever just beyond the reach of anyone who wanted to use it as a fulcrum for anything other than, say, launching water balloons? The delicious boredom of sultry summer afternoons can lead to play that does open the way to discovery: the upside down bicycle whose blur of spokes speaks of gestalt, illusion, persistence of vision, flicks, an intricate play of concepts flashing and spinning in that moment of spontaneity. But play sulks and wanders off when gamers try to box it up, and mourns those who mistake depression for boredom. Georges Bataille, The Accursed Share Volume 1, (New York: Zone Books, 1988), p. 106. Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. 1, Part III, Ch. 10, Section 5 Martin Heidegger, The Fundamentals Concepts of Metaphysics, (Bloomington IL: Indiana University Press, , 1995), p. 96. (trans mod) State of Emergency, developed by VIS Entertainment and published by Rockstar Games, 2001. Developed by the Scottish firm VIS, this is exactly the sort of game you would expect from a generation that grew up on British post punk and the Situationists, even if, from the point of view of the latter it is the ultimate recuperation. Martin Heidegger, The Fundamentals Concepts of Metaphysics, (Bloomington IL: Indiana University Press, 1995), p. 109. Iggy Pop, I m Bored , now most easily found on The Best of Iggy Pop, (BMG, 2005). A distinctively affirmative, assertive boredom here. Lars Svendsen, A Philosophy of Boredom, (London: Reaktion Books, 2005), p. 109. Svendsen s conclusion: Boredom has to be accepted as an unavoidable fact, as life s own gravity. This is no grand solution, for the problem of boredom has none. To which one must counter-pose the Situationist slogan, that boredom is always counter-revolutionary. Naturalizing boredom merely lets gamespace off the hook, absolving it of any responsibility for our inability to make our own history, and thus escape boredom. Gang of Four, At Home He s a Tourist , Entertainment!, (Rhino/WEA, 2005). In announcing in 1979 that the new entertainment is guerrilla war struggle, Gang of Four prefigure not only State of Emergency, but much of the contemporary world. Gang of Four popularized the Situationist technique of accounting for boredom as a political symptom, but they did it in a language of the everyday inherited from British pop lyricists such as The Kinks Ray Davies, and with their own distinctive tone and rhythmic conception of time. Martin Heidegger, The Fundamentals Concepts of Metaphysics, (Bloomington IL: Indiana University Press, 1995), p. 77. Here surely is the voice of that Heidegger who was also a fashion victim, prey for the authoritarian currents of his times. Karl Marx, 18th Brumaire of Napoleon Bonaparte . And yet paradoxically the gamer may make history precisely by not making it, by refusing gamespace in favor of the game, like the players in Satyajit Ray s The Chess Players, (Kino Video, 2006). Giacomo Leopardi, Zibaldone: A Selection, New York: Peter Lang, 1992), p. 73. Together with Chamfort, Leopardi is that rare example of the progressive pessimist. Giorgio Agamben, The Open: Man and Animal, (Stanford CA: Stanford University Press, 2004), p. 67. The other Agamben work worth mentioning here is State of Exception, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005). Topology admits no state of exception. It is not governed by law but by protocol. Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987), p. 257. Giorgio Agamben, The Open: Man and Animal, Stanford CA: Stanford University Press, 2004), p. 70. Naomi Klein, Signs of the Times , The Nation, (22nd October 2001). And, one might add, vice versa. Alan Liu, The Laws of Cool, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2004), pp. 77-78. This fascinating book makes cool , that obscure object of desire, the elusive little object that drives gamespace. But I prefer to see it negatively, as a false object, posited as the imaginary yet utterly necessary obverse of the real driving force of gamespace boredom. Coolness is the free market equivalent of grace, a sign of its God, of maximum utility. James P. Carse, Finite & Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility, (New York: Ballantine, 1986), s. 4. Carse offers not so much a gamer theory as a gamer theology, or perhaps even theodicy. For Carse, there are both finite and infinite games, and evil results from the limiting of the infinite to the finite. Yet the existence of infinite games is to be taken on faith. If a gamer theory is to separate itself from a gamer theology, then the existence of an infinite game, of being, form or spirit outside of the Cave has to be held in suspension while the gamer trifles within the finite game, whose existence is discovered in the act of gaming. Deus Ex: Invisible War, developed by Ion Storm and published by Eidos Interactive, 2003. Designed by Harvey Smith. Deus Ex, designed by Warren Spector and Harvey Smith, developed by Ion Storm and published by Eidos Interactive, 2000. The original is overwhelmingly preferred to the sequel by gamers, who consequently have less to say abut the sequel. Gamer theory might be drawn to what doesn t quite work rather than what most satisfies the fan. KGS: Gah, re-write the section using the first Deus Ex game. Not only was it a much, much better game, but the player base was much greater and youƒre more likely to grab the readers attention if they are familiar with your subject matter. Mr Staypuft: Yes, definitely use Deus Ex 1 instead. It appears in many Top 10 PC Games of all time lists, whereas the sequel certainly does not. Alexbb: Actually, the first game also has three different choices at the end, which are each more compelling than anything offered by the second game. One of the things I didnƒt like about Invisible War is that it sought to make it so all three endings came about, and then rehashes what is basically the exact same story. (I could go on and on about whatƒs wrong with Invisible War, from a game design point of view...). JohnR: As someone who has completed the first Deus Ex several times, but never played the sequel to any meaningful depth, perhaps I am not qualified to comment on what you have written. However, it seems to me after having read it, I question whether you are not reading too much into the symbolism of the game itself. I think the game designers set out to create a thoughtful game with more depth than one might expect from many games, however it behooves the player (and perhaps the theorist) to keep in mind that the main objective of the designer was to provide a piece of entertainment with broad enough appeal to sell to many potential players. In creating his design, I donƒt think a reasonable designer will incorporate one more whit of theory than is necessary to maximize appeal. I realize that the gamespace relation to reality is most likely only playing out in a subconscious level (perhaps shared?) with the majority of players, but I still have to question how much such consideration actually enters into it to derive entertainment from playing the game .I think all the conspiracy stuff and wheels-within-wheels plotting is vastly entertaining, but I certainly donƒt give the actual powers-that-be in ¥real lifeƒ enough credit for the kind of cleverness that these games suggest such governing bodies have or even aspire to. A J Greimas, On Meaning: Selected Writings in Semiotic Theory, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987), p. 48. Following Fredric Jameson, here Greimas is more of a key to plotting the codes of ideology than any trans-historical narrative form. Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens, (Boston: Beacon Press, 1950), p. 50. Greil Marcus, Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the Twentieth Century, (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), p. 361. Guy Debord, Panegyeric, (London: Verso, 1998), p. 47. Ice T, You Played Yourself , The Iceberg/Freedom of Speech, (Sire 1989). Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism & Schizophrenia, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983), p. 7. N. Katherine Hayles, How We Became Posthuman, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), p. 283. Sigmund Freud, A Case of Paranoia Running Counter to the Psychoanalytic Theory of the Disease , Standard Edition ed. James Strachey, (London: Hogarth Press, 1953-74), p. 261. And the delusions of psychoanalysts? Antonin Artaud, Watchfiends and Rack Screams: Works from the Late Period, (Boston MA: Exact Change Press, 1995), p. 68. This counter- posing of Artaud to Freud is of course from Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983). McKenzie Wark, A Hacker Manifesto, (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), s. 002. Chris Burke: Gamers definitely do hack, although maybe always not in the sense that McKenzie uses the term. Rather than creating some new useful service or application, gamer hacks come more from the ¥hmm, whatƒs inside this thingƒ sort of motivation. To the radical mind, there is the advantage here of unlocking some part of the proprietary corporate culture and making it available to the public. Machinima [cinema made with game engines] is one example and within that world there are several divisions, most importantly, hardware hacking vs. software hacking. Much of the machinima world has been embraced and encouraged by the game companies as a way to extend their brand by creating community. But hardware hacking is something that they are firmly against. I have done a little of both and to be honest, for what I do, hardware hacking is less interesting, only because it allows you to do nearly anything with the game and therefore you are no longer working within their world. This goes to the core of what I would like to discuss with McKenzie: the thing I love about ¥software hackingƒ a live online game to make something new, is the extent to which one is beholden to play within the rules of the game as it was made, while at the same time exercising the ability to bend those rules and thereby make the mass produced game do something new and more personal. Itƒs as if you got a Hollywood set to your self for a day and were able to comment on the text of the film by speaking your own lines from within the film itself. This is made more interesting to me by the fact that online gaming is now so pervasive and lucrative for the big companies. I want to believe that we are part of a movement, trail- blazed by the two-way nature of the internet, to bring some democracy to media. I do not doubt that the corporations can put an end to this, but I believe there has been some recent tendency in the game industry to see this sort of hacking as a good thing. See Chris machinima TV show This Spartan Life at: thisspartanlife.com SimEarth is manufactured by the Maxis company and distributed by Broderbund. As designer Will Wright has acknowledged, it is based on the work of Jay Forrester, particularly his book World Dynamics, (Waltham MA: Pegasus Communications, 1973). Forrester had previously worked on Project Whirlwind for the US Navy, perhaps the first computer to work in realtime and use video displays. A much earlier version of this chapter appeared as Third Nature , Cultural Studies, 8:1, (January 1994), pp. 115-132. Theodor Adorno, Minima Moralia, (London: New Left Books, 1974), p. 156. On this utopia without prescription, or minimal prescription, see Russell Jacoby, Picture Imperfect: Utopian Thought for an Anti-Utopian Age, (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005). An Inconvenient Truth, 2006, directed by Davis Guggenheim, based on a Powerpoint show from the Apple laptop of Al Gore, formerly the next President of the United States. Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, preface A. A. Bogdanov, Red Star: The First Bolshevik Utopia, (Bloomington IL: Indiana UP, 1984), p. 80. Bogdanov points to the difficulty of conceiving of totality from within an agon which focuses all one s attention on an opponent. Interestingly, utopian writing may be able to conceive of a totality because of the way it brackets off and ignores its opponents. The utopian writers Bogdanov and Charles Fourier both predicted global warming. See Charles Fourier, The Theory of the Four Movements, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 48. The entire world will then be under cultivation, , bringing about a rise of five or six degrees . Of course Fourier thought this a good thing, and did really think that the sea would taste like lemonade. (p. 50) But being systematic thinkers, these utopian writers did bring themselves to think about the way human social relations create and transform their conditions as a totality. Kim Stanley Robinson, Green Mars, (New York: Bantam, 1995), p. 560. Robinson is also the author of a cycle of novels about global warming, starting with his Forty Signs of Rain, (New York: Bantam Books, 2004). Olaf Stapeldon, Star Maker, (Middleton CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2004), p. 94. In Archaeologies of the Future, London: Verso, 2005), p. 124, Fredric Jameson offers this amazing sentence: Indeed, we may posit that in an achieved utopia, one become unimaginably real and distinct from us in whatever far future or galactic space, the question of art would already have been answered, and Star Maker would have turned out to be the Divine Comedy of that realized new world, returning to us as a sacred text or scripture mysteriously catapulted from out of the future into our own fallen present, as though it were indeed the enigmatic writing destined to secure a continuity across the barrier of time and historical transformation. In this fallen world, things are a little different, and one can imagine the luckless angels of Star Maker traveling the universe observing and communing with the unhappy remains left behind by players of Spore. Franco Moretti, Modern Epic, (London: Verso, 1996), p. 6. Formal here substitutes for rhetorical . See also Moretti s remarkable essays on literary gamespace: Graphs, Maps, Trees: Abstract Models for a Literary Theory, (London: Verso, 2005). E M Cioran, Drawn and Quartered, (New York: Arcade, 1998), p. 134. Cioran s unrepentant fascism should not pass here without mention. Mark Amerika, How To Be An Internet Artist, (Boulder CO: Alt-X, 2001), p. 3. Amerika is also the author of the classic interactive text grammatron.com. Walter Benjamin, On the Concept of History , Selected Writings Volume 4, (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), p. 392. Heiner M ller, ¥The Luckless Angelƒ, Germania (New York: Semiotext(e) Foreign Agents Series, 1990), p. 99. Plato, Phaedrus, translated by Christopher Rowe, (London: Penguin, , 2005), p. 63 [274e]. On Phaedrus as the key text initiating a critical media theory, see Darren Tofts & Murray McKeitch, Memory Trade: A Pre- History of Cyberculture, (Melbourne: Fine Arts Publishing, 1998) and Darren Tofts et al, eds., Prefiguring Cyberculture: An Intellectual History, (Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 2004). Recipe here translates the term Derrida made famous: pharmakon . David Parry: Theuth also becomes Hermes the God of speed and transmission, back to tele. Niall Lucy: The move could be too fast here. Derridaƒs intervention is against the notion of writing as written-down speech. For him, writing has to be thought as spacing, differencing and deferring to see that speech could never stand ¥behindƒ it. Jacques Derrida, Dissemination, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), p. 82. In Parables of the Virtual, (Durham NC: Duke University Press, 2002), Brian Massumi argues that Derrida starts from static terms, and works toward uncovering the hidden transit between them, rather than trying to think movement itself. With this speculative translation of pharmakon as recipe I am trying to restore the thought of movement. A recipe (or an algorithm) may be either a poison or a cure, but either way is still a process, a movement. Manuel De Landa, War In The Age of Intelligent Machines, (New York: Zone Books, 1991), p. 4. See also Manuel De Landa, Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy, (London: Continuum, 2002). De Landa, like Massumi, attempts to restore movement to thought. A play that does not require the game but rather calls it into being. Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious: Storyline as a Socially Symbolic Act, (Ithaca NY: Cornell University Press, 1981), p. 102. Jameson continues: But this History can be apprehended only through its effects, and never directly as some reified force. This is indeed the ultimate sense in which History as ground and untranscendable horizon needs no particular theoretical justification: we may be sure that its alienating necessities will not forget us, however much we might prefer to ignore them. Georg Lukacs, History and Class Consciousness (London: Merlin, 1983), p. 19. The concept of totality, which one can quibble to death in theory, reasserts itself in practice, now that it leaves such telling evidence of its existence such as global warming. K-Punk, Cartesianism, Continuum, Catatonia: Beckett , Excarnate Thought, http://www.k-punk.abstractdynamics.org/ (26th March, 2006). Here gamespace replaced the now archaic term cyberspace. Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus (London: Athlone Press, 1983), p. 321. Guy Debord, Complete Cinematic Works: Scripts, Stills, Documents, (Oakland CA: AK Press, 2003), p. 151. Wark/GAM3R 7H30RY/8/23/06/11:29 AM/page 133 zombie zombie Zibaldone Zibaldone zero-sum zero-sum zero zero Zamyatin Zamyatin Yurick Yurick Yevgeny Yevgeny yearns yearns yards yards Yale Yale yachts yachts XL XL XI XI Xenophon Xenophon Xbox Xbox www.motorola.com www.motorola.com www.kemet.com www.kemet.com www.k-punk.abstractdynamics.org www.k-punk.abstractdynamics.org www.jha.ac www.jha.ac www.gamegirladvance.com www.gamegirladvance.com WTO WTO wrote wrote written-down written-down wrist wrist wrenching wrenching wrapped wrapped woven woven worthwhile worthwhile worst worst worshipped worshipped worldly worldly workshop workshop working-day working-day workday workday Woods Woods women women wobble wobble withholding withholding withheld withheld Witheford Witheford wireless wireless Winston Winston winsome winsome Winner Winner wind wind win-lose win-lose win-all win-all willingly willingly wildlife wildlife wild wild Wilbur Wilbur wicked wicked whorls whorls wholesale wholesale 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unhappy unhappy ungamelike ungamelike unfreedom unfreedom unfoundedness unfoundedness unfair unfair unexplained unexplained unevenly unevenly uneven uneven undrawn undrawn undoubtedly undoubtedly undistorted undistorted undetected undetected undesirable undesirable understood understood Underground Underground Uncritical Uncritical uncreation uncreation uncontainable uncontainable unconcerned unconcerned uncoils uncoils unclench unclench uncharted uncharted uncertainly uncertainly uncertain uncertain unavoidable unavoidable unasked unasked unambiguous unambiguous unalienated unalienated unacknowledged unacknowledged un-minding un-minding umpire umpire Tzu Tzu txts txts two-way two-way two-bit two-bit twice twice twenty-three twenty-three Twentieth Twentieth twenty twenty twelve twelve tunnel-like tunnel-like tune tune tumble tumble tug tug truckers truckers troublesome troublesome trophy trophy tropes tropes Trolls Trolls tribes tribes triangle triangle transparent transparent transmission transmission transgressors transgressors transfiguration transfiguration trans-historical trans-historical trans trans Tragic Tragic Tradition Tradition tower tower Toutes Toutes tourism tourism toss toss topia topia tone tone tomorrow tomorrow toll toll toys toys toaster-oven toaster-oven toaster toaster toast toast titles titles tiniest tiniest timetables timetables timeless timeless thunderdome thunderdome thrown thrown throbbing throbbing thrives thrives thought-provoking thought-provoking thoroughly thoroughly thisspartanlife.com thisspartanlife.com thisness thisness Thirdly Thirdly thin thin Thieves Thieves thermonuclear thermonuclear theoryheads theoryheads theological theological theodicy theodicy theatre theatre theater theater Thang Thang texture texture Tester Tester terrordome terrordome terraform terraform tenuous tenuous tennis tennis tendrils tendrils tenderness tenderness tendency tendency tempted tempted temporarily temporarily templates templates 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subconscious subconscious sub-sliders sub-sliders stunningly stunningly stump stump Studio Studio strutted strutted Struck Struck strict strict stretch stretch streets streets Strauss Strauss stratifications stratifications strategic strategic strangling strangling strangers strangers strand strand strain strain straightforward straightforward Strachey Strachey stomachs stomachs stolen stolen stimulating stimulating sterile sterile Stein Stein steering steering steeped steeped Staypuft Staypuft status status static static statements statements stashed stashed starve starve stand-off stand-off stand-alone stand-alone stalls stalls Stalinist-Surrealist Stalinist-Surrealist stagger stagger stabilizes stabilizes squishy squishy squandered squandered spurned spurned spring spring spouting spouting spoon spoon sponsored sponsored spokes spokes spite spite Spiral Spiral Spielraum Spielraum spiderƒs spiderƒs Spector Spector specter specter spearheaded spearheaded speakers speakers spatio-temporal spatio-temporal Spartan Spartan spark spark Spariosu Spariosu spam spam spaceships spaceships spacey spacey Soviet Soviet sovereign sovereign South South soulless soulless Soren Soren Sony Sony Sons Sons Solitude Solitude solipsistic solipsistic solidly solidly sole sole sold sold solar solar Sol Sol soft soft so-called so-called sniper sniper sneaks sneaks snacks snacks smoke smoke SMS SMS slots slots slip-sliding slip-sliding slipped slipped slingin slingin slim-line slim-line slight slight slave slave slack slack Skip Skip sketchy sketchy sirens sirens Sire Sire sinister sinister single-player single-player SimSmarts SimSmarts sim-critters sim-critters silvery silvery silliness silliness silent silent sighs sighs SIGGRAPH SIGGRAPH shuttles shuttles shut shut shunted shunted shroud shroud shrink shrink shrill shrill shown shown showdown showdown shoved shoved shortcuts shortcuts shortage shortage shops shops shooter shooter shocking shocking ships ships shining shining Sheriff Sheriff sheet sheet shattering shattering sharply sharply shadowy shadowy shadow-world shadow-world shack shack sex_in_games_rezvibr sex_in_games_rezvibr seventies seventies settlements settlements settled settled Sese Sese servants servants Sergei Sergei sentient sentient sentence sentence sent sent sensitive sensitive senseless senseless sensations sensations sender sender senator senator Semiotic Semiotic semiconductors semiconductors semblance semblance self-proclaimed self-proclaimed self-other self-other self-inflicted self-inflicted self-imposed self-imposed self-control self-control self-consistency self-consistency self-affirmation self-affirmation Seku Seku segments segments seeps seeps sector sector Secretary Secretary Secondly Secondly secondary secondary seat seat seasons seasons seafarers seafarers sea sea sculpture sculpture sculptor sculptor scripture scripture Screams Screams Scratch Scratch Scottish Scottish scope scope scissors scissors Scientist Scientist sci sci Schumpter Schumpter schole schole Scholder Scholder Schizophrenia Schizophrenia schizophrenic schizophrenic schedule schedule scarcity scarcity scarcely scarcely scapegoat scapegoat savior savior Satyajit Satyajit Saturday Saturday satisfyingly satisfyingly sat sat sanguine sanguine San San samples samples Sam Sam salvation salvation Salt Salt Salen Salen sales sales sake sake sadly sadly Sadler Sadler Sadean Sadean sad sad sacrificial sacrificial sacrifices sacrifices Sabbatarians Sabbatarians Rylish Rylish rushing rushing ruse ruse rupture rupture Runner Runner Rumsfeld Rumsfeld rule-governed rule-governed rule-bound rule-bound rudimentary rudimentary rubric rubric rubble rubble Rowman Rowman Rowe Rowe routine routine rounds rounds roughly roughly rough rough Rotterdam Rotterdam rotates rotates rot rot rose rose rope rope roost roost roof roof Romkema Romkema romance romance rogue rogue rocket rocket robots robots ritual ritual risky risky ripe ripe rigged rigged 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rediscovering rediscovering redeploy redeploy Redemption Redemption recycle recycle rector rector recover recover recounts recounts reconstitutes reconstitutes reconfigured reconfigured reconciling reconciling recompense recompense recommends recommends recoil recoil recognizable recognizable reclamation reclamation reckless reckless reciprocation reciprocation Recession Recession recapitulates recapitulates reborn reborn reawaken reawaken reasserts reasserts rear rear realigning realigning re-write re-write re-opens re-opens re-evaluation re-evaluation re-establishing re-establishing Raymond Raymond rationalist rationalist rat rat rapidly rapidly ransack ransack range range ram ram raise raise Rain Rain rage rage Radiotext Radiotext radioactive radioactive radar radar Rack Rack racist racist quirky quirky Quinn Quinn quicker quicker quibble quibble quasi-Darwinian quasi-Darwinian quantification quantification qualms qualms qualified qualified qualifications qualifications quaint quaint pygmies pygmies Purple Purple purity purity purest purest punishingly punishingly punctuating punctuating punch punch psychoanalysts psychoanalysts proximate proximate proxy proxy provincial provincial provenance provenance proudly proudly proto-computer proto-computer protest protest prospect prospect proscription proscription propriety propriety proprietary proprietary proposition proposition proposes proposes prophet prophet properly properly propels propels proof proof pronounces pronounces prominence prominence prokaryote prokaryote prognosis prognosis profusion profusion profundity profundity profoundly profoundly processual processual proceeds proceeds problem-solvers problem-solvers probably probably private private primer primer primary primary prima prima price price previously previously previous previous pretext pretext pretends pretends presumably presumably pressure pressure preset preset prerogative prerogative premised premised prey prey preface preface predominance predominance predestined predestined predate predate precludes precludes pre-release pre-release pre-existing pre-existing Pre Pre praxis praxis Praise Praise prairies prairies practitioners practitioners powers-that-be powers-that-be Powerpoint Powerpoint power-up power-up power-brokers power-brokers poverty poverty pouring pouring potshots potshots potatoes potatoes postpones postpones posters posters Post-war Post-war portrayal portrayal portrays portrays porno porno pores pores Popper Popper Pong Pong pollution pollution politico-consumerism politico-consumerism politicians politicians Polity Polity policeman policeman polis polis polarize polarize poking poking Poetry Poetry poetic poetic pods pods poses poses Plug Plug plied plied plenty plenty plebs plebs playroom playroom playoffs playoffs playmates playmates playdates playdates playa playa Platonic Platonic platform platform Plateaus Plateaus planetary planetary placements placements placeless placeless pizza pizza pixels pixels pitchers pitchers pipes pipes pioneering pioneering Pink Pink pimp pimp Piercing Piercing pie pie picturesque picturesque pictorial pictorial physical physical phyla phyla photosynthetic photosynthetic photography photography phosphorescing phosphorescing phenomenon phenomenon phallus phallus Phadrus Phadrus Peuter Peuter pessimist pessimist pertaining pertaining Persea Persea pernicious pernicious permits permits periphery periphery Period Period perforated perforated perfectly perfectly per per pep pep penultimate penultimate pent pent PensØes PensØes penalty penalty Peloponnesian Peloponnesian Pelagian Pelagian Pegasus Pegasus peer peer pees pees pedometer pedometer Peasant Peasant peak peak PC PC payoff payoff patriotic patriotic Patrick Patrick Patrice Patrice paternity paternity patents patents pastel-hued pastel-hued passwords passwords Passion Passion Parry Parry Paramount Paramount paradigm paradigm Panzer Panzer Pantheon Pantheon panoptic panoptic 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Office Odyssey Odyssey Octber Octber obverse obverse obsolescent obsolescent obscure obscure Oblivion Oblivion oblige oblige Oakland Oakland NY NY nutty nutty Nuthin Nuthin nurturing nurturing nuke nuke novelist novelist notebook notebook nose nose Noon Noon nonexistent nonexistent non-worker non-worker non-game non-game non-existent non-existent non non Nokia Nokia noisy noisy Nocte Nocte no-one no-one NJ NJ Nineteen Nineteen nihilistic nihilistic nihilism nihilism nightclub nightclub Nietzschian Nietzschian Nick Nick niche niche newspapers newspapers Newbie Newbie nervous nervous neo neo Neil Neil neighbors neighbors nearly nearly nd nd Navy Navy Nathaniel Nathaniel nasty nasty narrow narrow Napoleon Napoleon nanotechnology nanotechnology nameless nameless nail nail n-dimensional n-dimensional mythos mythos mutability mutability Murray Murray murky murky multiplies multiplies mug mug mud mud Mouth Mouth mouse mouse mourns mourns mountainside mountainside motor motor motivation motivation mother mother Morse Morse morph morph Moralia Moralia Montreal Montreal Monthly Monthly months months monstrous monstrous monotonous monotonous monkeys monkeys Monacelli Monacelli momentum momentum momentary momentary molded molded Moeller Moeller Moco Moco mob mob Mizogushi Mizogushi mistaken mistaken mistake mistake misery misery mirror mirror miracles miracles Minister Minister minimalist minimalist Minima Minima Minerva Minerva million million milky milky mild mild Mikkonen Mikkonen Mihai Mihai Mieke Mieke Mieir Mieir midweek midweek midst midst Middleton Middleton midday midday mid mid Microsoft Microsoft metter metter Metropolitan Metropolitan meticulous meticulous methodological methodological metal metal metabolic metabolic messianic messianic messy messy mercenary mercenary menu menu menacing menacing memos memos member member melding melding Melbourne Melbourne medicine medicine meaning-making meaning-making meal meal MD MD McKeitch McKeitch McGill-Queens 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keen-sighted Katie Katie Katherine Katherine Katharine Katharine Kantƒs Kantƒs Kafkaz Kafkaz justifies justifies justification justification just-one-more-item just-one-more-item jury jury junkie junkie jumbled jumbled July July Jules Jules Judy Judy joyously joyously jots jots Joseph Joseph joke joke joint joint Johnson Johnson JohnR JohnR jives jives Jimmy Jimmy Jews Jews Jeu Jeu Jesse Jesse jerking jerking Jeff Jeff Japanese Japanese January January jams jams Ivy Ivy Ithaca Ithaca iteration iteration Italy Italy irruption irruption irreducible irreducible ironies ironies Iraq Iraq involuntary involuntary invoked invoked invite invite investigate investigate inversion inversion inventory inventory inventor inventor invariably invariably introductory introductory intrinsic intrinsic intricacy intricacy intractable intractable interweaving interweaving Interview Interview interversity.org interversity.org intertwining intertwining interstitial interstitial interstellar interstellar interlocutor interlocutor interior interior interchangeable interchangeable inter-communications inter-communications intend intend intact intact insurrection insurrection insubstantial insubstantial instrumental instrumental instinct instinct instantly instantly Instantial Instantial instant instant instability instability insert insert inseparable inseparable inky inky inherently inherently infringed infringed Infotechnodemo Infotechnodemo influence influence infinitesimal infinitesimal infallible infallible inexorable inexorable indistinguishable indistinguishable indiscriminately indiscriminately indirection indirection indignation indignation indicates indicates index index indeterminate indeterminate inconsolable inconsolable incomparable incomparable incommensurables incommensurables incitements incitements incessant incessant incalculable incalculable inaugurates inaugurates inanimate inanimate inability inability Imus Imus impurity impurity imprinting imprinting impoverishes 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approximate appropriate appropriate apprehension apprehension apprehended apprehended appraisal appraisal application application appetite appetite apparition apparition Aphorisms Aphorisms aperture aperture anyway anyway anybody anybody anxious anxious antithesis antithesis anticipates anticipates Anti-Utopian Anti-Utopian anti-technological anti-technological anti-globalization anti-globalization anti-corporate anti-corporate Anti Anti Anthology Anthology anonymous anonymous aniny aniny Andrew Andrew Anchor Anchor ancestral ancestral Anarchy Anarchy anarchically anarchically analytical analytical analyst analyst anachronism anachronism Anabasis Anabasis amuses amuses amplified amplified amoral amoral amongst amongst Amy Amy amendments amendments amenable amenable Amadae Amadae always-already always-already altogether altogether Alt-X Alt-X Alright Alright alphanumerics alphanumerics aloud aloud almost-utopian almost-utopian Allure Allure alliances alliances alleviating alleviating alley alley allegiance allegiance alike alike aligning aligning Algorthmic Algorthmic Alexbb Alexbb Alexander Alexander aleatory aleatory Aldous Aldous aka aka AK AK Ajax Ajax airwaves airwaves airless airless air air AimØ AimØ aiding aiding ahistorical ahistorical ah ah agreeable agreeable aggregation aggregation Aftermaths Aftermaths afterlife afterlife African African affinity affinity affairs affairs aerial aerial advice advice adopt adopt Adolf Adolf admired admired administration administration adherence adherence adequate adequate additions additions Adam Adam ads ads actors actors acquired acquired Achilles Achilles accused accused Accursed Accursed accordingly accordingly acclimatize acclimatize accessories accessories accentuating accentuating academics academics abut abut absurdly absurdly absurd absurd absolving absolving Aboriginal Aboriginal abolition abolition abiding abiding ABC ABC abates abates abandon abandon Zimmerman Zimmerman yawns yawns xenia xenia wreckage wreckage worthless worthless worthy worthy workplace workplace winter winter win-win win-win wildly wildly wide wide wholly wholly western western west west weight weight website website wave wave warning warning Warfare Warfare wandering wandering voracious voracious visiting visiting viewer viewer victim victim VIS VIS veritable veritable verdict verdict venal venal Velvet Velvet vehicle vehicle variegated variegated utility utility Urbana Urbana unobservable unobservable unintended unintended uniform uniform unfolding unfolding unfit unfit uneasy uneasy undoing undoing Underneath Underneath undefeated undefeated undecidable undecidable uncover uncover uncertainties uncertainties unable unable twizzle twizzle turkeys turkeys trumps trumps truly truly trip trip trick trick trend trend Trees Trees trapped trapped trajectory trajectory tragedy tragedy traffic traffic toxic toxic Tourist Tourist Toronto Toronto tool tool tongue tongue toil toil Tofts Tofts today today tied tied Thunder Thunder thump thump Thucydides Thucydides threading threading Thomas Thomas thinker thinker thereby thereby theology theology textual textual Tetsuya Tetsuya terrible terrible Terry Terry terrain terrain temptation temptation telephony telephony Ted Ted technique technique tech tech Teacher Teacher tack tack tabulating tabulating systematic systematic synthesis synthesis symptom symptom swells swells Sutton-Smith Sutton-Smith surrounded surrounded surprising surprising supposedly supposedly support support suppliers suppliers superiority superiority sunlight sunlight suitors suitors Subversion Subversion suburban suburban subsequent subsequent subdivide subdivide students students strong strong strike strike stray stray stone stone Sticky Sticky stereotype stereotype stealth stealth Stapeldon Stapeldon Stanley Stanley stalk stalk stack stack squeezed squeezed spot spot spontaneity spontaneity spinning spinning spill spill spent spent speculation speculation somehow somehow somebody somebody solid solid software software sofa sofa sociological sociological Snap Snap smooth smooth smear smear smallest smallest slowly slowly slippery slippery slippage slippage slightest slightest Slavoj Slavoj Situationism Situationism Sitcom Sitcom Sisyphean Sisyphean singular singular SimEarthlings SimEarthlings simes simes Sigmund Sigmund sight sight shower shower shoulder shoulder sheer sheer sharp sharp sex sex seven seven served served Semiotext Semiotext selfless selfless seize seize seemingly seemingly secretly secretly scripted scripted sci-fi sci-fi schizo schizo scheme scheme scan scan satisfaction satisfaction sand sand SAGE SAGE safe safe Sade Sade Routledge Routledge Roland Roland road road ridiculous ridiculous rhythms rhythms revolt revolt Review Review retreat retreat restless restless resound resound rescue rescue represent represent remove remove remarkable remarkable religious religious relies relies relentlessly relentlessly rejection rejection reified reified regulated regulated region region regardless regardless refined refined referee referee recreate recreate reconciliation reconciliation recalcitrant recalcitrant Rebel Rebel rearrange rearrange reappear reappear realtime realtime Reaktion Reaktion ready-roasted ready-roasted Ready Ready react react rattles rattles Raoul Raoul Quincey Quincey quiet quiet quickly quickly quest quest quartz quartz Quartered Quartered pursuit pursuit purification purification punk punk pumped pumped pulses pulses Psychoanalytic Psychoanalytic Prove Prove protect protect prosaic prosaic propitious propitious prompts prompts Programme Programme Profound Profound Professor Professor profane profane proclaims proclaims procedure procedure prior prior printed printed Princeton Princeton priest priest preservation preservation prescription prescription prepares prepares prejudice prejudice prefigure prefigure precursor precursor precious precious powerless powerless pound pound portable portable pornography pornography porn porn polygons polygons policy policy Pocket Pocket playtime playtime playpen playpen plate plate Pinckard Pinckard pill pill pile pile Picture Picture pics pics piano piano phenomena phenomena phase phase Phaedrus Phaedrus Persian Persian perceived perceived Penelope Penelope peculiar peculiar pattern pattern patch patch Pat Pat passive passive Pascal Pascal partitions partitions Partie Partie Park Park Paris Paris paranoiacs paranoiacs parameters parameters paralyzing paralyzing parable parable Panopticon Panopticon panic panic Pan Pan paint paint paid paid pack pack outlaw outlaw ourselves ourselves Oulipo Oulipo orphan orphan orifice orifice oppressive oppressive Opium Opium Olaf Olaf okay okay oil oil offspring offspring Oddly Oddly October October obvious obvious November November Notorious Notorious notice notice not-being not-being nonhuman nonhuman none none non-separation non-separation noise noise nightmare nightmare nice nice Neville Neville neutral neutral nemesis nemesis neighborhood neighborhood narrates narrates napping napping Naomi Naomi Namco Namco Naked Naked M ller M ller mythic mythic mutated mutated murdering murdering mundane mundane multi-player multi-player mount mount Motorola Motorola moonshine moonshine montages montages Mohicans Mohicans mod mod Mobutu Mobutu missile missile mischief mischief minor minor Mined Mined Milne Milne Miller Miller migrate migrate meted meted metaphors metaphors message message mesh mesh merit merit Mercedes Mercedes mental mental Meno Meno mendacious mendacious Meier Meier meditate meditate meaningful meaningful maze maze Maxis Maxis Max Max Massumi Massumi massively massively Marxism Marxism Marcus Marcus Mars Mars manual manual Manifest Manifest Manchester Manchester makeshift makeshift major major maintenance maintenance Mad Mad luxury luxury luminance luminance ludicrous ludicrous lower lower Lovers Lovers Loot Loot loop loop locus locus lock lock loaded loaded loses loses Liu Liu linger linger lift lift Liberty Liberty Lev Lev lend lend legal legal Lee Lee leader leader Le Le lawless lawless later later latent latent laptop laptop laborious laborious knowable knowable Kline Kline Klein Klein kitchen kitchen Kim Kim kilo kilo Kemet Kemet Keita Keita K-Punk K-Punk Juul Juul jump jump Juliette Juliette Judge Judge Joystick Joystick journey journey journalist journalist Journal Journal join join jitter jitter Jesper Jesper Jean Jean Jane Jane Jay Jay Jack Jack Ismithian Ismithian island island irreversible irreversible ironic ironic Ion Ion intervention intervention intervene intervene interval interval interpret interpret interface interface intercourse intercourse Intel Intel instructions instructions Institute Institute inspire inspire insinuates insinuates insignificant insignificant innovation innovation inheritance inheritance inhabited inhabited infinity infinity infidel infidel ineffective ineffective indigenous indigenous indictment indictment incrementally incrementally Inconvenient Inconvenient impulse impulse impulses impulses implied implied implementation implementation Impassable Impassable immense immense Illinois Illinois ilinx ilinx Idly Idly Iacovoni Iacovoni hype hype hybrid hybrid hurts hurts hurls hurls huge huge household household host host hook hook honor honor honest honest Holocaust Holocaust Holerith Holerith holed holed Herz Herz helpless helpless hell hell Helios Helios Heiner Heiner height height Hayles Hayles Haven Haven Harvey Harvey harmless harmless hardly hardly Harden Harden Hannah Hannah hall hall habitats habitats habit habit guts guts guardian guardian Grove Grove Greil Greil Grey Grey Greg Greg Greek Greek greatest greatest graphic graphic grace grace Gorky Gorky Gore Gore Gonzalo Gonzalo gone gone glory glory girl girl giraffe giraffe Giacomo Giacomo German German genetic genetic genealogy genealogy gender gender gasses gasses gangster gangster gay gay futile futile fundamentalist fundamentalist fully fully fruit fruit frozen frozen frighten frighten friendly friendly freeze freeze freely freely freaks freaks Franco Franco franchise franchise Fragile Fragile Forrester Forrester formerly formerly formation formation forlorn forlorn forgiven forgiven forget forget forest forest foreground foreground foreclosed foreclosed Fordham Fordham Ford Ford Folly Folly float float flicker flicker fleet fleet flaw flaw flattened flattened flashes flashes fist fist fiddling fiddling fellow fellow fault fault fate fate faster faster famous famous fame fame false false fallen fallen faction faction extreme extreme extopian extopian extinct extinct expulsion expulsion explodes explodes existential existential exile exile exhaust exhaust exercise exercise exclusion exclusion excitation excitation excess excess exceeds exceeds examination examination Eventually Eventually European European Ethic Ethic estate estate Essence Essence especially especially erosion erosion environmental environmental enmeshed enmeshed enlightened enlightened enduring enduring enclosed enclosed emotion emotion embedded embedded elusive elusive eliminates eliminates El El Eidos Eidos efforts efforts Edwin Edwin economist economist eclipse eclipse eat eat easily easily easy easy ease ease Eagleton Eagleton Dying Dying duty duty Durham Durham Dungeons Dungeons Duke Duke drop drop Drew Drew Dragons Dragons drag drag Downtown Downtown doubt doubt division division diverse diverse distance distance Dissemination Dissemination discoveries discoveries disavow disavow dinner dinner differentiation differentiation dialogue dialogue dial dial devalued devalued destiny destiny despair despair derive derive Derian Derian derangement derangement Der Der depth depth depression depression departure departure demonstrate demonstrate deluded deluded delicious delicious deliberate deliberate deliberative deliberative Defense Defense deeper deeper deepens deepens deep deep debt debt deadline deadline dazzled dazzled Davies Davies Dassin Dassin Darwin Darwin Darren Darren darkened darkened Cyril Cyril cynical cynical cyberpunk cyberpunk cybernetic cybernetic cyberhype cyberhype cure cure CT CT crude crude criminal criminal cranked cranked couple couple coordinated coordinated conversation conversation converge converge conventionality conventionality conventions conventions contrast contrast contours contours contemplative contemplative consolidates consolidates conquer conquer Connolly Connolly configured configured conference conference conduct conduct Conceptual Conceptual concentrate concentrate comprehensive comprehensive composed composed component component compare compare comfort comfort Cohen Cohen coffee coffee coach coach co-exist co-exist closure closure clearly clearly clean clean circulated circulated circle circle chooses chooses Chinese Chinese Childhood Childhood Chess Chess charisma charisma Chaos Chaos channels channels champion champion Ch Ch cell cell category category catastrophe catastrophe casino casino Carson Carson cards cards Capitalist Capitalist Camus Camus Cambrdige Cambrdige Buzzcocks Buzzcocks Butterfly Butterfly busten busten burst burst bump bump brilliant brilliant Brenton Brenton breakfast breakfast brackets brackets box box Boulder Boulder boss boss Bonus Bonus Bolshevik Bolshevik blinking blinking blend blend blank blank blame blame Blaise Blaise biological biological Ben Ben Bellamy Bellamy beeping beeping battlespace battlespace battlefield battlefield Bateson Bateson Bataille Bataille Basic Basic Barthes Barthes bare bare barbarism barbarism Bantam Bantam badly badly backpack backpack background background Australian Australian aura aura August August audio audio attuned attuned attributes attributes attack attack atom atom Assistance Assistance assault assault Asja Asja Arthur Arthur arrested arrested armor armor argue argue Area Area Archive Archive archeologist archeologist Archaeologies Archaeologies Aragon Aragon Apple Apple appalling appalling Antonin Antonin antidote antidote ants ants annihilate annihilate Anne Anne Andrejevic Andrejevic analysis analysis Ambivalence Ambivalence amazing amazing alongside alongside allotted allotted alive alive Alberto Alberto Albert Albert ahead ahead agree agree afterwards afterwards afternoon afternoon advantage advantage admits admits Adilkno Adilkno accomplish accomplish accidental accidental Zizek Zizek young young www.livejournal.com www.livejournal.com written written writers writers wrest wrest worse worse workers workers workaday workaday wisdom wisdom waste waste Warriors Warriors walls walls Volume Volume void void visual visual visible visible Venture Venture Vaneigem Vaneigem vain vain updates updates unmarked unmarked unlock unlock unless unless uses uses Twist Twist trifler trifler trash trash transport transport transferred transferred Trance Trance town town Tomio Tomio tip tip Thousand Thousand tenure tenure tense tense tend tend tempo tempo temperatures temperatures telecommunications telecommunications taunt taunt tantalum tantalum Takahashi Takahashi table table synthetic synthetic synasthesia synasthesia Symbolic Symbolic suspension suspension Surrealism Surrealism Sunday Sunday sun-god sun-god sucked sucked subtle subtle substance substance stuck stuck stripped stripped string string Storm Storm Stewart Stewart Stephen Stephen steal steal statistics statistics Stallabrass Stallabrass stable stable spread spread Spore Spore splits splits spiritual spiritual sphere sphere spend spend specialists specialists soul soul sought sought somewhere somewhere solution solution socialist socialist smell smell slow slow slightly slightly simply simply Sid Sid sexual sexual seriousness seriousness serious serious Sega Sega seduction seduction secure secure section section Schopenhauer Schopenhauer schools schools scholar scholar satellites satellites sacred sacred Russell Russell Rockstar Rockstar Robinson Robinson river river rivals rivals riot riot rigorous rigorous righteous righteous Richard Richard rich rich revolutionary revolutionary restricted restricted responds responds resolved resolved resignation resignation resides resides Research Research Republic Republic reminding reminding relentless relentless reduction reduction redeem redeem recuperated recuperated recruited recruited reconstruct reconstruct receive receive raw raw rap rap railway railway radiate radiate quantifiable quantifiable purposes purposes promotion promotion Probst Probst presided presided presence presence precedence precedence post post possession possession poor poor polls polls poison poison poet poet plotting plotting please please Playground Playground playful playful planning planning pitch pitch phrase phrase phones phones Philosopher Philosopher pharmakon pharmakon perspective perspective perpetual perpetual permanently permanently pause pause patient patient pastime pastime participants participants parents parents paper paper Paolo Paolo paddies paddies outward outward outcome outcome otherwise otherwise opposed opposed opponent opponent okapi okapi Odysseus Odysseus occur occur occupy occupy occasional occasional Obviously Obviously obsolete obsolete novelty novelty notion notion non-player non-player non-merger non-merger Niall Niall nested nested NC NC narrative narrative myriad myriad music music multiplayer multiplayer muck muck motion motion mostly mostly mortal mortal Morris Morris Moretti Moretti monitor monitor Mizoguchi Mizoguchi minimal minimal mimesis mimesis Michel Michel Michael Michael method method Merlin Merlin meant meant maximum maximum match match masters masters Manovich Manovich magic magic machinima machinima lurks lurks ludic ludic Ludens Ludens Luckless Luckless Lucy Lucy Lovink Lovink Louis Louis loss loss looms looms Leopardi Leopardi legitimacy legitimacy legitimate legitimate legend legend launching launching Larry Larry larger larger lag lag kick kick kept kept Kane Kane Justin Justin June June Jenkins Jenkins Jacoby Jacoby items items isolate isolate invent invent Interestingly Interestingly intent intent integrity integrity intangible intangible insight insight inscription inscription inputs inputs inescapable inescapable independent independent increases increases incomplete incomplete inclusive inclusive incarnation incarnation improve improve immersed immersed Iggy Iggy ideology ideology Ice Ice hypocritical hypocritical hundred hundred html html hope hope homogenous homogenous Homo Homo Homer Homer hill hill highways highways Henry Henry heightened heightened headphones headphones Harmondsworth Harmondsworth hardware hardware guerrilla guerrilla Grusin Grusin grind grind green green glasses glasses Giorgio Giorgio ghost ghost geometry geometry geography geography Geert Geert gaze gaze gathered gathered gamble gamble gambit gambit furniture furniture fulfill fulfill Frasca Frasca founder founder Fortunately Fortunately forgotten forgotten foot foot fold fold fly fly flux flux flipping flipping flight flight fit fit firm firm Fine Fine fill fill fifth fifth Fenimore Fenimore features features fascinating fascinating farts farts fan fan failure failure exploitation exploitation exit exit evolve evolve everybody everybody etc etc et et established established era era engaged engaged endlessly endlessly encounter encounter enact enact empty empty empowered empowered employ employ electric electric elaborate elaborate Eichmann Eichmann edited edited earlier earlier ears ears ea_spouse ea_spouse drunk drunk domain domain document document divine divine distribution distribution distracting distracting distinguish distinguish distant distant disposal disposal dimensional dimensional dimension dimension digs digs difficulty difficulty dichotomy dichotomy dice dice Dibbell Dibbell diagrams diagrams dies dies devices devices departed departed democratic democratic democracy democracy delineating delineating delayed delayed dedicated dedicated decoration decoration decay decay David David CØsaire CØsaire Cyberculture Cyberculture cultivation cultivation crime crime country country Costikyan Costikyan copy copy context context constitute constitute constantly constantly condemned condemned concrete concrete conclude conclude conceive conceive competitor competitor common common commerce commerce comedy comedy Columbia Columbia colonial colonial collude collude cold cold co-opt co-opt CO CO clump clump Cioran Cioran chunks chunks chronicles chronicles Chris Chris Check Check chapter chapter caught caught Candy Candy brown brown broad broad British British bright bright Brian Brian Brecht Brecht branch branch bought bought borrowed borrowed Bolter Bolter Boy Boy blood blood blinding blinding blast blast Berger Berger beneath beneath behavior behavior began began Beacon Beacon Baudrillard Baudrillard band band bacteria bacteria backwards backwards axis axis available available attract attract attaches attaches artifice artifice Artaud Artaud Arrow Arrow array array architecture architecture arc arc arbitrarily arbitrarily apparently apparently Anti-Oedipus Anti-Oedipus ancient ancient allocation allocation allegorical allegorical Alan Alan ago ago adventures adventures accurately accurately accept accept absorbed absorbed worry worry wing wing window window Wilden Wilden Wark Wark Virno Virno Virilio Virilio versa versa various various varied varied unique unique underlying underlying Unconscious Unconscious ultimate ultimate troubled troubled trial trial tried tried transmit transmit transcend transcend trains trains trail trail toilet toilet thumb thumb throwing throwing theme theme terror terror teachings teachings Taylor Taylor taste taste tangible tangible suspended suspended suicide suicide succeed succeed substitute substitute sublime sublime structure structure striving striving strictly strictly stock stock Steven Steven Stanford Stanford stage stage square square spectator spectator soldier soldier Smith Smith smashing smashing slogan slogan slide slide skin skin six six sitting sitting simultaneously simultaneously simulate simulate signal signal service service sensibility sensibility send send Sell Sell secret secret scenarios scenarios satisfied satisfied Samuel Samuel Rumney Rumney ruins ruins Roger Roger rice rice rises rises rhetorical rhetorical retrospectively retrospectively reserve reserve reproduction reproduction reproducibility reproducibility repository repository remaking remaking reflective reflective reference reference recently recently Ralph Ralph radical radical quoted quoted quantities quantities quantitative quantitative proper proper promises promises proliferate proliferate privileged privileged prevent prevent prevails prevails pretty pretty police police pointless pointless plane plane persistence persistence parody parody Paranoia Paranoia parallel parallel Overlord Overlord output output optical optical opinion opinion obsessive obsessive observe observe numerical numerical not-merged not-merged normal normal Noir Noir night night nevertheless nevertheless negotiate negotiate neglected neglected necessarily necessarily Nazis Nazis mysteriously mysteriously movie movie modern modern mobile mobile meter meter mention mention medium medium meaningless meaningless matrix matrix mass mass Manuel Manuel maintain maintain Lunenfeld Lunenfeld logos logos location location local local list list linked linked likewise likewise lie lie Lars Lars Lang Lang laying laying Kandinsky Kandinsky justice justice Julian Julian issue issue involved involved Invest Invest introduce introduce instance instance increasingly increasingly imposing imposing impersonal impersonal immediate immediate illuminate illuminate idler idler idle idle identify identify icon icon IBM IBM Hoshino Hoshino horizon horizon highlights highlights hierarchies hierarchies hero hero heart heart guard guard greenhouse greenhouse gorillas gorillas gift gift geological geological Galloway Galloway gain gain Fundamentals Fundamentals Freud Freud flesh flesh finish finish finger finger fictional fictional Fiber Fiber Fear Fear fatal fatal fashionable fashionable familiar familiar extent extent extension extension evil evil error error Eric Eric environment environment entirely entirely endgame endgame enclave enclave enables enables Electronic Electronic early early drugs drugs drawn drawn disturbing disturbing disguise disguise disciplinary disciplinary disappear disappear director director dioxide dioxide die die didn didn denied denied delusion delusion definitely definitely declining declining declares declares danger danger current current crosses crosses court court corrupt corrupt corporate corporate cool cool consumerism consumerism consciousness consciousness conflict conflict confined confined coherent coherent Click Click clear clear cinematic cinematic chosen chosen charm charm Charles Charles characterized characterized century century CB CB carved carved Carse Carse carbon carbon byproduct byproduct brand brand bottom bottom bombs bombs blur blur blue blue belongs belongs bed bed beautiful beautiful barrier barrier bar bar autonomous autonomous atmosphere atmosphere aspect aspect arrangement arrangement arise arise apart apart anxiety anxiety anthropology anthropology Anthony Anthony antagonism antagonism Amerika Amerika Although Although alea alea Al Al agency agency affirmation affirmation affect affect add add adapted adapted accelerates accelerates absent absent abolish abolish years years wrong wrong William William whatever whatever Weber Weber web web warming warming walk walk Vol Vol voice voice vision vision vaguely vaguely unmasking unmasking truth truth treated treated tick tick threat threat Theft Theft thank thank terminal terminal telephone telephone talks talks switch switch Svendsen Svendsen Surrealist Surrealist surplus surplus Suits Suits style style store store Standard Standard stay stay Spouse Spouse spirit spirit speech speech specific specific spatial spatial sleep sleep site site simple simple similar similar significance significance shift shift shared shared shade shade scene scene scales scales risks risks revels revels response response resists resists reports reports refuse refuse Red Red recognition recognition rate rate rail rail Ray Ray race race puzzle puzzle punishment punishment public public predict predict postmodern postmodern posthuman posthuman pose pose popular popular Poole Poole pits pits Peter Peter perverse perverse persona persona Perec Perec perceptions perceptions paradise paradise pay pay options options online online odd odd nuclear nuclear notes notes node node navigation navigation mountain mountain morning morning mix mix miners miners Metaphysics Metaphysics mechanical mechanical McKenzie McKenzie maximize maximize Martin Martin love love literary literary lies lies league league Laurel Laurel Landa Landa Johan Johan isn isn intricate intricate intoxication intoxication intellectual intellectual insistence insistence individuals individuals Indiana Indiana impossible impossible important important illusion illusion ideal ideal hungry hungry http http hit hit held held heat heat Happy Happy guns guns group group grasshopper grasshopper granted granted Gilles Gilles garde garde Gang Gang full full fuels fuels fourth fourth fossil fossil forward forward finite finite fight fight Felix Felix favor favor father father fantasy fantasy family family erased erased enter enter enhanced enhanced Edwards Edwards education education economic economic dull dull dominant dominant discuss discuss discrete discrete directed directed devote devote describe describe dependent dependent dense dense deliver deliver deals deals cycle cycle curious curious crunch crunch creative creative cow cow cover cover contest contest content content conspiracy conspiracy console console consider consider concerns concerns commit commit comments comments collapse collapse claims claims citizen citizen circumstances circumstances characteristic characteristic cause cause career career capacity capacity brought brought brightly brightly Brenda Brenda border border board board Bloomington Bloomington blaze blaze black black Bernard Bernard became became beats beats avant avant Auto Auto author author armies armies arises arises arena arena Arcade Arcade approach approach apparatus apparatus alone alone alienation alienation Alex Alex airport airport agent agent Agamben Agamben addresses addresses Acknowledgements Acknowledgements won won weapons weapons waiting waiting virtue virtue violent violent versus versus triumph triumph touch touch Theodor Theodor test test temporary temporary surface surface suppressing suppressing suggestion suggestion straight straight speed speed solve solve Socrates Socrates small small sky sky skill skill size size situation situation senses senses seen seen seamless seamless rock rock Revolution Revolution residue residue rendered rendered remember remember remediation remediation relationship relationship reigns reigns refuses refuses re re rare rare random random pull pull program program preferred preferred Pop Pop Plato Plato pervasive pervasive Paul Paul paths paths particularly particularly Money Money missed missed material material loose loose logistics logistics lead lead latter latter Late Late knowledge knowledge killed killed John John Jacques Jacques intense intense initial initial incorporate incorporate inadequate inadequate imposition imposition grasping grasping graphs graphs further further fun fun Fourier Fourier former former food food fast fast external external Exploring Exploring experienced experienced expect expect exchange exchange everyone everyone eternal eternal essentially essentially essay essay enclosure enclosure elements elements dystopia dystopia done done displaced displaced detail detail counter counter counts counts corner corner Cooper Cooper constraints constraints compete compete cheat cheat charts charts certainly certainly cellphone cellphone carried carried car car Capitalism Capitalism burning burning built built buy buy Boston Boston assumption assumption assign assign aspire aspire anyone anyone announce announce amount amount ambition ambition alterity alterity aim aim agonistic agonistic Adorno Adorno accumulation accumulation Wright Wright worth worth wonder wonder Vibrator Vibrator unlike unlike understand understand trifle trifle transit transit transgression transgression track track third third theoretical theoretical Thamus Thamus territory territory temporal temporal technical technical teams teams superceded superceded success success schizoid schizoid room room rest rest recognize recognize pushed pushed pp pp planet planet perform perform onto onto nothingness nothingness not-game not-game nation nation myth myth moral moral mission mission Minnesota Minnesota Minneapolis Minneapolis men men meet meet Maker Maker leisure leisure inscribe inscribe inevitably inevitably imperfect imperfect imaginary imaginary IL IL ignores ignores identity identity guide guide Guattari Guattari ground ground gradually gradually genre genre general general frontier frontier friends friends frame frame fragments fragments Foucault Foucault figure figure fair fair expression expression exactly exactly exact exact embrace embrace dystopian dystopian dwell dwell decide decide dead dead data data dark dark cyberspace cyberspace cosmos cosmos cooking cooking Continuum Continuum construct construct Congo Congo combinations combinations colonized colonized clock clock closes closes central central cease cease captured captured build build Bogdanov Bogdanov basis basis avatar avatar autonomy autonomy apply apply Angel Angel alternative alternative alibi alibi agriculture agriculture agony agony active active access access absence absence whether whether week week Virtual Virtual users users unknown unknown trade trade threaten threaten Theuth Theuth tension tension stops stops society society single single sequence sequence reward reward repetition repetition recipes recipes rational rational pulsing pulsing properties properties progress progress prison prison Philosophy Philosophy opportunity opportunity old old Moon Moon mode mode memory memory mediated mediated Marx Marx margins margins mall mall LukÆcs LukÆcs lot lot liberal liberal known known Karl Karl job job intuitive intuitive installed installed infinite infinite increasing increasing hold hold higher higher hide hide Harvard Harvard hacker hacker grid grid Grand Grand gave gave forever forever fixed fixed fire fire expansion expansion engine engine elsewhere elsewhere eds eds don don Deleuze Deleuze database database creation creation contemporary contemporary constant constant classic classic class class challenge challenge center center based based attention attention artist artist appeal appeal American American yourself yourself Welcome Welcome video video vast vast variation variation useless useless unreal unreal TV TV Suppose Suppose speak speak sounds sounds shot shot short short series series science science release release relative relative reader reader promise promise project project prizes prizes populate populate pleasure pleasure Penguin Penguin passage passage paradox paradox opposite opposite negative negative mind mind language language James James intimate intimate intelligence intelligence inside inside indeed indeed house house hidden hidden heavens heavens happens happens grows grows Greimas Greimas far far eye eye except except Eden Eden directly directly destroy destroy define define conclusion conclusion competition competition company company commodity commodity closed closed chain chain backstory backstory artificial artificial arrives arrives anywhere anywhere aesthetic aesthetic Zone Zone Walter Walter vs vs true true translates translates top top threshold threshold survival survival suffers suffers strange strange stand stand stake stake shadow shadow sequel sequel reverse reverse representation representation reducing reducing recording recording reason reason qualitative qualitative process process practice practice piece piece past past paranoid paranoid oscillates oscillates nowhere nowhere not-separate not-separate necessary necessary model model internal internal Huizinga Huizinga heterotopian heterotopian governing governing front front Fredric Fredric film film field field experience experience excluded excluded equal equal endless endless EA EA Derrida Derrida critique critique confront confront collective collective celebrities celebrities business business allows allows advance advance watch watch type type taken taken system system subsumed subsumed sticks sticks source source seeking seeking remains remains Playstation Playstation nobody nobody merger merger market market key key Jameson Jameson internet internet Interactive Interactive included included Hence Hence faith faith fail fail energy energy draw draw destruction destruction demand demand day day course course consumer consumer ApostleCorp ApostleCorp antagonistic antagonistic among among achieve achieve able able Verso Verso United United travel travel telegraph telegraph subordinated subordinated stuff stuff sort sort someone someone result result require require repeatable repeatable reach reach published published principle principle net net methane methane Man Man long long lacking lacking idea idea hacking hacking George George formal formal flow flow fact fact economy economy dream dream determined determined command command case case Caillois Caillois Age Age yields yields trace trace sun sun special special save save pick pick pair pair original original operates operates negation negation maybe maybe leaves leaves instead instead information information Illuminati Illuminati freedom freedom forces forces fall fall enemy enemy desire desire contrary contrary choices choices boundaries boundaries biosphere biosphere believe believe bad bad absolute absolute words words version version variable variable total total telesthesia telesthesia shape shape sense sense right right return return restore restore replaces replaces purpose purpose precisely precisely personal personal perfect perfect overcoming overcoming MIT MIT light light Invisible Invisible III III historical historical great great gap gap face face extend extend expands expands drive drive doesn doesn description description Damacy Damacy contained contained consequences consequences coltan coltan attempt attempt according according abilities abilities themselves themselves struggle struggle step step sport sport social social realm realm radio radio organized organized neither neither manage manage logic logic law law hours hours Heidegger Heidegger consistent consistent chance chance bring bring bounds bounds America America ambiguous ambiguous victory victory strategy strategy shoot shoot resources resources merged merged lost lost goes goes global global given given future future event event earth earth defeat defeat bigger bigger arbitrary arbitrary animal animal view view via via Templar Templar Situationists Situationists role role rise rise rank rank protocols protocols hand hand Guy Guy everywhere everywhere escape escape discover discover decision decision color color break break battle battle abstract abstract star star spectacle spectacle reveal reveal reality reality production production political political Fig Fig feeling feeling equivalent equivalent continuous continuous already already trigger trigger topos topos task task Sisyphus Sisyphus score score Prince Prince Omar Omar nor nor King King industrial industrial function function finally finally Debord Debord cut cut conditions conditions cinema cinema calculation calculation atopian atopian account account television television subject subject screen screen qualities qualities provides provides potential potential novel novel nature nature measured measured indifference indifference imagine imagine heterotopias heterotopias double double dividing dividing big big violence violence topography topography media media live live home home goal goal death death Civilization Civilization Chicago Chicago cannot cannot bored bored realize realize matter matter else else effect effect choose choose atopia atopia Vice Vice present present map map creating creating computer computer body body technology technology story story question question people people pass pass masks masks concept concept Cambridge Cambridge selection selection run run MA MA Katamari Katamari free free developed developed actually actually win win less less existence existence critical critical bit bit offers offers good good either either theorist theorist really really complete complete SimEarth SimEarth quite quite network network interesting interesting City City certain certain behind behind anything anything Ex Ex Deus Deus communication communication begins begins roll roll particular particular order order necessity necessity least least object object mark mark God God Emergency Emergency War War player player connected connected code code allegorithm allegorithm State State pure pure machine machine action action positive positive little little limit limit labor labor distinction distinction Rez Rez produces produces human human control control ball ball act act text text self self longer longer agon agon art art utopian utopian outside outside movement movement everyday everyday London London everything everything value value problem problem York York transformation transformation place place moment moment images images Benjamin Benjamin move move signs signs allegory allegory topographic topographic writing writing opens opens designer designer utopia utopia entertainment entertainment culture culture military military meaning meaning yet yet real real nothing nothing terms terms storyline storyline separation separation merely merely Cave Cave book book starts starts beyond beyond Sims Sims topic topic University University history history character character complex complex power power point point life life different different rather rather level level rules rules relation relation appears appears algorithm algorithm analog analog theory theory form form Perhaps Perhaps Press Press way way possibility possibility becomes becomes topology topology within within boredom boredom target target work work new new space space digital digital world world play play

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Page 1: llifeife - Institute for the Future of the Book...not, now that we all live in a gamespace that is everywhere and nowhere. As Microsoft says: Where do you want to go today? You can

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aro

und

you,

and

wha

t it i

s tha

t the

y do

.

Then

per

haps

you

rem

embe

r the

imm

ense

, im

mer

sive

gam

es o

f The

Cav

e�,

and

wha

t pas

ses f

or w

isdo

m a

mon

gst t

hose

still

stuc

k th

ere.

And

so y

ou

retu

rn to

The

Cav

e�, t

o ta

lk o

r tex

t to

the

othe

r gam

ers a

bout

this

wor

ld o

utsi

de.

005.

�You

com

mun

icat

e to

fello

w g

amer

s in

The

Cave

� ab

out t

he o

utsi

de w

orld

of w

hich

The

Cav

e� is

just

a sh

adow

. Or t

ry to

. Pla

to: �

And

if th

e

cave

-dw

elle

rs h

ad e

stab

lishe

d, d

own

ther

e in

the

cave

, cer

tain

priz

es

and

dist

inct

ions

for t

hose

who

wer

e m

ost k

een-

sigh

ted

in se

eing

the

pass

ing

shad

ows,

and

who

wer

e be

st a

ble

to re

mem

ber w

hat c

ame

befo

re,

and

afte

r, an

d si

mul

tane

ousl

y w

ith w

hat,

thus

bes

t abl

e to

pre

dict

futu

re a

ppea

ranc

es in

the

shad

ow-w

orld

, will

our

rele

ased

pris

oner

hank

er a

fter

thes

e pr

izes

or e

nvy

this

pow

er o

r hon

or?�

You

bet

! The

Cave

� is

a w

orld

of p

ure

agon

, of c

ompe

titiv

e st

rivin

g af

ter

dist

inct

ion.

But

supp

ose

you

are

that

rare

, str

ay, t

houg

htfu

l gam

er

who

dec

ides

to tr

y th

is n

ew g

ame

of g

ettin

g be

yond

the

gam

e ag

ain?

Supp

ose

you

emer

ge fr

om T

he C

ave�

and

dec

ide

to ta

ke st

ock

of th

e

wor

ld b

eyon

d? Y

ou fi

nd th

at th

is o

ther

wor

ld is

in so

me

curio

us w

ays

rath

er li

ke T

he C

ave�

. The

pic

s of f

amily

, the

map

of t

he �

hood

, see

m

mad

e of

the

sam

e di

gita

l stu

ff as

you

r fav

orite

s gam

es in

side

The

Cave

�. If

ther

e is

a d

iffer

ence

, it m

ay n

ot b

e qu

ite w

hat i

t see

ms.

006.

�Her

e is

wha

t you

obs

erve

abo

ut th

e w

orld

out

side

The

Cav

e�: T

he w

hole

of li

fe a

ppea

rs a

s a v

ast a

ccum

ulat

ion

of c

omm

oditi

es a

nd sp

ecta

cles

,

of th

ings

wra

pped

in im

ages

and

imag

es so

ld a

s thi

ngs.

But

how

are

thes

e im

ages

and

thin

gs o

rgan

ized

, and

wha

t rol

e do

they

cal

l for

anyo

ne a

nd e

very

one

to a

dopt

tow

ards

them

? Im

ages

app

eal a

s priz

es,

and

call

us to

pla

y th

e ga

me

in w

hich

they

are

all

that

is a

t sta

ke.

You

obse

rve

that

wor

ld a

fter

wor

ld, c

ave

afte

r cav

e, w

hat p

reva

ils is

the

sam

e ag

on, t

he sa

me

digi

tal l

ogic

of o

ne v

ersu

s the

oth

er, e

ndin

g

in v

icto

ry o

r def

eat.

Agon

y ru

les!

Eve

ryth

ing

has v

alue

onl

y w

hen

rank

ed a

gain

st a

noth

er; e

very

one

has v

alue

onl

y w

hen

rank

ed a

gain

st

anot

her.

Ever

y si

tuat

ion

is w

in-lo

se, u

nles

s it i

s win

-win

� a

situ

atio

n w

here

pla

yers

are

free

to c

olla

bora

te o

nly

beca

use

they

seek

priz

es in

diff

eren

t gam

es. T

he re

al w

orld

app

ears

as a

vid

eo a

rcad

ia

divi

ded

into

man

y an

d va

ried

gam

es. W

ork

is a

rat r

ace.

Pol

itics

is a

hors

e ra

ce. T

he e

cono

my

is a

cas

ino.

Eve

n th

e ut

opia

n ju

stic

e to

com

e

in th

e af

terli

fe is

fore

clos

ed: H

e w

ho d

ies w

ith th

e m

ost t

oys w

ins.

Gam

es a

re n

o lo

nger

a p

astim

e, o

utsi

de o

r alo

ngsi

de o

f life

. The

y ar

e

now

the

very

form

of l

ife, a

nd d

eath

, and

tim

e, it

self.

The

se g

ames

are

no jo

ke. W

hen

the

scre

en fl

ashe

s the

lege

nd g

ame

over

, you

are

eith

er d

ead,

or d

efea

ted,

or a

t bes

t out

of q

uart

ers.

007.

�The

gam

e ha

s col

oniz

ed it

s riv

als w

ithin

the

cultu

ral r

ealm

, fro

m th

e

spec

tacl

e of

cin

ema

to th

e si

mul

atio

ns o

f tel

evis

ion.

Sto

ries n

o

long

er o

piat

e us

with

imag

inar

y re

conc

iliat

ions

of r

eal p

robl

ems.

The

stor

y ju

st re

coun

ts th

e st

eps b

y w

hich

som

eone

bea

t som

eone

els

e �

a

real

vic

tory

for i

mag

inar

y st

akes

. The

onl

y or

igin

al sc

reen

gen

re o

f

the

early

21s

t cen

tury

is n

ot c

alle

d �r

ealit

y TV

� fo

r not

hing

. Bre

nton

& C

ohen

: �By

sign

ing

thei

r rel

ease

form

s, co

ntes

tant

s agr

ee to

end

up

as st

atis

tics,

each

pla

yer�

s fee

lings

and

act

ions

man

ipul

ated

� le

adin

g

to in

fidel

ity, t

ears

, per

haps

hea

rtbr

eak.

� S

ure,

real

ity T

V do

esn�

t

look

like

real

ity, b

ut th

en n

eith

er d

oes r

ealit

y. B

oth

look

like

gam

es. B

oth

beco

me

a se

amle

ss sp

ace

in w

hich

gam

ers t

est t

heir

abili

ties w

ithin

con

triv

ed sc

enar

ios.

The

situ

atio

ns m

ay b

e

artif

icia

l, th

e di

alog

ue le

ss th

an sp

onta

neou

s, an

d th

e ga

mer

s may

mer

ely

be d

oing

wha

t the

pro

duce

rs te

ll th

em. A

ll th

is is

per

fect

ly o

f

a pi

ece

with

a re

ality

whi

ch is

itse

lf an

art

ifici

al a

rena

, whe

re

ever

yone

is a

lread

y a

gam

er, w

aitin

g fo

r the

ir tu

rn.

008.

�The

gam

e ha

s not

just

col

oniz

ed re

ality

, it i

s als

o th

e so

le re

mai

ning

idea

l. G

ames

pace

pro

clai

ms i

ts le

gitim

acy

thro

ugh

vict

ory

over

all

rival

s. Th

e re

igni

ng id

eolo

gy im

agin

es th

e w

orld

as a

leve

l pla

ying

field

, upo

n w

hich

all

men

are

equ

al b

efor

e G

od, t

he g

reat

gam

e

desi

gner

. His

tory

, pol

itics

, cul

ture

� g

ames

pace

dyn

amite

s eve

ryth

ing

whi

ch is

not

in th

e ga

me,

like

an

out-

date

d Ve

gas c

asin

o. E

very

thin

g

is e

vacu

ated

from

an

empt

y sp

ace

and

time

whi

ch n

ow a

ppea

rs n

atur

al,

neut

ral a

nd w

ithou

t qua

litie

s � a

gam

espa

ce. T

he li

nes a

re c

lear

ly

mar

ked.

Eve

ry a

ctio

n is

just

a m

eans

to a

n en

d. A

ll th

at c

ount

s is t

he

scor

e. A

s for

who

ow

ns th

e te

ams a

nd w

ho ru

ns th

e le

ague

, bes

t not

to

ask.

As f

or w

ho is

exc

lude

d fr

om th

e bi

g le

ague

s and

hig

h sc

ores

, bes

t

not t

o as

k. A

s for

who

kee

ps th

e sc

ore

and

who

mak

es th

e ru

les,

best

not t

o as

k. A

s for

wha

t rul

ing

body

doe

s the

han

dica

ppin

g an

d on

wha

t

basi

s, be

st n

ot to

ask

. All

is fo

r the

bes

t in

the

best

� a

nd o

nly

�

poss

ible

wor

ld. T

here

is �

to g

ive

it a

nam

e �

a m

ilita

ry

ente

rtai

nmen

t com

plex

, and

it ru

les.

Its tr

ium

phs a

ffirm

not

just

the

rule

s of t

he g

ame

but t

he ru

le o

f the

gam

e.

009.

�Eve

ryth

ing

the

mili

tary

ent

erta

inm

ent c

ompl

ex to

uche

s with

its g

old

plat

ed o

utpu

t jac

ks tu

rns t

o di

gits

. Eve

ryth

ing

is d

igita

l and

yet

the

digi

tal i

s as n

othi

ng. N

o hu

man

can

touc

h it,

smel

l it,

tast

e it.

It

just

bee

ps a

nd b

links

and

repo

rts i

tsel

f in

glow

ing

alph

anum

eric

s,

spou

ting

stoc

k qu

otes

on

your

cel

lpho

ne. S

ure,

ther

e m

ay b

e vi

vid

3D

grap

hics

. The

re m

ay b

e pi

e ch

arts

and

bar

gra

phs.

Ther

e m

ay b

e sw

irls

and

who

rls o

f brig

htly

col

ored

pol

ygon

s bla

zing

from

scre

en to

scre

en.

But t

hese

are

just

dec

orat

ion.

The

jitt

er o

f you

r thu

mb

on th

e bu

tton

or th

e fli

cker

of y

our w

rist o

n th

e m

ouse

con

nect

dire

ctly

to a

n

invi

sibl

e, in

tang

ible

gam

espa

ce o

f pur

e co

ntes

t, pu

re a

gon.

It d

oesn

�t

mat

ter i

f you

r cav

e co

mes

equ

ippe

d w

ith a

Pla

ysta

tion

or B

loom

berg

term

inal

. It d

oesn

�t m

atte

r whe

ther

you

thin

k yo

u ar

e pl

ayin

g th

e bo

nd

mar

ket o

r Gra

nd T

heft

Aut

o. It

is a

ll ju

st a

n al

gorit

hm w

ith e

noug

h

unkn

owns

to m

ake

a ga

me

of it

.

010.

�Onc

e ga

mes

requ

ired

an a

ctua

l pla

ce to

pla

y th

em, w

heth

er o

n th

e ch

ess

boar

d or

the

tenn

is c

ourt

. Eve

n w

ars h

ad b

attle

fiel

ds. N

ow g

loba

l

posi

tioni

ng sa

telli

tes g

rid th

e w

hole

ear

th a

nd p

ut a

ll of

spac

e an

d

time

in p

lay.

War

fare

, the

y sa

y, n

ow lo

oks l

ike

vide

o ga

mes

. Wel

l

don�

t kid

you

rsel

f. W

ar is

a v

ideo

gam

e �

for t

he m

ilita

ry

ente

rtai

nmen

t com

plex

. To

them

it d

oesn

�t m

atte

r wha

t hap

pens

�on

the

grou

nd�.

The

gro

und

� th

e ol

d-fa

shio

ned

batt

lefie

ld it

self

� is

just

a

nece

ssar

y ex

tern

ality

to th

e ga

me.

Sla

voj Z

izek

: §It

is th

us n

ot th

e

fant

asy

of a

pur

ely

asep

tic w

ar ru

n as

a v

ideo

gam

e be

hind

com

pute

r

scre

ens t

hat p

rote

cts u

s fro

m th

e re

ality

of t

he fa

ce to

face

kill

ing

of a

noth

er p

erso

n; o

n th

e co

ntra

ry it

is th

is fa

ntas

y of

face

to fa

ce

enco

unte

r with

an

enem

y ki

lled

bloo

dily

that

we

cons

truc

t in

orde

r to

esca

pe th

e Re

al o

f the

dep

erso

naliz

ed w

ar tu

rned

into

an

anon

ymou

s

tech

nolo

gica

l ope

ratio

n.§

Eve

n th

e so

ldie

r who

se in

adeq

uate

arm

or

faile

d hi

m, s

hot d

ead

in a

n al

ley

by a

snip

er, h

as h

is d

eath

, lik

e hi

s

life,

man

aged

by

a co

mpu

ter i

n a

blip

of l

ogis

tics.

011.

�The

old

cla

ss a

ntag

onis

ms h

ave

not g

one

away

, but

are

hid

den

bene

ath

leve

ls o

f ran

k, w

here

eac

h ag

oniz

es o

ver t

heir

wor

th a

gain

st o

ther

s as

mea

sure

d by

the

pric

e of

thei

r hou

se, t

he si

ze o

f the

ir ve

hicl

e an

d

whe

re, p

erve

rsel

y, w

orki

ng lo

nger

and

long

er h

ours

is a

sign

of

win

ning

the

gam

e. W

ork

beco

mes

pla

y. W

ork

dem

ands

not

just

one

�s m

ind

and

body

but

als

o on

e�s s

oul.

You

have

to b

e a

team

pla

yer.

Your

wor

k

has t

o be

cre

ativ

e, in

vent

ive,

pla

yful

� lu

dic,

but

not

ludi

crou

s.

Wor

k be

com

es a

gam

espa

ce, b

ut n

o ga

mes

are

free

ly c

hose

n an

y m

ore.

Not

leas

t for

chi

ldre

n, w

ho if

they

are

to b

e th

e w

inso

me

offs

prin

g of

win

-all

pare

nts,

find

them

selv

es d

raft

ed in

to e

ndle

ss e

veni

ng sh

ifts

of te

am sp

ort.

The

purp

ose

of w

hich

is to

bui

ld c

hara

cter

. Whi

ch

char

acte

r? T

he c

hara

cter

of t

he g

ood

spor

t. Ch

arac

ter f

or w

hat?

For

the

wor

kpla

ce, w

ith it

s tea

m c

amar

ader

ie a

nd p

eer e

nfor

ced

disc

iplin

e.

For o

ther

s, w

ork

is st

ill ju

st d

ull,

repe

titiv

e w

ork,

but

the

drea

m is

to e

scap

e in

to th

e co

mm

erce

of p

lay

� to

mak

e it

into

the

maj

or

leag

ues,

or c

ompe

te fo

r rec

ord

deal

s as a

div

a or

a p

laya

in th

e ra

p

gam

e. A

nd fo

r stil

l oth

ers,

ther

e is

onl

y th

e ga

me

of su

rviv

al.

Bigg

ie: §

Eith

er y

ouƒr

e sl

ingi

nƒ c

rack

rock

or y

ou g

ot a

wic

ked

jum

p

shot

.� P

lay

beco

mes

eve

ryth

ing

to w

hich

it w

as o

nce

oppo

sed.

It is

wor

k, it

is se

rious

, it i

s mor

ality

, it i

s nec

essi

ty.

012.

�The

old

iden

titie

s fad

e aw

ay. N

obod

y ha

s the

tim

e. T

he g

amer

is n

ot

inte

rest

ed in

pla

ying

the

citiz

en.

The

law

is fi

ne a

s a sp

ecta

tor

spor

t on

Cour

t TV,

but

bei

ng a

citi

zen

just

invo

lves

you

in e

ndle

ss

atte

mpt

s to

get o

ut o

f jur

y du

ty. G

ot a

pro

blem

? Tel

l it t

o Ju

dge

Judy

. The

gam

er e

lect

s to

choo

se si

des o

nly

for t

he p

urpo

se o

f the

gam

e. T

his w

eek

it m

ight

be

as th

e G

erm

ans v

s. th

e Am

eric

ans.

Nex

t

wee

k it

mig

ht b

e as

a g

angs

ter a

gain

st th

e la

w. I

f the

gam

er c

hoos

es

to b

e a

sold

ier a

nd p

lay

with

real

wea

pons

, it i

s as a

n Ar

my

of O

ne,

test

ing

and

refin

ing

pers

onal

skill

poi

nts.

The

shril

l and

con

stan

t

patr

iotic

noi

se y

ou h

ear t

hrou

gh th

e sp

eake

rs m

asks

the

slow

ero

sion

of a

ny c

oher

ent f

ello

w fe

elin

g w

ithin

the

rem

nant

s of n

atio

nal

bord

ers.

This

gam

espa

ce e

scap

es a

ll ch

eckp

oint

s. It

is a

n Am

eric

a

with

out q

ualit

ies,

for e

very

one

and

nobo

dy. A

ll th

at is

left

of t

he

natio

n is

an

ever

ywhe

re th

at is

now

here

, an

atop

ia o

f noi

sy, r

ight

eous

vict

orie

s and

qui

et, s

inis

ter f

ailu

res.

Man

ifest

des

tiny

� th

e rig

ht

to ru

le th

roug

h vi

rtue

� g

ives

way

to it

s lat

ent d

estin

y �

the

virt

ue

of ri

ght t

hrou

gh ru

le. C

ivic

virt

ue d

row

ns in

a h

urric

ane

of m

ere

surv

ival

ism

.01

3.�T

he g

amer

is n

ot re

ally

inte

rest

ed in

faith

, alth

ough

a h

eigh

tene

d

rhet

oric

of f

aith

may

fill

the

void

car

ved

out o

f the

soul

by

the

insi

nuat

ions

of g

ames

pace

. The

gam

er�s

God

is a

gam

e de

sign

er. H

e

impl

ants

in e

very

thin

g a

hidd

en a

lgor

ithm

. Fai

th is

a m

atte

r of t

he

inte

llige

nce

to in

tuit

the

para

met

ers o

f thi

s gee

k de

sign

and

scor

e

acco

rdin

gly.

All

that

is ri

ghte

ous w

ins;

all t

hat w

ins i

s rig

hteo

us.

To b

e a

lose

r or a

lam

er is

the

mar

k of

dam

natio

n. W

hen

you

are

a

gam

er, y

ou a

re le

ft w

ith n

othi

ng to

bel

ieve

in b

ut y

our o

wn

God

-giv

en

abili

ties.

Gam

ers c

onfro

nt e

ach

othe

r in

gam

es o

f ski

ll w

hich

reve

al

who

has

bee

n ch

osen

by

the

gam

e as

the

one

who

has

mos

t ful

ly

inte

rnal

ized

its a

lgor

ithm

. For

thos

e w

ho d

espa

ir of

thei

r abi

litie

s,

ther

e ar

e ga

mes

of c

hanc

e, w

here

gra

ce re

veal

s its

elf i

n th

e ro

ll of

the

dice

. Rog

er C

aillo

is: �

Chan

ce is

cou

rted

bec

ause

har

d w

ork

and

pers

onal

qua

lific

atio

ns a

re p

ower

less

to b

ring

such

succ

ess a

bout

.�

The

gam

bler

may

kno

w w

hat t

he g

amer

�s fa

ith re

fuse

s to

coun

tena

nce.

014.

�Out

side

eac

h ca

ve is

ano

ther

cav

e; b

eyon

d th

e ga

me

is a

noth

er g

ame.

Each

has

its p

artic

ular

rule

s; ea

ch h

as it

s ran

ks o

f hig

h sc

ores

. Is

that

all

ther

e is

? The

gam

er w

ho li

fts a

n ey

e fro

m th

e ta

rget

risk

s a

para

lyzi

ng b

ored

om. P

aolo

Virn

o: §

At th

e ba

se o

f con

tem

pora

ry c

ynic

ism

is th

e fa

ct th

at m

en a

nd w

omen

lear

n by

exp

erie

ncin

g ru

les r

athe

r tha

n

ƒfac

ts¥.

.. Le

arni

ng th

e ru

les,

how

ever

, als

o m

eans

reco

gniz

ing

thei

r

unfo

unde

dnes

s and

con

vent

iona

lity�

. We

now

face

seve

ral d

iffer

ent

ƒgam

es¥,

eac

h de

void

of a

ll ob

viou

snes

s and

serio

usne

ss, o

nly

the

site

of a

n im

med

iate

self-

affir

mat

ion

-- a

n af

firm

atio

n th

at is

muc

h m

ore

brut

al a

nd a

rrog

ant,

muc

h m

ore

cyni

cal,

the

mor

e w

e em

ploy

, with

no

illus

ions

but

with

per

fect

mom

enta

ry a

dher

ence

, tho

se v

ery

rule

s who

se

conv

entio

nalit

y an

d m

utab

ility

we

have

per

ceiv

ed.§

Eac

h ga

me

ends

in

a su

mm

ary

deci

sion

: Tha

t�s H

ot! O

r if n

ot, Y

ou�r

e Fi

red!

Got

que

stio

ns

abou

t qua

litie

s of B

eing

? Wha

teve

r.

015.

�So

this

is th

e w

orld

as i

t app

ears

to th

e ga

mer

: a m

atrix

of e

ndle

ssly

vary

ing

gam

es �

a g

ames

pace

� a

ll re

duci

ble

to th

e sa

me

prin

cipl

es,

all p

rodu

cing

the

sam

e ki

nd o

f sub

ject

who

bel

ongs

to th

is g

ames

pace

in th

e sa

me

way

� a

s a g

amer

to a

gam

e. W

hat w

ould

it m

ean

to li

ft

one�

s eye

from

the

targ

et, t

o pa

use

on th

e tr

igge

r, to

unc

lenc

h on

e�s

ever

-clic

king

fing

er? I

s it e

ven

poss

ible

to th

ink

outs

ide

The

Cave

�?

Perh

aps w

ith th

e tr

ium

ph o

f gam

espa

ce, w

hat t

he g

amer

as t

heor

ist

need

s is t

o re

cons

truc

t the

del

eted

file

s on

thos

e w

ho th

ough

t pur

e

play

cou

ld b

e a

radi

cal o

ptio

n, w

ho o

ppos

ed g

ames

pace

with

thei

r

revo

lutio

nary

pla

ydat

es. T

he S

ituat

ioni

sts,

for e

xam

ple.

Rao

ul

Vane

igem

: �Su

bver

sion

� is

an

all e

mbr

acin

g re

inse

rtio

n of

thin

gs in

to

play

. It i

s the

act

whe

reby

pla

y gr

asps

and

reun

ites b

eing

s and

thin

gs

hith

erto

froz

en so

lid in

a h

iera

rchy

of f

ragm

ents

.� P

lay,

yes

, but

the

gam

e �

no. G

uy D

ebor

d: §

I hav

e sc

arce

ly b

egun

to m

ake

you

unde

rsta

nd th

at I

donƒ

t int

end

to p

lay

the

gam

e.§

Now

ther

e w

as a

play

er u

ncon

cern

ed w

ith a

n ex

it st

rate

gy.

016.

��Pl

ay�

was

onc

e a

grea

t slo

gan

of li

bera

tion.

Ric

hard

Nev

ille:

�Th

e

new

bea

utifu

l fre

aks w

ill te

ach

us a

ll ho

w to

pla

y ag

ain

(and

they

�ll

suffe

r soc

iety

�s p

enal

ty).�

Pla

y w

as o

nce

the

batt

erin

g ra

m to

bre

ak

dow

n th

e Ch

ines

e w

alls

of a

liena

ted

wor

k, o

f div

ided

labo

r. O

nly

look

at w

hat h

as b

ecom

e of

pla

y. P

lay

is n

o lo

nger

a c

ount

er to

wor

k. P

lay

beco

mes

wor

k; w

ork

beco

mes

pla

y. P

lay

outs

ide

of w

ork

foun

d its

elf

capt

ured

by

the

rise

of th

e di

gita

l gam

e, w

hich

resp

onds

to th

e

bore

dom

of t

he p

laye

r with

end

less

roun

ds o

f rep

etiti

on, l

evel

aft

er

leve

l of d

iffer

ence

as m

ore

of th

e sa

me.

Pla

y no

long

er fu

nctio

ns a

s a

foil

for a

crit

ical

theo

ry. T

he u

topi

an d

ream

of l

iber

atin

g pl

ay fr

om

the

gam

e, o

f a p

ure

play

bey

ond

the

gam

e, m

erel

y op

ened

the

way

for

the

exte

nsio

n of

gam

espa

ce in

to e

very

asp

ect o

f eve

ryda

y lif

e. W

hile

the

coun

ter-

cultu

re w

ante

d w

orld

s of p

lay

outs

ide

the

gam

e; th

e

mili

tary

ent

erta

inm

ent c

ompl

ex c

ount

ered

in tu

rn b

y ex

pand

ing

the

gam

e

to th

e w

hole

wor

ld, c

onta

inin

g pl

ay fo

reve

r with

in it

.

017.

�Eve

n cr

itica

l the

ory,

whi

ch o

nce

took

its d

ista

nce

from

dam

aged

life

,

beco

mes

ano

ther

gam

e. A

pply

to to

p ra

nked

scho

ols.

Find

a g

ood

coac

h.

Pick

a ri

sing

subf

ield

. Pro

ve y

our a

bilit

ies.

Get

you

rsel

f pub

lishe

d.

Get

som

e gr

ants

. Get

a jo

b. G

et a

noth

er jo

b of

fer t

o es

tabl

ish

your

leve

l and

bar

gain

with

you

r cur

rent

em

ploy

er. K

eep

your

nos

e cl

ean

and

get t

enur

e. Y

ou w

on! N

ow y

ou c

an p

lay!

Now

you

can

do

wha

t you

wan

ted,

secr

etly

, all

thos

e ye

ars a

go�

Onl

y no

w y

ou c

an�t

rem

embe

r. Yo

u be

cam

e

a w

in-w

in S

ituat

ioni

st. Y

our c

ritic

al th

eory

bec

ame

hypo

criti

cal

theo

ry. I

t is a

gain

st e

very

thin

g in

the

who

le w

ide

wor

ld e

xcep

t the

gam

espa

ce th

at m

ade

it po

ssib

le. B

ut g

ames

pace

is n

ow th

e ve

ry fo

rm o

f

the

wor

ld, a

nd th

is w

orld

elu

ded

your

thou

ght e

ven

as it

bro

ught

hom

e

the

glitt

erin

g pr

izes

. It i

s gam

espa

ce th

at w

on. T

he h

ypoc

ritic

al

theo

rist,

in a

n ag

ony

of fi

tful s

leep

, dre

ams o

f mee

ting

the

ghos

t of

Guy

Deb

ord,

and

pro

udly

cite

s a li

st o

f ach

ieve

men

ts: I

vy L

eagu

e jo

b,

book

dea

ls, g

rant

s, pr

omot

ion,

tenu

re, r

ecog

nitio

n w

ithin

the

high

est

rank

s of t

he d

iscip

linar

y gu

ild. T

he g

host

of D

ebor

d sig

hs: �

So li

ttle

ambi

tion

in o

ne so

you

ng.�

018.

�Wha

t the

n ha

s the

gam

er se

en in

that

brig

ht w

orld

, tha

t gam

espa

ce,

beyo

nd T

he C

ave�

? You

see

peop

le h

unch

ed o

ver s

cree

ns, t

heir

hand

s

com

puls

ivel

y je

rkin

g co

ntro

llers

. Eac

h sit

s alo

ne, a

nd ta

lks o

r tex

ts

to u

nsee

n ot

hers

, daz

zled

by

imag

es th

at se

em to

com

e fro

m n

owhe

re,

awas

h in

pul

sing

and

beep

ing

soun

ds. N

o on

e ou

t her

e in

the

�rea

l

wor

ld�

real

ly lo

oks a

ll th

at d

iffer

ent t

o th

e st

ereo

typi

cal g

amer

,

thum

b jit

terin

g on

the

cont

rolle

r. N

ow y

ou a

re a

n en

light

ened

gam

er,

you

see

how

the

wor

ld b

eyon

d th

e ga

mes

of T

he C

ave�

seem

s lik

e an

arra

y of

mor

e or

less

sim

ilar c

aves

, all

digi

tal,

each

an

agon

with

its o

wn

rule

s, so

me

arbi

trar

y bl

end

of c

hanc

e an

d co

mpe

titio

n. A

nd

beyo

nd th

at? N

ot m

uch.

The

real

has

bec

ome

a m

ere

epip

heno

men

on

with

out w

hich

gam

espa

ce c

anno

t exi

st, b

ut w

hich

is lo

sing,

bit

by b

it,

any

form

or s

ubst

ance

or s

pirit

or h

istor

y th

at is

not

suck

ed in

to a

nd

tran

sfor

med

by

gam

espa

ce. B

eyon

d ga

mes

pace

app

ear o

nly

the

spen

t

fragm

ents

of n

amel

ess f

orm

s.

019.

�Gam

er th

eory

star

ts w

ith th

e su

spen

sion

of th

e as

sum

ptio

ns o

f The

Cave

�, th

at th

ere

is a

mor

e re

al w

orld

bey

ond

it, so

mew

here

, and

that

som

eone

� so

me

prie

st o

r pro

fess

or �

kno

ws w

here

it is

. The

gam

er

arriv

es a

t the

beg

inni

ngs o

f a re

flect

ive

life,

a g

amer

theo

ry, b

y

step

ping

out

of T

he C

ave�

-- a

nd re

turn

ing

to it

. (Se

e Fi

g. 1

) If t

he

gam

er is

to h

old

gam

espa

ce to

acc

ount

in te

rms o

f som

ethi

ng o

ther

than

itsel

f, it

mig

ht n

ot b

e th

at m

ere

shad

ow o

f a sh

adow

of t

he re

al,

mur

ky, f

orm

less

, tha

t lur

ks li

ke a

resid

ue in

the

corn

ers.

It m

ight

inst

ead

be th

e ga

me

prop

er, a

s it i

s pla

yed

in T

he C

ave.

� Gr

and

Thef

t

Auto

, may

be, o

r Deu

s Ex.

Her

e at

leas

t the

gam

e sh

adow

s the

idea

l for

m

of th

e al

gorit

hm. H

ere

at le

ast t

he d

igita

l log

ic to

whi

ch g

ames

pace

mer

ely

aspi

res i

s act

ually

real

ized

. The

cha

lleng

e is

� ah

, but

eve

n

to p

hras

e it

thus

is to

ack

now

ledg

e th

e ga

me

� to

pla

y at

pla

y its

elf,

but f

rom

with

in th

e ga

me.

The

gam

er a

s the

orist

has

to c

hoos

e be

twee

n

two

stra

tegi

es fo

r pla

ying

aga

inst

gam

espa

ce. O

ne is

to p

lay

for t

he

real

. (Ta

ke th

e re

d pi

ll). B

ut th

e re

al se

ems n

othi

ng b

ut a

hea

p of

brok

en im

ages

. The

oth

er is

to p

lay

for t

he g

ame

(Tak

e th

e bl

ue p

ill).

Play

with

in th

e ga

me,

but

aga

inst

gam

espa

ce. B

e lu

dic,

but

also

luci

d.

020.

�For

a g

amer

to b

e a

theo

rist m

ight

not

requ

ire th

e ab

ility

to p

lay

any

part

icul

ar g

ame

espe

cial

ly w

ell.

The

priz

es h

ave

noth

ing

to d

o w

ith

thin

king

the

gam

e. N

or m

ight

it b

e th

e ab

ility

to d

ismiss

the

gam

e as

unre

al in

the

nam

e of

som

e su

ppos

edly

mor

e so

lidly

gro

unde

d ou

tsid

e.

Wha

t? T

hese

lum

inou

s pix

els a

re n

ot re

al, y

ou sa

y? T

hen

neith

er is

your

wor

ld. I

f any

thin

g, T

he C

ave�

seem

s to

be w

here

the

form

s, th

e

idea

s, th

e ab

stra

ctio

ns b

ehin

d th

e m

ere

appe

aran

ce o

f thi

ngs i

n th

e

outs

ide

wor

ld c

an b

e fo

und.

Whe

ther

gam

espa

ce is

mor

e re

al o

r not

than

som

e ot

her w

orld

is n

ot th

e qu

estio

n. T

hat e

ven

in it

s unr

ealit

y it

may

hav

e re

al e

ffect

s on

othe

r wor

lds �

is. G

ames

are

not

repr

esen

tatio

ns o

f thi

s wor

ld. T

hey

are

mor

e lik

e al

lego

ries o

f a

wor

ld m

ade

over

as g

ames

pace

. The

y en

code

the

abst

ract

prin

cipl

es u

pon

whi

ch d

ecisi

ons a

bout

the

real

ness

of t

his o

r tha

t wor

ld a

re d

ecid

ed.

021.

�H

ere

is th

e gu

idin

g pr

inci

ple

of a

futu

re u

topi

a, n

ow lo

ng p

ast:

�To

each

acc

ordi

ng to

his

need

s; fro

m e

ach

acco

rdin

g to

his

abili

ties.�

In g

ames

pace

, wha

t do

we

have

? An

atop

ia, a

pla

cele

ss, s

ense

less

real

m, w

here

qui

te a

diff

eren

t max

im ru

les:

�Fro

m e

ach

acco

rdin

g to

thei

r abi

litie

s � to

eac

h a

rank

and

scor

e.�

Nee

ds n

o lo

nger

ent

er

into

it. N

ot e

ven

desir

e m

atte

rs. U

ncrit

ical

gam

ers d

o no

t win

wha

t

they

des

ire; t

hey

desir

e w

hat t

hey

win

. The

scor

e is

the

thin

g. T

he

rest

is a

gony

. The

gam

er a

s the

orist

at f

irst s

ight

seem

s to

have

acqu

ired

an a

bilit

y th

at c

ount

s for

not

hing

in g

ames

pace

. The

gam

er a

s

theo

rist m

ight

beg

in w

ith a

n in

diffe

renc

e to

dist

inct

ion,

to a

ll th

at

the

gam

espa

ce p

rizes

. You

doe

s not

pla

y th

e ga

me

to w

in (o

r not

just

to w

in).

You

trifl

e w

ith it

� p

layi

ng w

ith st

yle

to u

nder

stan

d th

e

gam

e as

a fo

rm. Y

ou tr

ifle

with

the

gam

e to

und

erst

and

the

natu

re o

f

gam

espa

ce a

s a w

orld

� a

s the

wor

ld. Y

ou tr

ifle

with

the

gam

e to

disc

over

in w

hat w

ay g

ames

pace

falls

shor

t of i

ts se

lf-pr

ocla

imed

perfe

ctio

n. T

he d

igita

l gam

e pl

ays u

p ev

eryt

hing

that

gam

espa

ce m

erel

y

pret

ends

to b

e: a

fair

fight

, a le

vel p

layi

ng fi

eld,

free

com

petit

ion.

022.

�No

won

der d

igita

l gam

es a

re th

e em

erge

nt c

ultu

ral f

orm

of t

he ti

mes

.

The

times

hav

e th

emse

lves

bec

ome

just

a se

ries o

f les

s and

less

perfe

ct g

ames

. The

Cav

e� p

rese

nts g

ames

in a

pur

e st

ate,

as a

real

m

whe

re ju

stic

e �

of a

sort

� re

igns

. The

beg

inni

ngs o

f a c

ritic

al

theo

ry o

f gam

es �

a g

amer

theo

ry �

mig

ht li

e no

t in

hold

ing

gam

es

acco

unta

ble

as fa

iled

repr

esen

tatio

ns o

f the

wor

ld, b

ut q

uite

the

reve

rse.

The

wor

ld o

utsid

e is

a ga

mes

pace

that

app

ears

as a

n im

perfe

ct

form

of t

he c

ompu

ter g

ame.

The

gam

er is

an

arch

eolo

gist

of T

he C

ave�

.

The

com

pute

r gam

es th

e ga

mer

find

s the

re a

re th

e ru

ins,

not o

f a lo

st

past

, but

of a

lost

futu

re. G

ames

pace

is b

uilt

on th

e ru

ins o

f a

futu

re it

pro

clai

ms i

n th

eory

yet

disa

vow

s in

prac

tice.

To

the

exte

nt

that

the

gam

er a

s the

orist

wan

ts to

hac

k or

�m

od�

the

gam

e, it

is to

play

eve

n m

ore

intim

atel

y w

ithin

it.

The

gam

er a

s the

orist

is n

ot o

ut

to b

reak

the

gam

e. T

he p

oint

is n

ot to

redu

ce th

e ga

me

to th

e le

vel o

f

the

impe

rfect

wor

ld o

utsid

e it.

Lik

e an

y ar

cheo

logi

st, t

he g

amer

as

theo

rist t

reat

s the

se ru

ins o

f the

futu

re w

ith o

bses

sive

care

and

atte

ntio

n to

thei

r pre

serv

atio

n, n

ot th

eir d

estr

uctio

n.

023.

�Gam

espa

ce n

eeds

theo

rists

� b

ut a

lso a

new

kin

d of

pra

ctic

e. O

ne th

at

can

brea

k do

wn

the

line

that

div

ides

gam

er fr

om d

esig

ner,

to re

depl

oy

the

digi

tal s

o th

at it

mak

es th

is ve

ry d

istin

ctio

n ar

bitr

ary.

It i

s a

char

acte

ristic

of g

ames

to re

nder

dig

ital d

ecisi

ons o

n al

l sha

des o

f

diffe

renc

e. O

ne e

ither

win

s or l

oses

. One

eith

er h

its o

r miss

es. T

he

prac

tice

of th

e ga

mer

as t

heor

ist m

ight

be

to re

inst

all w

hat i

s

unde

cida

ble

back

into

the

gam

espa

ce w

hose

prim

ary

viol

ence

has

not

hing

to d

o w

ith b

right

ly c

olor

ed e

xplo

sions

or m

ount

ing

deat

h co

unts

, but

with

the

deci

sion

by d

igita

l fia

t on

whe

re e

very

thin

g be

long

s and

how

it is

rank

ed. L

ars S

vend

sen:

�Ho

w b

orin

g lif

e w

ould

be

with

out

viol

ence

!� T

he re

al v

iole

nce

of g

ames

pace

is it

s dic

ing

of e

very

thin

g

anal

og in

to th

e di

gita

l, cu

ttin

g co

ntin

uum

s int

o bi

ts. T

hat g

ames

pres

ent t

he d

igita

l in

its m

ost p

ure

form

are

reas

on e

noug

h to

em

brac

e

them

, for

her

e vi

olen

ce is

at i

ts m

ost e

xtre

me

� an

d its

mos

t

harm

less

. 02

4.�O

f all

the

kind

s of b

elon

ging

that

con

tend

for a

llegi

ance

� a

s wor

kers

agai

nst t

he b

oss,

as c

itize

ns a

gain

st th

e en

emy,

as b

elie

vers

aga

inst

the

infid

el �

all

now

hav

e to

com

pete

with

one

whi

ch m

akes

ago

n its

first

and

onl

y pr

inci

ple.

Gam

espa

ce w

ants

us a

ll to

bel

ieve

we

are

noth

ing

but g

amer

s now

, com

petin

g no

t aga

inst

ene

mie

s of c

lass

or

faith

or n

atio

n, b

ut o

nly

agai

nst o

ther

gam

ers.

A ne

w h

istor

ical

pers

ona

stal

ks th

e ea

rth.

All

of th

e pr

evio

us su

ch p

erso

na h

ad m

any

brev

iarie

s and

man

uals,

and

so th

is lit

tle b

ook

seek

s to

offe

r

guid

ance

for t

hink

ing

with

in th

is ne

w p

erso

na. A

n AB

C of

theo

ry fo

r

gam

ers.

Not

a st

rate

gy g

uide

, a c

heat

shee

t or a

wal

k-th

roug

h fo

r how

to im

prov

e on

e�s s

core

or h

one

one�

s trig

ger f

inge

r. A

prim

er, r

athe

r,

in th

inki

ng a

bout

a w

orld

mad

e ov

er a

s a g

ames

pace

, mad

e ov

er a

s an

impe

rfect

cop

y of

the

gam

e. T

he g

ame

mig

ht n

ot b

e ut

opia

, but

it m

ight

be th

e on

ly th

ing

left

with

whi

ch to

pla

y ag

ains

t gam

espa

ce.

025.

�No

won

der g

amer

s cho

ose

to sp

end

thei

r tim

e ho

led

up in

The

Cav

e�.

Here

at l

east

the

targ

ets r

eally

are

onl

y po

lygo

ns, a

nd th

e pr

izes

real

ly a

re w

orth

less

, mer

e co

lors

and

num

bers

. The

se a

re n

ot th

e le

ast

of it

s mer

its. A

nd y

et T

he C

ave�

is a

wor

ld y

ou ca

n ne

ither

ow

n no

r

cont

rol.

Even

this

subs

titut

e fo

r uto

pia

is in

som

eone

else

�s

poss

essio

n. T

he d

igita

l gam

e is

both

an

alm

ost u

topi

an a

ltern

ativ

e to

gam

espa

ce a

nd it

s mos

t pur

e pr

oduc

t. O

r was

. Per

haps

the

gam

e is

colla

psin

g ba

ck in

to b

usin

ess a

s usu

al. P

erha

ps th

e sin

gle-

play

er g

ame

will

bec

ome

an a

nach

roni

sm, s

uper

cede

d by

mul

tipla

yer w

orld

s as v

enal

and

beni

ghte

d as

the

rest

of g

ames

pace

. Per

haps

, lik

e sil

ent c

inem

a,

the

stan

d-al

one

gam

e w

ill b

e an

orp

hane

d fo

rm. P

erha

ps g

ame

desig

ners

such

as W

ill W

right

and

Tet

suya

Miz

ogus

hi w

ill b

e th

e Se

rgei

Eise

nste

ins a

nd D

ziga

Ver

tovs

of a

lost

art

. Per

haps

, in

this

mom

ent

of e

clip

se, t

he cl

assic

gam

es h

ave

som

ethi

ng to

show

us.

So b

y al

l

mea

ns n

eces

sary

, be

a ga

mer

, but

be

a ga

mer

who

thin

ks �

and

act

s �

with

a v

iew

to re

aliz

ing

the

real

pot

entia

ls of

the

gam

e, in

and

agai

nst t

his w

orld

mad

e ov

er a

s a g

ames

pace

. One

mig

ht st

art w

ith th

e

curio

us g

ap b

etw

een

the

gam

es o

ne lo

ves a

nd a

n ev

eryd

ay li

fe w

hich

, by

the

light

of t

he g

ame,

seem

s cur

ious

ly si

mila

r, an

d ye

t som

ehow

lack

ing.

Al

lego

ry (o

n Th

e Si

ms)

Fig.

2 02

6.�B

enja

min

get

s up

in th

e m

orni

ng. H

e go

es to

the

toile

t. He

leav

es th

e

seat

up.

He

show

ers a

nd fi

xes b

reak

fast

. He

read

s the

pap

er. H

e fin

ds

a jo

b �

as a

Tes

t Sub

ject

� st

artin

g to

mor

row

. It�

s not

muc

h, b

ut

times

are

har

d. H

e re

ads a

boo

k, a

nd th

en a

noth

er. H

e fix

es lu

nch,

naps

, rea

ds a

gain

. He

goes

to b

ed. H

e ge

ts u

p. T

oile

t, sh

ower

,

brea

kfas

t aga

in. H

e do

es n

ot m

ake

his b

ed. H

e go

es to

wor

k. H

e co

mes

hom

e, p

repa

res a

noth

er m

eal.

He ta

lks t

o hi

s roo

m m

ate

Bert

a b

it.

Hann

ah d

rops

by.

He

flirt

s with

her

som

e. H

e go

es to

bed

, get

s up,

does

the

who

le th

ing

all o

ver a

gain

.

027.

�Day

s go

by. N

ot m

uch

chan

ges.

His c

ooki

ng im

prov

es. H

e m

akes

new

frien

ds �

Ted

, Ger

shol

m, A

sja. T

hey

drop

by

som

etim

es; s

omet

imes

he

visit

s. Th

ere

is th

e ne

w fu

rnitu

re. T

hat m

akes

him

a b

it ha

ppie

r, bu

t

not m

uch.

He

gets

a p

rom

otio

n to

Lab

Ass

istan

t. It�

s the

nig

ht sh

ift,

but t

he p

ay is

bet

ter.

Then

he

mak

es F

ield

Res

earc

her a

nd is

bac

k

wor

king

regu

lar h

ours

. Afte

r a w

hile

he

beco

mes

a S

chol

ar. H

e is

so

crea

tive,

but

it h

elps

to h

ave

frien

ds if

you

wan

t to

get a

head

. He

aspi

res t

o be

ing

a Th

eoris

t. Th

e pa

y is

bett

er. A

nd th

e ho

urs.

He

drea

ms o

f yac

hts a

nd b

ig sc

reen

TVs

. Ben

jam

in is

a S

im, a

char

acte

r in

a ga

me

calle

d Th

e Si

ms.

One

coul

d be

forg

iven

for i

mag

inin

g th

is w

as

som

ebod

y�s l

ife.

028.

�In

The

Sim

s, yo

u cr

eate

char

acte

rs li

ke B

enja

min

, bui

ld a

nd fu

rnish

hom

es fo

r the

m, f

ind

them

jobs

and

frie

nds.

All i

n a

wor

ld w

ithou

t a

sky.

Per

haps

a g

ame

like

The

Sim

s cou

ld b

e a

paro

dy o

f eve

ryda

y lif

e

in �

cons

umer

soci

ety�

. Ben

jam

in a

nd h

is fri

ends

dre

am o

f thi

ngs.

Thin

gs m

ake

them

hap

py. T

hey

find

a ni

ce so

fa so

muc

h m

ore

rela

xing

than

a ch

eap

one.

As t

he g

ame�

s des

igne

r Will

Wrig

ht sa

ys: �

If yo

u sit

ther

e an

d bu

ild a

big

man

sion

that

ƒs a

ll fu

ll of

stuf

f, w

ithou

t

chea

ting,

you

real

ize th

at a

ll th

ese

obje

cts e

nd u

p su

ckin

g up

all

your

tim

e, w

hen

all t

hese

obj

ects

had

bee

n pr

omisi

ng to

save

you

time.

� An

d itƒ

s act

ually

kin

d of

a p

arod

y of

cons

umer

ism, i

n w

hich

at

som

e po

int y

our s

tuff

take

s ove

r you

r life

.§ O

ther

s disa

gree

. Gam

e

scho

lar G

onza

lo F

rasc

a: �

Certa

inly

, the

gam

e m

ay b

e m

akin

g fu

n of

subu

rban

Am

eric

ans,

but s

ince

it re

war

ds th

e pl

ayer

eve

ry ti

me

she

buys

new

stuf

f, I d

o no

t thi

nk th

is co

uld

be co

nsid

ered

par

ody.

� In

The

Sim

s, ch

arac

ters

can

have

lots

of d

iffer

ent j

obs,

but a

s Fre

dric

Jam

eson

says

: �pa

rody

find

s its

elf w

ithou

t a v

ocat

ion�

029.

�Per

haps

a g

ame

like

The

Sim

s cou

ld b

e an

alle

gory

for e

very

day

life

in

gam

espa

ce. I

n th

e al

lego

rical

mod

e, sa

ys W

alte

r Ben

jam

in: §

Any

pers

on,

any

obje

ct, a

ny re

latio

nshi

p ca

n m

ean

abso

lute

ly a

nyth

ing

else

. With

this

poss

ibili

ty a

des

truct

ive

but j

ust v

erdi

ct ca

n be

pas

sed

on th

e

prof

ane

wor

ld: i

t is c

hara

cter

ized

as a

wor

ld in

whi

ch th

e de

tail

is

of n

o gr

eat i

mpo

rtanc

e.§

For

Ben

jam

in, t

he fr

agm

entin

g of

the

mod

ern

wor

ld b

y te

chni

que,

the

prof

usio

n of

com

mod

ities

that

wel

l up

in th

e

abse

nce

of a

cohe

rent

who

le, f

inds

its e

xpre

ssio

n in

alle

gory

, whi

ch

fragm

ents

thin

gs st

ill fu

rther

, sha

tterin

g th

e ill

usio

n of

bou

rgeo

is

orde

r, re

veal

ing

the

mea

ns b

y w

hich

it is

mad

e. §

Wha

t res

ists t

he

men

daci

ous t

rans

figur

atio

n of

the

com

mod

ity w

orld

is it

s dist

ortio

n

into

alle

gory

.§ A

nd y

et th

is po

ssib

ility

too

seem

s exh

aust

ed. T

he

fragm

entin

g of

the

fragm

ente

d se

ems r

outin

e to

a S

im. N

o ot

her w

orld

seem

s pos

sible

.

030.

�Per

haps

a g

ame

like

The

Sim

s is n

ot ju

st a

n al

lego

ry b

ut a

lso a

n

�alle

gorit

hm.�

To

be a

gam

er is

a sl

ight

ly d

iffer

ent p

erso

na to

bei

ng

a re

ader

or a

vie

wer

. Lev

Man

ovic

h: �

As th

e pl

ayer

pro

ceed

s thr

ough

the

gam

e, sh

e gr

adua

lly d

iscov

ers t

he ru

les t

hat o

pera

te in

the

univ

erse

cons

truct

ed b

y th

is ga

me.

� A

lex

Gallo

way

: �To

pla

y th

e ga

me

mea

ns to

pla

y th

e co

de o

f the

gam

e. T

o w

in m

eans

to k

now

the

syst

em.

And

thus

to in

terp

ret a

gam

e m

eans

to in

terp

ret i

ts a

lgor

ithm

(to

disc

over

its p

aral

lel a

llego

rithm

).� W

hat i

s dist

inct

ive

abou

t gam

es

is th

at th

ey p

rodu

ce fo

r the

gam

er a

n in

tuiti

ve re

latio

n to

the

algo

rithm

. The

intu

itive

exp

erie

nce

and

the

orga

nizin

g al

gorit

hm

toge

ther

are

an

alle

gorit

hm fo

r a fu

ture

that

in g

ames

pace

is fo

reve

r

prom

ised

but n

ever

com

es to

pas

s. Th

e al

lego

rithm

by

whi

ch th

e ga

mer

rela

tes t

o th

e al

gorit

hm p

rodu

ces a

qui

te p

artic

ular

alle

gory

by

whi

ch

gam

er a

nd a

lgor

ithm

toge

ther

rela

te to

gam

espa

ce. I

n a

gam

e an

y

char

acte

r, an

y ob

ject

, any

rela

tions

hip

can

be g

iven

a v

alue

, and

that

valu

e ca

n be

disc

over

ed. W

ith th

is po

ssib

ility

a ch

alle

ngin

g bu

t fai

r

verd

ict ca

n be

pas

sed

on th

e pr

ofan

e w

orld

: it is

char

acte

rized

as a

wor

ld in

whi

ch a

ny v

alue

is a

rbitr

ary,

yet

its v

alue

and

its r

elat

ion

to o

ther

val

ues c

an b

e di

scov

ered

thro

ugh

trial

and

erro

r.

031.

�An

algo

rithm

� fo

r cur

rent

pur

pose

s � is

a fi

nite

set o

f ins

truct

ions

for a

ccom

plish

ing

som

e ta

sk, w

hich

tran

sfor

ms a

n in

itial

star

ting

cond

ition

into

a re

cogn

izabl

e en

d co

nditi

on. G

reg

Cost

ikya

n:

�Alg

orith

mic

gam

es a

re o

nes i

n w

hich

und

erly

ing

calc

ulat

ions

or r

ules

dete

rmin

e th

e ga

me�

s res

pons

e to

the

play

er�s

inpu

t.� T

he re

cipes

that

Ben

jam

in a

nd o

ther

Sim

s lea

rn fr

om th

e co

okbo

oks o

n th

eir

book

shel

ves a

re a

lgor

ithm

s. Be

njam

in�s

care

er a

s a T

heor

ist is

also

an

algo

rithm

. The

re is

a st

art c

ondi

tion:

he

mus

t hav

e 8

frien

ds, 4

char

isma

poin

ts, a

7 in

crea

tivity

, and

so o

n. It

has

end

cond

ition

s,

too.

With

10

frien

ds, 5

char

isma

poin

ts a

nd 1

0 fo

r cre

ativ

ity, t

he

Theo

rist c

aree

r can

end

, and

ano

ther

beg

in. T

he g

amer

sele

cts o

ne

sequ

ence

afte

r ano

ther

, and

gra

dual

ly le

arns

wha

t the

y do

� th

at�s

algo

rithm

. The

gam

er d

iscov

ers a

rela

tions

hip

betw

een

appe

aran

ces a

nd

algo

rithm

in th

e ga

me

whi

ch is

a d

oubl

e of

the

rela

tion

betw

een

appe

aran

ces a

nd a

put

ativ

e al

gorit

hm in

gam

espa

ce �

that

�s

alle

gorit

hm. (

See

Fig.

2) B

ut th

ere

is al

way

s a g

ap b

etw

een

the

intu

itive

ly k

now

able

alg

orith

m o

f the

gam

e an

d th

e pa

ssin

g, u

neve

n,

unfa

ir se

mbl

ance

of a

n al

gorit

hm in

the

ever

yday

life

of g

ames

pace

�

this

is th

e fo

rm th

at a

llego

ry n

ow ta

kes.

032.

�The

imag

es a

nd st

orie

s tha

t pop

ulat

e ga

mes

are

mos

tly cr

ibbe

d fro

m

som

e ot

her m

edia

, fro

m n

ovel

s, fil

ms o

r tel

evisi

on. G

ames

mos

tly ju

st

recy

cle, o

r �re

med

iate

�, b

its o

f rep

rese

ntat

ion

from

oth

er m

edia

.

Bolte

r & G

rusin

: �re

med

iatio

n is

a de

finin

g ch

arac

teris

tic o

f the

new

digi

tal m

edia

.� A

nd h

ence

not

spec

ific t

o ga

mes

. Fro

m th

e po

int o

f

view

of r

epre

sent

atio

n, th

e ga

me

is al

way

s ina

dequ

ate

to e

very

day

life.

A S

im in

The

Sim

s is a

sim

ple

anim

ated

char

acte

r, w

ith fe

w

facia

l fea

ture

s or e

xpre

ssio

ns. In

The

Sim

s 2 th

ey se

em a

littl

e m

ore

lifel

ike,

but

the

impr

ovem

ent o

f the

repr

esen

tatio

n in

som

e pa

rticu

lar

way

s onl

y rai

ses t

he st

anda

rds b

y whi

ch it

app

ears

to fa

ll sh

ort i

n

othe

rs. F

rom

the

poin

t of v

iew

of a

llego

rithm

, it a

ll se

ems m

ore

the

othe

r way

aro

und.

Eve

ryda

y life

in g

ames

pace

seem

s an

impe

rfect

vers

ion

of th

e ga

me.

The

gam

espa

ce o

f eve

ryda

y life

may

be

mor

e

com

plex

and

var

iega

ted,

but

it se

ems m

uch

less

cons

isten

t, co

here

nt

and

fair.

Per

haps

this

was

alw

ays t

he a

topi

an p

rom

ise o

f the

dig

ital �

a re

al o

f abs

olut

e, im

pers

onal

equ

ity a

nd e

quan

imity

. The

gam

e op

ens a

criti

cal g

ap b

etw

een

wha

t gam

espa

ce p

rom

ises a

nd w

hat i

t del

iver

s.

Wha

t is t

rue

is no

t rea

l; wha

t is r

eal i

s not

true

. Thi

s is w

hat t

he

doub

le m

ovem

ent o

f alle

gorit

hm a

nd a

llego

ry h

ave

to re

port.

The

gam

e

is tru

e in

that

its a

lgor

ithm

is co

nsist

ent,

but t

his v

ery c

onsis

tenc

y

nega

tes a

wor

ld th

at is

not

.

033.

�Im

agin

e th

at B

enja

min

, our

char

acte

r in

The

Sim

s, m

akes

it to

the

penu

ltim

ate

leve

l and

bec

omes

a T

heor

ist. P

erha

ps th

en yo

u bu

y him

a

com

pute

r bec

ause

he

seem

s bor

ed w

ith re

adin

g. W

hat w

ould

he

do w

ith

it? P

lay T

he S

ims,

of co

urse

. Bei

ng a

The

orist

, per

haps

he

star

ts to

thin

k abo

ut it

. Per

haps

he

jots

som

ethi

ng lik

e th

is in

his

note

book

:

�The

gam

er w

hose

listle

ss g

aze

falls

on

the

cont

rolle

r in

his h

and

is

read

y for

the

alle

gorit

hm. B

ored

om is

the

basis

of t

he a

llego

rithm

ic

insig

ht in

to th

e w

orld

. Bor

edom

lays

was

te to

the

appe

al o

f the

gam

e

as g

ame,

and

calls

atte

ntio

n to

the

ambi

guou

s rel

atio

n of

gam

e to

gam

espa

ce. A

llego

rithm

ic pe

rcep

tion

is n-

dim

ensio

nal, i

t int

uits

behi

nd a

ppea

ranc

es in

tera

ctio

ns o

f man

y var

iabl

es. T

he a

llego

rithm

ic

mod

e of

app

rehe

nsio

n is

alw

ays b

uilt

on a

n ev

alua

tive

rela

tion

to th

e

wor

ld o

f app

eara

nces

. Mor

e an

d m

ore

rele

ntle

ssly

, the

eve

ryda

y life

of

gam

ers i

s com

ing

to w

ear t

he e

xpre

ssio

n of

gam

espa

ce. A

t the

sam

e

time,

gam

espa

ce se

eks t

o di

sgui

se th

e un

gam

elik

e ch

arac

ter o

f thi

ngs.

Wha

t hei

ghte

ns th

e m

enda

cious

tran

sform

atio

n of

gam

espa

ce is

its

appe

aran

ce in

an

undi

stor

ted

form

in th

e ga

me.

Stil

l, gam

espa

ce w

ants

to lo

ok it

self

in th

e fa

ce. It

cele

brat

es it

s inc

arna

tion

in th

e

gam

er.�

034.

�In

the

gam

er, B

enja

min

mig

ht sa

y, is

rebo

rn th

e so

rt of

idle

r tha

t

Socr

ates

pick

ed o

ut fr

om th

e At

heni

an m

arke

tpla

ce to

be

his

inte

rlocu

tor.

�Onl

y, th

ere

is no

long

er a

Socr

ates

, so

ther

e is

no o

ne

to ad

dres

s the

idle

r. An

d th

e sla

ve la

bor t

hat g

uara

ntee

d hi

m h

is

leisu

re h

as lik

ewise

ceas

ed to

exi

st.§

In T

he S

ims,

as in

gam

espa

ce,

one

won

ders

if th

e id

ler h

as d

isapp

eare

d al

so. T

here

is n

o id

le ti

me

in T

he S

ims,

or in

the

gam

espa

ce o

f whi

ch it

is th

e m

ore

perfe

ct

doub

le. T

he q

uartz

hea

rt of

the

com

pute

r on

whi

ch T

he S

ims r

uns t

icks

over

rem

orse

less

ly. A

ll of i

ts m

omen

ts ar

e eq

uiva

lent

, and

so to

o, in

a way

, are

all m

omen

ts in

The

Sim

s. Sl

eepi

ng, n

appi

ng, c

onve

rsat

ion

or

read

ing

all a

dvan

ce o

ne�s

scor

es. B

enja

min

has

to g

o to

bed

to g

et u

p

agai

n to

go

to w

ork t

o ea

rn th

e rig

ht to

slee

p, an

d dr

eam

, aga

in.

035.

�To

be a

gam

er is

to co

me

to u

nder

stan

ding

thro

ugh

quan

tifia

ble

failu

re. T

he b

ar g

raph

s mea

surin

g Be

njam

in�s

bei

ng tr

end

nega

tive

and

refu

se to

bud

ge. Y

ou ar

e to

o bu

sy e

lsew

here

to g

et B

enja

min

to th

e

toile

t on

time,

and

he p

ees h

imse

lf. H

e ne

eds s

leep

, he

need

s lov

e, h

e

need

s a n

ew ki

tche

n. H

e tu

rns t

o fa

ce yo

u, th

e ga

mer

, and

ges

ture

s

wild

ly, a

s if c

ursin

g hi

s God

. Whe

n th

ings

wer

e go

ing

wel

l, you

forg

ot

to sa

ve th

e ga

me,

so th

ere

is no

bet

ter t

ime

to g

o ba

ck to

. Not

hing

for i

t but

to w

ork w

ith w

hat y

ou h

ave,

or q

uit a

nd st

art a

gain

. The

gam

e is

a kno

wab

le al

gorit

hm fr

om w

hich

you

know

you

can

esca

pe;

gam

espa

ce is

an u

nkno

wn

algo

rithm

from

whi

ch th

ere

is no

esc

ape.

The

gam

e is

just

like

the

gam

espa

ce o

f eve

ryda

y life

, exc

ept t

hat t

he g

ame

can

over

com

e th

e vi

olen

ce o

f tim

e. Th

e ga

me

ties u

p th

at o

ne lo

ose

end

with

whi

ch g

ames

pace

stru

ggle

s � th

e m

orta

l fla

w o

f an

irrev

ersib

le

time.

No

won

der t

he Si

m tu

rns i

n va

in to

the

gam

er as

a God

, for

it is

the

gam

er w

ho h

as tu

rned

tow

ard

the

gam

e as

a m

essia

nic,

reve

rsib

le

time.

03

6.�G

amer

s are

not

alw

ays g

ood

Gods.

It�s s

uch

a tem

ptat

ion

to se

t up

a

Sim

to su

ffer.

Depriv

e th

em o

f a kn

owle

dge

of co

okin

g an

d pr

etty

soon

they

set f

ire to

them

selv

es. B

uild

a ho

use

with

out d

oors

or w

indo

ws

and

they

star

ve. W

atch

as th

e al

gorit

hm w

orks

itse

lf ou

t to

its

term

inal

stat

e, th

e ba

r gra

phs s

lidin

g do

wn

to n

othi

ng. T

his v

iole

nce

is no

t �re

al�.

Sim

s are

not

peo

ple.

They

are

imag

es. T

hey a

re im

ages

in a

wor

ld w

hich

appe

ars a

s a va

st ac

cum

ulat

ion

of im

ages

. Hen

ce th

e

plea

sure

in d

estro

ying

imag

es, t

o de

mon

stra

te ag

ain

and

agai

n th

eir

wor

thle

ssne

ss. T

hey c

an m

ean

anyt

hing

and

noth

ing.

They

hav

e no

savi

ng

pow

er. B

ut ev

en th

ough

the i

mag

es ar

e mea

ning

less

, the

algo

rithm

still

func

tions

. It as

signs

, if n

ot m

eani

ng, if

not

vera

city,

if no

t

nece

ssity

, the

n at

leas

t a sc

ore t

o re

pres

enta

tions

. In

The S

ims t

he

wor

ld o

f gam

espa

ce is

rede

emed

by p

rovi

ding

for i

ts m

yria

d th

ings

the

algo

rithm

that

they

lack

to fo

rm co

nsist

ent r

elat

ions

.

037.

�The

Sim

who

suffe

rs tu

rns t

o fa

ce it

s gam

er, lo

okin

g ou

t tow

ard

an

abse

nt sk

y, ap

peal

ing

dire

ctly,

bey

ond

the f

ram

e of t

he g

ame i

tsel

f.

The g

amer

may

not

answ

er, o

r may

not

be a

ble t

o an

swer

. The

gam

er as

God su

ffers

from

an ap

pare

ntly

simila

r alg

orith

mic

logi

c as t

he Si

m.

The S

ims c

omes

with

theo

logi

cal o

ptio

ns. T

urn

on �

free w

ill�

and

Sim

s

stra

y fro

m th

e pow

ers o

f the

ir m

aker

. Tur

n it

off a

nd th

eir a

ctio

ns

are p

rede

stin

ed, b

ut ev

en so

, the

gam

er-g

od q

uick

ly fin

ds th

at th

e

algo

rithm

is a

high

er p

ower

that

the p

ower

one

com

man

ds. S

houl

d th

e

gam

e be g

oing

bad

ly fo

r the

Sim

, it tu

rns t

o fa

ce th

e gam

er; s

houl

d

the g

ame b

e goi

ng b

adly

for t

he g

amer

, the

re is

no

one f

or th

e gam

er

to tu

rn aw

ay an

d fa

ce. T

he Si

m w

ho ad

dres

ses a

hel

ples

s, ho

pele

ss o

r

lost

God

lives

out

the a

llego

ry o

f gam

espa

ce it

self.

At l

east

the S

im

has s

omeo

ne to

turn

to. W

ho ca

n th

e gam

er tu

rn to

? Per

haps

you

can

see

now

the r

easo

n fo

r the

pop

ular

ity, a

mon

g th

ose t

roub

led

by g

ames

pace

but l

ackin

g a c

once

pt to

acco

unt f

or it

, of a

per

sona

l God

who

can

perfo

rm m

iracle

s, w

ho ca

n br

eak t

he ru

les o

f His

own

algo

rithm

.

038.

�As a

gam

er yo

u ca

n ha

ve n

o se

nse o

f wor

th an

d no

faith

in sa

lvatio

n

othe

r tha

n th

roug

h yo

ur o

wn

effo

rts. B

ut th

ose e

fforts

are f

raug

ht,

and

you

are s

oon

lost

in th

e maz

e of t

he g

ame.

The g

amer

achi

eves

wor

th th

roug

h vic

torie

s of c

hara

cter

; but

that

char

acte

r ine

vitab

ly

face

s def

eat i

n tu

rn. O

r wor

se. T

he o

nly t

hing

wor

se th

an b

eing

defe

ated

is b

eing

und

efea

ted.

For t

hen

ther

e is n

othi

ng ag

ainst

whi

ch

to se

cure

the w

orth

of t

he g

amer

oth

er th

an to

find

anot

her g

ame.

One

gam

e lea

ds to

the n

ext.

It�s t

he sa

me f

or B

enja

min

. Afte

r The

orist

com

es M

ad Sc

ient

ist an

d af

ter t

hat �

not

hing

. Sta

rt ov

er. P

ick a

new

care

er. G

et an

expa

nsio

n pa

ck. T

ry so

me n

ew liv

es. S

tart

as a

Play

grou

nd M

onito

r, be

com

e a Te

ache

r, a P

rofe

ssor

, get

tenu

re, r

ise to

Dean,

the f

inall

y, M

inist

er o

f Edu

catio

n. St

art a

s a N

obod

y, w

orkin

g

for t

ips.

Beco

me a

n In

sider

, a N

ame D

ropp

er, a

Sell O

ut, a

Play

er, a

Cele

brity

, the

n fin

ally,

a Sup

ersta

r. Bu

t the

se ar

e jus

t arb

itrar

y

nam

es fo

r ser

ies o

f lev

els.

Any q

ualit

ative

diff

eren

ce b

etw

een

leve

ls

is ju

st an

effe

ct o

f an

unde

rlyin

g qu

antit

y. A h

ighe

r lev

el is

esse

ntial

ly m

ore t

han

a low

er le

vel. A

nd so

ther

e�s n

owhe

re to

go

but

to m

ore,

and

mor

e, un

til th

ere i

s no

mor

e, an

d th

e gam

er, li

ke th

e

char

acte

r, is

left

with

not

hing

. The

frui

t of t

he d

igita

l is th

e

expu

lsion

of q

ualit

y fro

m th

e wor

ld. T

hat�

s gam

espa

ce. T

he co

nsol

atio

n

of th

e gam

e is t

hat a

t lea

st th

is ex

pulsi

on is

abso

lute

.

039.

�Orig

inal

Sims c

an b

e any

mix

of tw

o ge

nder

s and

thre

e col

ors.

In Th

e

Sims 2

you

start

with

pre

set t

empl

ates

(Cau

casia

n, A

frica

n Am

erica

n,

Chin

ese,

Persi

an �

and

Elf) a

ltera

ble v

ia a l

ot o

f sub

-slid

ers.

You

choo

se g

ende

r, ag

e, co

lor,

hair

style

and

colo

r, ey

e col

or, w

eight

,

heig

ht, g

lasse

s, ha

ts, ac

cess

ories

, clo

thes

, and

so o

n, b

ut th

ese

exte

rnal

attri

bute

s are

mer

ely a

skin

. The

y do

not r

eally

affe

ct th

e

gam

e. Th

e slid

ing

varia

bles

of c

hara

cter

, how

ever

, do

prog

ram

in

adva

nce w

hat c

aree

rs a S

im ca

n ex

cel a

t, an

d w

hich

pas

t tim

es re

store

facu

lties

. In Si

ms 2

, the

y may

be s

traig

ht o

r gay

. Aga

in, it

mak

es n

o

diffe

renc

e. Eit

her w

ay th

eir o

ffspr

ing

mix

the �

gene

tic�

char

acte

r

quali

ties o

f the

ir pa

rent

s. Th

e ext

erna

l rep

rese

ntat

ions

are o

f no

acco

unt;

the i

nter

nal v

ariab

les d

eter

min

e pot

entia

l. The

�sk

in�

is

arbi

trary

, a d

iffer

ence

with

out a

dist

inct

ion,

mer

e dec

orat

ion.

Under

neat

h it

lies a

code

whi

ch is

all. T

he Si

ms 2

is co

mm

itted

bot

h

to a

gene

tic vi

ew o

f int

rinsic

nat

ure a

nd a

liber

al vie

w o

f the

equa

lity,

and

henc

e ind

iffer

ence

, of e

xtrin

sic ap

peara

nces

.

040.�

In Th

e Sim

s, th

ings

pro

lifer

ate.

Or rat

her,

the s

kins o

f thi

ngs.

You

can

have

man

y diff

eren

t kin

ds of s

ofa,

or co

ffee t

able,

or l

amp sh

ade,

but th

e met

er is

runn

ing,

so to

spea

k. Yo

u ha

ve to

mak

e mor

e mon

ey to

buy m

ore t

hing

s. Bu

t som

e gam

ers w

ho p

lay Th

e Sim

s trif

le with

the

game r

athe

r tha

n play

it. T

hese

gam

ers a

re n

ot in

tere

sted in

�win

ning

�

the g

ame,

they

are i

ntere

sted in

det

ails,

in fu

rnitu

re, o

r tell

ing

storie

s, or

crea

ting in

tere

sting w

orld

s. If

a chea

t is s

omeo

ne who

ignor

es th

e spac

e of a

gam

e to

cut s

traig

ht to

its o

bjectiv

e, th

en th

e

trifle

r is s

omeo

ne who

ignor

es th

e objec

tive t

o lin

ger w

ithin

its

spac

e. Be

rnar

d Suits

: �Tr

ifler

s rec

ognize

rules

but

not

goa

ls, ch

eats

reco

gnize g

oals

but n

ot ru

les.�

The S

ims l

ends i

tself t

o play

that

transfo

rms i

t fro

m a

world

of n

umber

bac

k to

a wor

ld o

f mea

ning.

Algor

ithm

bec

omes

a m

ore s

table

platfo

rm th

an th

e vici

ssitu

des o

f

games

pace f

or cr

eatin

g a su

burban

wor

ld o

f pre

tty th

ings.

But in

trifli

ng with

the g

ame,

the g

amer

stru

ggles to

esca

pe bor

edom

and

produce

diff

eren

ce �

and fin

ds that

this

too

has lim

its. S

teve

n Pool

e:

�You

must

learn

the s

equen

ces t

he pro

gram

mer

s hav

e built

in to

the

game �

and, o

kay,

ther

e are

hundre

ds of t

hem, b

ut that

doe

s not

consti

tute

free

dom.�

Gam

es re

deem

gam

espac

e by o

fferin

g a per

fect

unfreed

om, a

consis

tent s

et of c

onstrain

ts.

041.�

Allegory

is ab

out the r

elatio

n of sig

n to si

gn; alle

gorithm

is ab

out

the r

elatio

n of sig

n to n

umber

. Sig

ns don�t o

pen to

reve

al ch

ains o

f

other

signs,

pointin

g in al

l dire

ctio

ns. Or r

ather

, it is

no lo

nger of

any i

mporta

nce w

hat si

gns rev

eal. T

hey b

illow an

d float

, pool a

nd

gather

, arb

itrar

y and u

seles

s. Th

ere i

s no w

ay to

redee

m th

em. B

ut

signs n

ow poin

t to so

met

hing el

se. T

hey p

oint t

o num

ber. A

nd num

ber in

turn

poin

ts to

the a

lgorit

hm, w

hich tr

ansfo

rms o

ne num

ber in

to

anoth

er. O

ut of t

he bit

rot o

f sig

ns, gam

es m

ake a

llegorit

hms.

The

signs p

oint t

o num

bers,

the n

umber

s to al

gorithm

s, th

e alg

orithm

s to

alleg

orithm

s of e

very

day lif

e in g

ames

pace,

where s

igns l

ikewise

are

devalu

ed, a

rbitr

ary,

but can

still

stand as

alleg

ories o

f the o

ne

thin

g that

still

mak

es se

nse, fo

r the l

ogic of t

he dig

ital.

042.�

Allegory

bec

omes

a double

relat

ion: o

n the o

ne sid

e, th

ere i

s the

relat

ion of g

amer

to al

gorithm

in th

e gam

e, its

alleg

orithm

; on th

e

other

, ther

e is t

he rela

tion of a

llegorit

hm to

ever

yday

life i

n

games

pace.

In re

latio

n to gam

espac

e, th

e gam

e itse

lf work

s as a

n

esca

pe fro

m th

e agony o

f eve

ryday

life,

where t

he sta

kes a

re re

al an

d

uncerta

in, to

the u

nreal

stake

s of a

pure

game.

But the g

ame c

an al

so

work as

a cri

tique,

in tu

rn, o

f the u

nreali

ty of t

he sta

kes o

f

games

pace i

tself.

When

Sim

s dev

otees

assig

n valu

es to

non-exis

tent

furn

iture

, truly

the i

dea of e

conom

ic �util

ity� has

lost

all m

eanin

g.

The g

ame c

an al

so w

ork as

an at

opia, w

here p

lay is

free

from

work

,

from

neces

sity,

from

serio

usnes

s, fro

m m

oralit

y. Kill

your S

ims,

if

you w

ant t

o. Play

here h

as no la

w but t

he alg

orithm

. And ye

t ther

e is

a ten

sion bet

ween th

e gam

e and gam

espac

e. Th

e rela

tion bet

ween th

em is

at once

analo

g and dig

ital, b

oth a

contin

uum an

d a sh

arp bre

ak. T

he

gamer

stru

ggles to

mak

e of t

he gam

e a se

parat

e world

, for e

scap

e, fo

r

critiq

ue, fo

r ato

pian play

, and ye

t gam

espac

e insin

uates

itse

lf into

the g

ame.

043.�Star

t ove

r: Ben

jamin

begin

s as a

Beta T

este

r, bec

omes

a Hac

ker, a

nd

finall

y a G

ame D

esig

ner. A

fter t

hat yo

u are s

upposed to

leve

l up to

Ventu

re Cap

italis

t then

finall

y Info

rmat

ion Ove

rlord

. But s

omet

hing

goes w

rong al

ong the w

ay. B

enjam

in�s g

ame d

esig

n com

pany g

oes bro

ke.

The w

hole in

dustry i

s conso

lidat

ing. S

o Benjam

in goes

to w

ork fo

r a

much

bigger

game c

ompan

y. He s

tarts

work

. It�s a

mild

sort

of �cru

nch�

time �

normal

when th

ere�

s a pro

ject w

ith a

deadlin

e. Ben

jamin

is

workin

g eight h

ours, si

x day

s a w

eek.

The p

rojec

t is on sc

hedule,

so

its not s

o bad. It

�s tem

porary

. He c

omplai

ns a bit t

o Asja

. The

deadlin

e for e

nding th

e cru

nch co

mes

and goes

. And an

other

. Then

the

hours get

longer

. Ben

jamin

is w

orkin

g twelv

e hours,

six d

ays a

wee

k.

Benjam

in�s b

ar gra

phs slid

e into

the r

ed. T

hen th

e rea

l cru

nch tim

e

begin

s. Ben

jamin

is w

orkin

g seve

n days a

wee

k, �with

the o

ccas

ional

Satu

rday

even

ing off

for g

ood behav

ior.�

044.�You could

be forg

iven fo

r thin

king th

is is

just

a gam

e, but it

is

som

ebody�

s life

� as re

ported in

a wid

ely ci

rculat

ed te

xt w

ritte

n by

EA Sp

ouse. E

A, or E

lectro

nic Arts

, is a

game c

ompan

y bes

t known fo

r

its M

adden

sports

games

, but w

hich al

so w

hich owns M

axis,

which

mak

es

The S

ims.

EA�s s

logan: C

hallen

ge Eve

ryth

ing � ever

ything ex

cept E

A, of

course

� or the gap

between gam

e and gam

espac

e. In th

e gamesp

ace of

conte

mpora

ry la

bor, things a

re not li

ke th

e meas

ured pro

gressi

on up

the ra

nks of T

he Sim

s. In

The Si

ms,

Benjamin co

uld w

ork his

way fr

om

Game D

esigner t

o Info

rmat

ion Ove

rlord

much

the sa

me w

ay as

he had

worked up th

e leve

ls below. A

t Electr

onic Arts

, things a

re diff

erent.

Being an In

form

ation O

verlo

rd lik

e EA�s L

arry

Probst

require

s an ar

my

of Benjam

ins with

nothing to

work

with but t

heir skil

ls as

game

designers

and nowhere

to go th

an to

anoth

er firm

which

may

or may

not

crunch

its w

orkers

just as

hard. A

s the m

ilitar

y ente

rtainm

ent com

plex

conso

lidat

es into

a han

dful o

f big fir

ms,

it squeeze

s out a

ll but a

few niche play

ers. G

amesp

ace is

here a

poor imita

tion of it

s own gam

e.

045.�Start

over a

gain: T

his tim

e Benjamin begins a

s a Buck

et Runner. H

e

quickly

works him

self u

p to Colta

n Miner. C

oltan? W

hat is

colta

n? Quit

The Sims f

or a m

oment. P

op the co

ver o

ff your P

laysta

tion or y

our

lapto

p or cellp

hone. You ar

e lookin

g at st

uff that

has co

me fr

om al

l

over t

he world

� brought t

ogether b

y a global

logistics

. In th

e guts

of your m

achine yo

u may

spot s

ome ca

pacito

rs m

ade by K

emet, o

r may

be

sem

iconducto

rs fro

m In

tel. T

hese pro

bably co

ntain ta

ntalum

, a

marve

lous conducto

r of e

lectrici

ty, also

very

good with

heat. They

were quite

possibly

made w

ith co

ltan (s

hort fo

r colum

bite-ta

ntalite

)

dug out of t

he ground in

the Congo, w

here th

ere�s p

lenty of c

oltan,

from

which

tanta

lum is

refin

ed. The O

kapi F

aunal Rese

rve in

the Congo

is hom

e to gorill

as, m

onkeys

and elephants as w

ell as t

he okapi, a

rare re

lative of t

he giraffe

. Thousa

nds of M

buti, or p

ygm

ies, also

live th

ere. T

heir live

lihood is

com

prom

ised by t

he colta

n miners,

who

dig what o

ne journ

alist c

alled �SUV-si

zed holes�

in th

e mud, o

ut of

which th

ey can extr

act about a

kilo of c

oltan a day.

A kilo of c

oltan

was worth

$80 during th

e tech

nology boom

. There

was a

world

shorta

ge

of the st

uff, which

even delayed th

e release

of the Sony P

laystatio

n

2. 046.�The Congo is

arguably

the re

gion in w

hich th

e �great g

ame� of c

olonial

exploita

tion has d

one the m

ost harm

and conferre

d the le

ast benefit

s.

The Congo�s firs

t dem

ocratic

leader, P

atrice

Lum

umba, w

as ouste

d in a

CIA sp

onsore

d coup th

at bro

ught to power t

he notorio

us Mobutu

Sese

Seku. W

ith th

e colla

pse of t

he Mobutu

regim

e, there w

as civil w

ar, and

little else

. One of t

he things t

hat kept t

he civil w

ar going w

as the

colta

n. Colta

n both fu

eled the w

ar, and acc

elerated th

e destructi

on of

wildlife

habitats.

And so th

e milit

ary enterta

inment c

omplex,

with

precious b

rands to pro

tect,

didn�t want p

rote

st m

ovements

sully

ing

their r

eputations b

y callin

g attentio

n to all t

he gorillas c

oltan

kills, o

r the guerri

llas i

t feeds. T

he milit

ary entertainm

ent com

plex

would like to

believe, a

nd would lik

e you to belie

ve, that g

amespace

is not a

Nietzs

chian st

ruggle of n

aked force

s, beyond good and evil,

but a cl

ean, well l

ighted, rule-g

overned game.

047.��Kemet require

s its

supplie

rs to

certi

fy that t

heir colta

n ore does

not orig

inate from Congo or b

orderin

g countri

es.� M

otoro

la says m

uch

the sa

me: �W

e believe w

e have done as much

as any re

asonable co

mpany

could do by m

andating co

mpliance

from our s

uppliers

on this

importa

nt

issue.� O

uti Mikkonen, c

ommunicatio

ns manager fo

r enviro

nmental

affairs

at Nokia is

a little

more sa

nguine: §All y

ou can do is

ask,

and if th

ey say no, w

e believe it.

§ The bad public

ity aro

und Congo

colta

n is good news f

or the Austr

alian co

mpany Sons of G

walia, w

hich

provides m

uch of th

e world

supply. T

he destructi

on of Austr

alian

habitats

seems s

omehow less

picturesq

ue. No gorill

as or g

iraffe

s are

involved. This i

s the w

ay its played in

gamespace

. It�s a

ll separate

caves, w

ith dim

reports

of each

other. B

y all means, s

ave the gorill

as

and okapi, but it

doesn�t c

hange the equatio

n.

048.�The line th

at connects

gamespace

to game also

divides one fro

m the

other. T

here�s no getti

ng away from th

e materia

ls that m

ake it

possible to

own a Playstatio

n conso

le or a co

mputer with

Intel In

side.

There�s no getti

ng away from th

e labor t

hat makes it

possible to

run

The Sims o

n your mach

ine. Benjamin: �

There is no docu

ment of c

ulture

which is

not at t

he same tim

e a document o

f barb

arism.� B

enjamin (the

Sim): �

There is no re

alm of th

e pure digit which

does not b

etray th

e

hand marked w

ith m

uck and blood, so

mewhere.� And yet the w

hole point

of a game is

its se

paration, th

e line dividing it

from gamesp

ace and

enclosin

g it in a se

lf contained, a

lgorithmic

world of it

s own. T

o

Benjamin � the Benjamin w

ho is a Sim

� everything outsi

de The Sims is

just metaphysic

s. The double re

lation of a

llegory and alle

gorithm is

an intim

ate line alte

rnately co

nnecting and se

parating game fro

m

gamespace

.

049.�The Sims is

a very peculia

r kind of g

ame, in w

hich everyday lif

e is

the su

bject of p

lay, but w

here play is noth

ing but work. A

nd yet

there�s a

difference

between play in

game and gamespace

, which

permits

the fo

rmer to

offer a

n allegory fo

r the la

tter, a

n allegory w

hich m

ay

function as e

scape and cr

itique of g

amespace

, perh

aps even as a

n

almost

utopian altern

ative. In

the game, u

nlike in

gamespace

, the

contest

between gamer a

nd game is over n

othing. T

here are no precious

minerals. There is

no labor c

ontract

in dispute. T

he difference

between play and its

other m

ay have colla

psed, b

ut there is

still a

difference

between play w

ithin th

e bounds of a

n algorithm th

at works

imperso

nally, th

e same fo

r everybody, a

nd a gamespace

that a

ppears as

nothing but an agon fo

r the w

ill to power �

whether o

f guerri

lla�s

grasping th

eir gun st

ocks, or L

arry Probst

grasping his s

tock options.

If it is

a choice only between The Sim

s as a

real g

ame and gamespace

as a game of th

e real, t

he gamer choose to

stay in

The Cave� and play

games. The contra

diction is

that for th

ere to be a game th

at is fa

ir

and ratio

nal there is

still a

gamespace w

hich is neith

er.

050.�The game is what g

amespace isn

�t, partic

ularly fo

r those fo

r whom it

is the dominant c

ultural fo

rm. E

A Spouse write

s: �We both have been

steeped in

essentia

lly game cultu

re from an early

age, and w

e watched

that �cultu

re� gain legitim

acy as we got to

the point o

f thinking

about our fu

ture careers.� T

he gamespace of m

aking games as

commodities c

annot live up to

the games t

hemselves. On EA Spouse�s

website, so

me forlo

rn gamer has w

ritten, a

nd perhaps again in

vain:

�On the sim

es buste

n out please do not m

ake a meter fo

r the ite

ms you

buy. Same w

ith w

alls or a

niny thing eles. S

o bottom lin

e no mette

r in

any of the sim

es games e

ver again please. T

hank you if you do it.

�

But, sadly, th

e meter is

always r

unning. It is

integral to gamesp

ace,

if not n

ecessarily

to w

hat makes g

amespace possi

ble. Beyond th

e

critique of a

ctually exist

ing gamespace, g

ames can point a

lso to

an

almost

utopian promise, in

which games a

re something else

again. But

while th

e game opens toward new w

orlds, g

amespace fo

recloses anything

but its o

wn relentle

ss agon.

America (o

n Civilizatio

n III)

Fig. 3

051.�Of what u

se is the past t

o a gamer? Peter L

unenfeld: �For th

e most

part, its

blood, misc

hief and ro

le playing that g

amers revel in

. They

live in

an alternativ

e universe, a so

lipsis

tic one sc

ripted by

designers w

hose frame of re

ference extends no fu

rther b

ack than Pong,

Pac-Man and Dungeons a

nd Dragons. The visu

al and storylin

e tropes th

at

most of u

s brin

g with us a

s cultu

ral baggage are� all b

ut forgotte

n

ancestral m

emories, t

hrown off, on purpose, to

o cumbersome to

be of

any use.� In th

is new world

that a

ppears indiffe

rent to hist

ory, with

only halls of fa

me for it

s champions, c

hronicles of it

s big battle

s

and charts of it

s greatest h

its, accountin

g for h

ow this d

igital

gamespace came into being presents s

omething of a challe

nge. Perhaps

it is b

est to approach it

in its own sty

le, as a se

ries o

f levels,

each of which appears t

o the gamer o

n battling th

rough to th

e end of

the last. If o

ne is defeated, one sta

rts over. B

ut remember: t

hese are

the grind levels.

The going is hard here, even a lit

tle borin

g. You

may need to atte

mpt it m

ore than once. In

gamespace, time is

measured

in discrete and consta

nt units,

and while one cannot always w

in a

level, one can always s

tart over a

nd do it again.

052.�Click to sta

rt. Here is

a new world. The fir

st level o

pens onto a

topic (from th

e Greek �topos�, or place). H

ere a topic is

a place both

on the ground and with

in language. Jacques D

errida: �The th

emes, the

topics, the (common-)p

laces, in a rh

etorical se

nse, are strictly

inscribed, comprehended each tim

e within a sig

nificant si

te.� One can

place one�s foot o

n a topic because one can place one�s to

ngue on it.

Or one can point to

ward it and sa

y: �there it is��. A

ll around th

e

topic it is d

ark, unknown, unmapped, with

out storie

s. Move around a

bit and you bump into others,

from other tr

ibes, other se

ttlements.

Via others one learns o

f still o

thers. The to

pics start t

o connect. A

map form

s. Once th

ere is a m

ap, there is

the topographic, w

hich traces

lines th

at connect the to

pics, and which doubles th

e topical w

ith th

e

space of maps a

nd texts.

These outline th

e contours in sp

ace and time

of what w

as the to

pical, redrawing and re

writing it a

s a contin

uous

and homogenous plane. The lin

es of th

e topic are tra

ced into the page;

the lines o

n the page are tra

ced back onto the earth

as topography.

History is

a story and geography an im

age of this t

opography, in which

the boundaries a

re forever b

eing expanded and redrawn. This p

lay

between th

e topical and to

pographic is the fir

st level.

053.�In the fir

st level, e

very topical fe

ature that re

sists inscriptio

n as

a continuous space is erased and re

placed. Impassable m

ountains yield

their passages, jo

ining once separate topics. Every recalcitra

nt

people with its

own indigenous topos is exterm

inated and forgotte

n.

James Fenimore Cooper: �

In a short tim

e there will b

e no remains of

these extraordinary people, in

those regions in which th

ey dwelt for

centuries, but th

eir names.� The names persist, o

n maps, or in books

with tit

les like The Last o

f the Mohicans. The fir

st level is

this

dissolution of th

e topical in

to the to

pographic, where an oral lo

re is

erased and replaced by inscriptio

n: Lines on maps, lines on pages;

lines that evolve fro

m trail to

rail. The fir

st level is

where the

topographic unfolds as the lin

e between what is

charted and what is

uncharted. (S

ee Fig. 3) The storyline dwells between th

e autonomy of

the topical and th

e authority of th

e topographical, a

lways lagging

behind.

054.�In the cinema, m

apping and writing meet. T

he emergence of the

topographic and its stru

ggle to subsume th

e topical becomes th

e great

theme of western genre, above all o

f the director Jo

hn Ford. Jimmy

Stewart, the fro

ntier lawyer, b

ringing th

e wild west to book, ru

ns up

against the outlaw gunslinger Lee Marvin. W

hen Stewart shoots him in a

showdown, Stewart becomes a legend, and a senator. O

nly it was Jo

hn

Wayne, the honorable outlaw, w

ho really fired the fatal shot. In

The

Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, cinema functio

ns as the form that can

reveal retro

spectively the workings of topography, its

creation of a

storyline that justifie

s the impositio

n of the thin blue lin

e of the

law. The completion of th

e topographic is the subject of film noir.

Here the topographic has connected all of space in a loose network,

and one cannot run beyond the fro

ntier to escape it.

One escapes

within, lo

oking for ill-lit

, interstiti

al topics, lik

e the rail yards

and wholesale markets of Jules Dassin�s Thieves Highway. Here, on the

�wrong side of the tra

cks� there is still a space for ill

icit desire,

and an escape from boredom.

055.�What closes the frontier fo

r free action is the enclosure of th

e space

of movement w

ithin a space of communication. The line splits

, into one

that moves objects and subjects, and another, fa

ster one that moves

information, th

e line of te

lesthesia, of the telegraph then

telephone. In High Noon, Sheriff

Gary Cooper learns through the

telegraph that his lawless nemesis arrives on the midday tra

in. In The

Naked City, this power of te

lesthesia � perception at a distance � is

everywhere. The police, forensics, th

e coroner are all brought

together via the switch board operator, enabling and overcoming a

division of labor w

ith the telephone, and compacting space into a

temporal event. We see the policeman make a call, t

he operator making

the connection, and the call being answered. Telesthesia allows the

speeding up and coordination of movement along all o

ther lines,

setting the railw

ay timetables by which vast armies of goods or

soldiers may be mobilized. Telesthesia makes possible the completion

of topographic space, where vast te

rritories are coordinated within

the bounds of the lin

e. As telesthesia develops, from telegraph to

telephone to television to telecommunications, topographic space

deepens and hardens, but always with gaps and exclusions. Film Noir

dwells in a gap between the free act in

an unmarked space and the

imposition of th

e line. You can run but you can�t hide.

056.�Eventually, even the out of the way topic within the topographic is

mapped and storied. In Dassin�s Night and the City, m

ade in political

exile in London, the whole of space has become telegraphic. There is

no escape. This completes the first le

vel. Topology begins when the

topical ceases to have any autonomy, when the line along which

communication flows closes the gap between map and territo

ry. The open

frontier is enclosed in a field of calculation. History and geography

cease to dwell between the topical and the topographical, always

rushing to keep up. History and geography are subsumed within a

topology, which tends towards a continuous field of equivalent and

exchangeable values, instantly communicable everywhere. Where the

topical was once bounded within the lines of the topographical, it

is

now connected along the lines of the topological. The fixed geometry

of topography gives way to the variable forms of to

pology, in which

the lines connecting points together lend themselves to transformation

without rupture fro

m one shape to another. The storyline of outward

movement is complete; the gamespace of interior play commences.

Welcome to the second level.

057.�Film Noir comes to an end when it is no longer possible to im

agine

anything great but evil lurking out of bounds. If s

omething passes

undetected for any length of time it is

because it has no value. The

era of the great openly declared villains is over. In

topological

times, the bad guys pass as normal or corrupt th

e law. Cinema as the

machine for imagining the open space outside the line is consigned to

the past. Topology announces its new ambitions through radio and

particularly television, a signal for everywhere and nowhere,

potentially interested in anyone or anywhere, a Candid Camera. The key

genres for working out the subsumption of th

e topographic into the

topological are the situation comedy and the game show. On a game

show, anyone can be taken out of everyday life and brought into the

magic circle of television; on a sitcom, television can extend itself

to the everyday life familiar to

the average viewer, anywhere. Sitcom

and game show announce the coming of a topology in which all of space

might be doubled simultaneously, without lag, by lines of image, lin

es

of sound, which as yet still broadcast out of central nodes. The lines

run only one way and indiscriminately, but incorporates anyone and

anything of value. What is excluded, from its point of view, has no

value. The romance of the outsider is dead.

058.�What completes topology and prepares it for the next � unknown � level

is when the line splits again, into analog and digital. The analog

lines of radio and telephone and television give way to digital

lines, which reach back to the precedent of the telegraph, but extend

its digital code to an increasingly flexible and all embracing web of

communication lines. Gradually, the digital extends and expands to the

whole of telesthesia. The internet incorporates text, sound, images,

then moving images. The cyberspace of the internet becomes mobile and

portable and turns into the cellspace of mobile telephony. This

combination of the speed of telesthesia with the digital code is what

makes possible a vast and inclusive topology of gamespace. This is the

third level: The world of topology is the world of The Cave�. Any and

every space is a network of lines, pulsing with digital data, on which

players act and react. In work and play, it is

not the novel, not

cinema, not television that offers the line within which to grasp the

form of everyday life, it is the game. Julian Dibbell: ��in the

strange new world of immateriality toward which the engines of

production have long been driving us, we can now at last make out the

contours of a more familiar realm of the insubstantial -- the realm of

games and make believe.�

059.�If the novel, cinema or television can reveal through their

particulars an allegory of the world that makes them possible, the

game reveals something else. For the reader, the novel produces

allegory as something textual. The world of possibility is the play of

the linguistic sign. For the cineaste, the world of possibility is a

play of light and shade. For the gamer, the game produces allegory as

something algorithmic. The world of possibility is the world internal

to the algorithm. So: a passage from the topic to the topographic,

mediated by the novel; a passage from the topographic to the

topological, mediated by television; a passage, mediated by the game,

from the topological to as yet unknown spaces, a point where the gamer

seems to be stuck. Is it really the case that the gamer merely revels

in blood mischief and role playing? Or is there a deeper understanding

of the cave that can be had from gaming within it?

060.�Start over with another new world. (This time with a little gamer

theory.) Welcome to the first level: The novel is a line of a certain

type, which opens towards certain possibilities, a storyline. It

arises at the moment when topic gives way to topography. For Georg

LukÆcs, what is to be valued is the historical novel and its ability

to trace a line across an historical moment and reveal the forces at

work in it. �It is the portrayal of the broad living basis of

historical events in their intricacy and complexity, in their manifold

interaction with acting individuals.� The historical novel shows

historical events through secondary characters, perhaps not unlike the

reader, and an historical event as being at the same time a

transformation of everyday life. And yet the novel suffers from this

paradox: To illuminate the topographic, the novel has to hide its own

form. If it explores the possibilities of the line within its pages it

opens itself to a �formalism� that leaves the reader behind.

061.�The first level continues: Cinema is a line of a certain type, which

opens towards certain possibilities, an illumination of the dark

corners of topography. For Walter Benjamin, what is to be valued is

the �optical unconscious�, cinema�s machinic vision of a world that is

itself machined with a dense grid of lines. Cinema can expand or

shrink space, extend or compress time, it can cut together images of

diverse scales or forms � intimations of topology. It creates a

�Spielraum�, a playroom, for dividing up the machine world otherwise.

Contra LukÆcs, Benjamin opens towards the formal properties of the

line at the expense of its representation of an historical situation

as a totality. But what doesn�t change is that the spectator, like the

reader, is external to the line itself. Cinema can show how the world

is made through its cuts and montages, an industrial process with the

unique quality of showing itself as works. Yet there is still a

separation between those making the cinema and those watching it.

062.�The first level ends: The novel languishes. Cinema fails to realize

its allegorical potential. Guy Debord: �But this life and this cinema

are both equally paltry; and that is why you could actually exchange

one for the other with indifference.� Boredom reigns.

063.�The second level begins: Radio is a line of a certain type, which

opens towards certain possibilities. For Brecht, what is to be valued

in it is a certain unrealized potential for the line to point both

ways: �Radio is one-sided and it should be two. It is purely an

apparatus for distribution, for mere sharing out. So here is a

positive suggestion: change this apparatus over from distribution to

communication. The radio would be the finest possible communication

apparatus in public life, a vast network of pipes. That is to say, it

would be if it knew how to receive as well as transmit, how to let the

listener speak as well as hear, how to bring him into a relationship

instead of isolating him.� Radio could be like a public telephony.

But it is all analog flow; it lacks a digital code. It radiates from

one point to every other, without distinction. It lacks the

transformational geometry of topology, where any three specific points

could be connected, anywhere, and still make the same �triangle�

connecting sender and receiver and the third �line� � telesthesia

itself. 064.�The second level continues. Television expands the line of radio, but

does it add much to it? Does it yield much by way of a space of

possibility? Fredric Jameson: �The blockage of fresh thinking before

this solid little window against which we strike our heads being not

unrelated to precisely that whole or total flow we observe through

it.� Television generalizes the line of communication as an analog

flow. The digital has not yet prevailed.

065.�The second level ends: The tension between the topographic and

topological is also one between a declining sphere of representation,

will and interest, and one of a new topos that is statistical,

digital, simulated � algorithmic. The topographic is incomplete. It

can project its lines across space and annihilate time, but it cannot

effectively mark or measure out the space it encloses. It has some

feeble mechanisms � the opinion poll, for example. Through the

laborious means of seeking out and recording opinion, topological

space can be given the appearance of agency. Jean Baudrillard: �It is,

paradoxically, as a game that the opinion polls recover a sort of

legitimacy. A game of the undecideable; a game of chance� Perhaps we

can see here the apparition of one of these collective forms of the

game that Caillois called alea � an irruption into the polls

themselves of a ludic, aleatory process, an ironic mirror for the use

of the masses.�

066.�The third level begins. Where the topographic develops one dimension

of telegraphy � its flow of information across space � the topological

develops the other � its intricate coding and addressing. Where the

topographic is an analog flow; the topological is the digital divide.

It is a line of a another type. It is a line that, for a brief,

burning moment, reignited the dreams of a new topos. But the cycle

accelerates. If it took twenty years to get from Brecht or Benjamin�s

optimism to Debord�s boredom, the same cycle in net time took perhaps

five years. Geert Lovink: §Cyberspace at the dawn of the 21st century

can no longer position itself in a utopian void of seamless

possibilities.§ What topology yields is not a cyberspace but a

gamespace. The idea of cyberspace is still too linked to images from

the world of radio and television, of flow and �seamless� movement, of

access and excess, of lines running anywhere and everywhere. Topology

is experienced more as a gamespace than a cyberspace: full of

restrictions and hierarchies, firewalls and passwords. It is more like

a bounded game than a free space of play. Once again: if it is free,

it is valueless. Those odd lines within topology where anything goes

are the ones of no consequence.

067.�The third level continues. Games have storylines like the historical

novel, which arc from beginning to end. Games have cinematic cut

scenes, pure montages of attraction. Games subsume the lines of

television just as television subsumed cinema and cinema the novel.

But they are something else as well. They are not just an allegory but

a double form, an allegory and an allegorithm. Appearances within the

game double an algorithm which in turn simulates an unknown algorithm

which produces appearances outside the game.

068.�Stuck again. Start over. Another new world. Welcome to the first

level. Let�s loop back to LukÆcs, and ask: rather that insist on the

possibilities of the technicity of the line itself, perhaps there�s something to be said for the possibilities of a certain genre that makes use of it? Bonus points! Skip straight to the third level: The strategy game is a genre of a certain type within a line of a certain type, which opens towards certain possibilities. Click on the Government pull down menu and choose Revolution. Your Republic turns to Anarchy. Certain parameters shift. You are playing Sid Meier�s Civilization III. It is not so much an allegory for world history as an allegorithm for gamespace itself. Everything here is a relation between quantifiable processes. Everything is a question of the allocation of resources. There�s a perverse sense of base and superstructure. You can change the form of Government but there�s not much you can do to change the underlying form of production. Invest in science and qualitative technical changes accumulate, which in turn expand military, cultural and political possibilities. Invest in culture to keep the plebs from revolting. Interestingly, civil disorder comes from below, but revolutions come from above, but these are just two functions within an algorithm: a small variable with a big effect; a big variable with a small effect. 069.�Gamespace turns descriptions into a database, and storyline into navigation. Sid Meier, known as a voracious reader, turns history and anthropology books into strategy games. Civilization III even comes with its own Civilopedia, a reference work for to a parallel world. But this is more than the remediation of old forms into new. Rather, the algorithm consumes the topographic and turns it into the topological. In the database, all description is numerical, equivalent in form. In principle everything within it can be related to or transformed into everything else. A new kind of symmetry operates. The navigation of the database replaces a narration via description. The database expands exponentially. Rather than a politics of allegory, an economics of allegorithm operates, selecting and reducing possibilities. 070.�This is how the world appears to a gamer playing Civilization III: There are dependent and independent variables. Gamers, through trial and error, will work out which are which. They change over time. In the first stage, you explore, pushing back the inky black shroud to make a map. Then you grow the population, a vast army of farmers and

miners. You have to maximize useable space. Once your continent fills

up with cities and their hinterlands, expansion becomes qualitative

rather than quantitative. It�s all about knowledge and technology. The

quality of warfare changes along the way. It expands in space, digs

deeper into reserves of resources, then becomes a qualitative race for

bigger and better lines along which power can reticulate. The gamer is

a manager, confronting uncertainly with an inventory of resources.

It�s a hard game to win at first, but after you have beaten it, you

play it again, and again. Glen Fuller: �It has a complex array of

logics for warding off boredom.� It draws the gamer�s attention not to

the storyline but to the combinations of elements from which any

given storyline might be selected. 071.�In Civilization III, time is essentially of a piece. It is homogenous,

empty, but it can be divided into equivalent units, just like space.

Thus time can be configured and reconfigured, producing endless

variations on the cascading sequences of cause and effect. History is

indeed absent from the game, absent as something finished, as a

storyline in the past tense. What replaces it is a history workshop, a

model of history as the intuition of algorithms and their

consequences. The gamer is a designer. Designers, like all managers,

operate within given limits. This is how the world appears to the game

designer: There are dependent and independent variables. Designers,

through trial and error, will work out which are which. They will

choose cultural, business and technical options that maximize long

term advantages. If it doesn�t work out, they will do it over. Time is

essentially of a piece. It is homogenous, but it can be divided into

equivalent units, just like space. Civilization III models not so much

�civilization�, as the game design business, which in turn models

gamespace, or topology as it presently exists.

072.�This is how the world appears to gamer theory: Seen from the point of

view of topology, with its dense databases and navigating tools, the

topical world with its loosely connected topics was a world of limited

data and few possibilities. Transformations of one thing into another

were purely magical. The topographic � and telegraphic � flattened out

the differences between topics while describing them in much more

detail. A tension arises between enriched description and the poverty

of storyline, bursting to contain it. The expansion of description

nevertheless opened towards allegory. Accumulations of images burst

out of their storyline bounds. It opened towards a politics of

allegory, of the writing and mapping of the world, and also towards

utopia, arresting the flux of the world in ideal form. Topology closes

the frontiers of space within its lines, and expands the dataset

again, but by reducing data to equivalent calculable points, it is

able to break with storyline as principle of temporal order, replacing

it with the algorithm. Storyline becomes gamespace.

073.�Strategy games such as Civilization III presents an allegorithm of

topology as gamespace and the gamer as its manager. It subsumes the

text, audio, images and movies into the database, while the algorithm

calculates the moves of all its elements relative to the gamer. It

collapses the difference between the everyday and the utopian. It

embraces all differences by rendering all of space and time as being

quantifiable. Topical times resound with the myth of the tactician.

Topographic times inscribe stories of grand directors of strategy.

Topological times call for managers of strategy. History appears,

retrospectively, as not only the expanding frontier of war�s theatre,

but also its qualitative transformation. It is the unwinding of a line

which divides everything into manageable chunks of data. The actual

disposition of resources is doubled by a database which maps not fixed

locations but measures of fungibility. The algorithm can produce every

possible combination of the resources mapped in the database � and a

few impossible ones as well. The possible and the actual reverse

positions. It is the possible that is real. If the algorithm can

produce it as an outcome from the database, it exists. The mystery is

why the recalcitrant debris that litters the actual sometimes refuses

to get out of the way. This insistence on the reality of the possible,

on what resides within resources, is the American dream.

074.�Finally, the next level appears: the expansion of topology outwards,

beyond America, to make America equivalent to all of time and space.

America itself, as a construct, as a structure of feeling, is always

only available via particular mediating lines, which may do more than

merely represent a pre-existing America. The form of the line may

itself participate in the creation of America. There may well be an

America that resides successively in the novel, in the cinema, in

television and the game, and is shaped by each. Each, in turn,

presents history itself as a passing on of memory from one form to

another. Civilization III recapitulates not only world history but

media history. It�s ambition is not only to embrace the recording of

the world but the world of recording. In Civilization III, the

transformation of space and time, from topic to topography to

topology, is an effect of the development of the lines with which to

mark and manage it. This double development, which at one and the same

time deepens and proliferates lines of the possible and the actual,

can be called America. It is what is both desired and feared under the

rubric of that name, which no longer marks a particular topic, but

stands for the very capacity to mark and manage space itself, as

topology. 075.�The line makes its way across the world, making it by marking it. The

line passes across valleys, pages, mountains, rivers, tracing trails,

roads, railways, highways, doubling itself with telegraph, television,

telecommunications, doubling itself again as the code of the letter

migrates from text to telegraph and explodes into the myriad lines of

the digital. The line makes topics, maps them into the topographic,

then folds the topographic into a digital topology. The line does

something else as well. For every line drawn are an infinite number

undrawn. Every line is an allegory of the possibilities for a line of

its type. The line may also intimate the possibilities of lines of

another type. But the possibilities of a given type of line are not

infinite. Allegory always touches the virtual � which one might define

as the possibility of possibility � via a particular line. At each

level of the actual unfolding of the line across the world, it offers

a glimpse of the virtual in its own image. This is the limit to

allegory. If allegory yearns for something ahistorical, a topos beyond

all particulars, it does so over and over in the most particular and

mediated way.Analog (on Katamari Damacy)

�

Fig.4 076.�Sisyphus, founder of Corinth, father of Odysseus, founder of the

Ismithian Games, is best know for a most cruel and unusual punishment,

meted out to him by the Gods. He was to roll a huge stone up the

mountainside, watch helplessly as it rolled back down again, and then

start all over again. Nobody knows what he did that required such a

punishment. Perhaps it was for revealing the designs of the Gods to

mortals. Revealing the forms beyond the mere particulars of mortal

life would, in topical times, be a serious crime. Or perhaps, more

prosaically, it was for his habit of murdering seafarers and

travelers. Topical space, where each law, each God, is bordered by

zones of indifference, would surely be troubled by such a

transgression of the rules of �xenia�, of the gift one owes to

strangers. Anne Carson: �The characteristic features of xenia, namely

its basis in reciprocation and its assumption of perpetuity, seem to

have woven a texture of personal alliances that held the ancient world

together.� Or so it was in topical times.

077.�In topographic times, Sisyphus is a hero. He revels in this new world

from which the Gods and their intangible forms have fled and a great

industrial engine usurps their place. The task of Sisyphus becomes

everyone�s labor: pointless, repetitive, endless, shoulder to the

wheel of fortune. There are no longer any lawless spaces. There are no

gaps between topics. All of space is within the law. There are no more

border zones where indifference prevails. Certainly it gets much

harder to get away with murdering travelers. But in topographic times,

it is time itself that is not quite so completely subordinated to

rules, to ends, to purposes. There is a limit to the working day, and

even within the working day, not every second is called to account.

Albert Camus: �I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One

always finds oneƒs burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher

fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that

all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him

neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral

flake of that night filled mountain, in itself forms a world.� The

topical Sisyphus played fast and loose with the gaps of space, between

the topics; the topographic Sisyphus played in the gaps of time, and

exploited those gaps to turn everything to account for himself alone.

078.�Where is Sisyphus now? Using the analog sticks on the game controller,

you move a little character who rolls a ball called a Katamari. The

game is called Katamari Damacy. (see fig. 4) The name translates

roughly as �clump spirit�, which might in turn translate as �analog�.

As the Katamari ball rolls, things stick to it. At first it is small

things that stick, household items picked up off the living room

floor. The ball gets bigger as things stick, and so it can pick up

bigger things. Once your ball is big enough, you move out of the

house and into the world. To move the ball, you twizzle the little

analog joysticks. Push the sticks forward, and the character rolls the

ball forward. Pull the sticks back and the character rolls the ball

back. Turn left, turn right � it feels as though the variable pressure

on the sticks translates into variable movements. This is analog � a

relation of continuous variation. Only it isn�t really. It is a

digital game. The game converts the continuous movement of your thumbs

on the sticks into a digital code. It turns movements into decisions �

back/forwards, left/right, stop/start. An algorithm calculates the

outcome of each movement. If you roll your ball over a small object,

you pick it up. If you roll your ball over one that is too big, you

collide with it, throwing off a few things you have already gathered.

Analog spirit becomes digital code.

079.�All games are digital. Without exception. They all come down to a

strict decision: out or in, offside or onside, goal or no goal.

Anything else is just �play�. Game studies scholar Jesper Juul: �The

affinity between computers and games is one of the ironies of human

history.� But not at all surprising. From the start, games were a

proto-computer � machines assembled out of human motion, inanimate

materials and the occasional dubious call by the referee � to make a

decision, a yes or a no. Sisyphus � founder of the Ismithian games �

is condemned to a useless labor which is at the same time useless

play, in that it cannot bring about a decision. The rock he rolls

never crosses a line. It rolls right past the notional top of the

mountain, and overshoots the bottom of its own momentum. But in

Katamari Damacy, things are different. Rather than the rolling of the

ball being entirely useless, now it is entirely purposeful. Time, like

space, no longer harbors indifference. Brenda Laurel: ��even the

smallest fragments of your idle time have been colonized...�. As you

roll your ball around, making it bigger and bigger, an icon in the

corner of the screen shows your progress. The icon shows your ball as

a circle inside a larger one, which is the size it must grow to if you

are to win this level. It grows, gradually, incrementally, but at some

point � a decision. Big enough! An analog progression stops at the

digital threshold.

080.�Here is a version of the Katamari myth: You are a Prince send down to

earth by a careless King who in a moment of boredom got drunk and

destroyed the heavens. The Katamari balls you roll up are offerings to

him. If your ball is big enough he replaces one of the stars in the

sky he trashed with it. The King then sets for the Prince the task of

rolling up a bigger one. Perhaps this storyline is an allegory for the

relation that holds now between the analog and the digital. The

twizzling of the sticks on the controller, the rolling up of the balls

on the screen, is the task demanded by gamespace, and which gamespace

can only recognize by rewarding the gamer with a score. Topology, with

its endless, intricate lines � wireless, satellite, fiber optic �

turns anything and everything into a meaningless smear of data.

Gamespace installs itself in topology to reduce that smear to a

decision, a yes, a no, a straight line, and to convey back to the

gamer the result of the gamer�s actions. The analog is now just a way

of experiencing the digital. The decision on whether something can

appear or not appear is digital. You and your character the Prince are

confined to the analog, rolling from topic to topic. The King commands

the digital heavens. He decides what point in the sky each ball is to

occupy. 081.�In the myth of Sisyphus the task is to roll the ball to the top

without quite knowing where the top is. There�s no mark, no point, no

code. Sisyphus pushes the ball up, but it either falls short or falls

over the unmarked peak, and rolls back down again. In the myth of

Katamari there is no such ambiguity. Each threshold is clearly marked.

The analog movement of rolling the ball, continuously increasing its

size, takes place within the given limits of the digital. There is an

exact mark at which it flips from being too small to just the right

size. The reign of topology subordinates the analog to the digital.

Where once analog and digital maintained an ambiguous and continuous �

analog � relation to each other and to the world, the digital now

distinguishes itself sharply from the analog, subsuming the analog

difference under the digital distinction. This is a transformation not

merely in forms of communication or entertainment, not even in forms

of power or of topos, but a change in being itself. The digital

appears, finally, to install topology in the world � only in the

process it has installed the world within topology. In Katamari

Damacy, the world is just stuff, there for the clumping. It is King

Digital�s decision on its name, size and place in the heavens that

gives it being.

082.�The screen in Katamari Damacy shows a clock in the corner, an old-

fashioned analog clock with a sweeping hand. The game is an

allegorithm of a double process, by which the analog movements of the

gamer are transformed into the digital, but also of how the digital

decisions of the game are expressed to the gamer in a familiar analog

form. Gamespace subordinates all of time and space to the digital.

Paul Virilio: �... space had been measured, mapped, time has become

clock time, the diversity of relief, of topography, gave way to

topology...�. In topographic times the clock tower showed its face to

the town over which it presided; now time is blinking digits, seen

anywhere and everywhere. Just check your cellphone. The hands of the

analog clock turn time into movement in space, reducing it to line

that rotates on a plane. The digital clock substitutes one coded sign

for another, at fixed intervals, drawing each from an abstract space

where all the signs of the code exist simultaneously. All of time

becomes a series of discrete, equivalent and interchangeable units. At

each interval, time can be arrested and made to yield a number. Where

the analog temporalized space, now the digital spatializes time.

083.�Twist the sticks on the controller and on the screen the Prince turns

the ball. Roll the ball and it gradually grows as it picks up things.

The icon in the corner grows as the ball grows. One movement doubles

another. The icon records, in this measuring continuum, how several

movements, operating together, produce a transformation. It tracks the

movement of rolling the ball, a movement that continuously transforms

itself out of itself. The analog is all about relations. The digital

is all about boundaries. The digital does not follow a moving line, it

imposes a grid of lines which function as thresholds. The line at

which the ball is deemed big enough is imposed by King Digital. In the

analog, difference is a productivity in excess of itself; in the

digital, distinction is a negation that comes from without. Roll the

ball as much as you like, but unless is reaches the size King Digital

demands within the time He allows, you fail � and are subjected to His

lofty disdain. This is the limit to movement that appears time and

time again.

084.�The analog is variation along a line, a difference of more � and less.

The digital is divided by a line, a distinction between either/or.

Either the ball clumps enough stuff be a star or it doesn�t. The

analog may vary along more than one line at once, producing the

appearance of a qualitative difference. The digital introduces a code,

which may produce complex relations among its terms, but all the terms

are separated by the same line of absolute distinction. All the

Katamari balls that are big enough become stars, each with its own

name and location, but all are points in the same heavens. In this

digital cosmos, everything is of the same substance. Nothing is really

qualitatively different. A cow, a car, your cousin: each has its shape

and color, but in the end its all the same, just stuff. In Katamari

Damacy it is mostly consumer stuff, but this goes far beyond a

critique of the commodity. Topology can make infinite digital

distinctions. It is all just bits and all bits are equivalent. The

digital separates everything into discrete segments by imposing a

universal code that allows anything to be connected to anything else �

topology � but prevents anything from ever being different. The cosmos

of difference is what King Digital has lost, and what he commands his

gamer Prince to replace with a cosmos composed of distinctions.

085.�The analog may move backwards or forwards along a line, or even track

movement across three or more dimensions, but only with the imposition

of the digital code is it possible to cut the terms bounded by the

digital line and rearrange them. Rather than an analog movement

through space and time, the digital opens the possibility of jumping

between points in a three dimensional space in which terms are arrayed

along different axes and are drawn together via the code. Rather than

a continuous line moving out from a point into a three dimensional

space, one imagines rather a three dimensional space of fixed points,

which can be called upon by the code to make up a straight line of

distinct units. Because it is digital, the game can be �saved�. After

you have successfully rolled a ball, you can save it. Saving takes

place at the digital threshold. The digital creates a time that can be

saved by making all of time equivalent. It is a time without violence.

What is saved does not suffer from erosion or decomposition or decay.

It always comes back as the same � unless the system crashes, and the

digital can no longer impose its code � in which case it may never

come back at all. The digital cosmos is more perfect, yet so much more

fragile.

086.�As the Prince rolls bigger and bigger balls, he gets to play in a

bigger and bigger topos. The game starts inside an apartment, then

moves on to the town and finally to the world. This stepping up

through bigger and bigger scales repeats the stepping up through the

scales of the topical, the topographic and the topological of which

the game is an allegorithm. What gives the game its charm is the

seemingly ridiculous idea that a ball of household items could be a

star. Even more odd: the last and largest ball replaces the smallest

heavenly body � a mere moon. But this is of a piece with the ways of

topology. In topological times, it is not just that the digital now

operates on a planetary scale. It is that it operates across scales,

connecting the infinitesimal to the gigantic. The tiniest switch of

electric current can launch a cruise missile.

087.�King Digital destroyed the heavens, in a moment of boredom, in a fit

of indifference. This is the danger of topology. Indifference is no

longer something that lurks m

erely in the margins of space or tim

e.

Having been squeezed more and m

ore to the margin of both space and

time, rather than disappearing, indifference threatens to becom

e

total, pervasive, imm

anent. The Prince is what the Prince has achieved

� a level, a number, and nothing but. Julian Stallabrass: �� em

otional

attachment to the gam

e is established through labor, emerging out of

the Sisyphean nature of the player�s task.� For all his laid back

style, King Digital makes a terrible dem

and, as appalling as that made

of Sisyphus by the Gods. He comm

ands the gamer to the gam

e, but

promises nothing but victory until defeat. The only reward is that the

very time itself that the gam

er comm

its to the task will make the task

worthwhile. The digital object exists in a space which chunks it into

bits, each of equivalent value. The digital subject exists in a time

which chunks it into bits, each of equivalent value.

088.�Digital object, digital subject � these are byproducts of a boredom

that, seeking respite from nothingness, projects its lines across all

space and time, turning it into com

modity space and m

ilitary space.

This is the reckless act of creation with which Katamari Dam

acy begins

� the King�s destruction of the mythic heaven of the old Gods, and the

project of replacing it by comm

anding the transformation of a hum

an,

analog movem

ent into an airless matrix of m

achine code. This is the

new task of Sisyphus. Gamespace is always and everywhere the

imposition of the digital as a way of laying an invisible hand on the

world � or an all too visible fist. Where the invisible hand opens its

digits to calculate what it may gain, the invisible fist closes them

to calculate what it may claim

.

089.�The military industrial com

plex developed photography, radar, radio �

all the lines of analog telesthesia � as the means of m

easuring and

controlling its forces. This development reached a lim

it, and its

forces exceeded its capacity to manage them

. Digital telesthesia �

starting perhaps with the SAGE computer system

of the 1950s � emerged

as the means of com

mand, control and com

munication. Paul Edwards: �For

SAGE set the key pattern for other high-technology weapon systems, a

nested set of increasingly comprehensive m

ilitary enclosures for

global oversight and control.� The theory of the digital, and of its

distinction from the analog, em

erges as a byproduct of this attempt at

self-control by the military industrial com

plex, but it transformed

the complex into som

ething else. The expansive movem

ent of the

military m

achine calls into being a code that can monitor and m

anage

it. The analog begets the digital, but only produces the concept of

the analog after the fact. Anthony Wilden: �Obviously, without the

digital, we could not speak of the analog.� Without the recognition

of the ball as a putative star, it cannot be named. The m

ilitary

entertainment com

plex emerges out of the control of the analog by the

digital, of the military and industrial production lines by the

digital lines of comm

and, and by the extension of the digital to all

aspects of everyday life.

090.�Without the analog, play leaves no trace. W

ithout the digital, play

yields no score. Neither analog nor digital is play itself. But what

can one say about play? Play is what has to be posited for there to be

anything for either the analog or the digital to track, and yet play

is an elusive concept at best. Brian Sutton-Smith: �W

e all play

occasionally, and we all know what play feels like. But when it comes

to making theoretical statem

ents about what play is, we fall into

silliness.� Perhaps the very concept of play appears only

retrospectively. Obviously, without the analog and the digital, we

could not speak of play, even as play exceeds the analog line along

which it is traced and the digital line across which it is measured.

Via the analog, play is captured in art; via the digital, play is

captured in games. The analog flattens play out into a single line, so

that its movem

ent may continue, in reduced form

, into another space.

The play of the fingers on the controller is recorded via the graphic

art on the screen. The analog enables a movem

ent to comm

unicate from

topos to topos. The digital codifies play, translating it onto the

very different space of number and logic � of code.

091.�Which cam

e first, play or game? W

hich came first, m

oves or rules?

Sisyphus was interested in both navigation and comm

erce, at a time

when both still had a tenuous map of the spaces through which they

plied their ships and their trade. The rules emerged out of the m

oves.

Play produced what, after the fact, could be marked a transgression.

Sisyphus transgressed � either by killing another traveler, or perhaps

by seeking to know the rules of the Gods in advance. His punishment is

an eternal move which can never give rise to a gam

e, which yields no

end, no win, no recognition. Now the terms are reversed. Play does not

inspire the game; the gam

e animates play. Behind the subordination of

the analog to the digital is the subordination of play to game.

Tracing the line of the move, the play, m

atters less than the score it

yields, the threshold it crosses. King Digital makes quite the

opposite demand of the Prince to that m

ade of Sisyphus by the Gods.

The eternal task is no longer the move which can never cross the

finish line, it is the move which can do nothing but yield a m

easure,

a score, a number, a rank. Rather than play that can never end, it is

the game that stops, and starts, and stops, and starts, and stops, and

starts � forever.

092.�The terms analog and digital are invariably treated as if the relation

between the terms was itself a digital one. This in itself is a sign

of the times. These term

s are to be treated as discrete and absolutely

distinct, a code with two absolute terms. Any am

biguity or play which

might threaten to deconstruct the distinction is to be resolved with

distinctions of an ever finer resolution. This in turn leads to ever

more com

plexity in managing the proliferation of bits, which in turn

requires ever more powerful data crunching engines. The m

ilitary

entertainment com

plex discovers experimentally that if the relation

between the analog and the digital is digital, an absolute boundary,

then the domain of the digital can be perfected as one of purely

relative and numerical value � a gam

espace. This digital realm can

then become the locus for com

mand and control of the analog rem

ainder,

which it treats as a mere residue. The lines of the digital can be

inscribed ever more extensively and intensively on the world, to the

point where a digital heaven is realized, and the analog seems to

vanish, and play becomes a m

ere effect of the digital. The Analog

Prince only rolls the ball, steering this way and that, because King

Digital comm

ands it. And why does he comm

and it? To make the universe

over, to recreate being itself, as an effect of the digital as a

comm

and.

093.�The digital, once installed in the world, defeats the logic of the

storyline, within which the digital serves to make the analog

manifest, but does not control it. The novel, w

hich from Jam

es

Fenimore Cooper to W

illiam Gibson narrates the rise and fall of the

military industrial com

plex, uses the codes of language to follow a

series of movem

ents beyond language�s ken. The digital produces, not

just new kinds of m

edia, but a whole new

topos, in which the role and

rule of the line is reversed. One no longer follows a line to find

where it divides, one divides w

ith a line to make a distinction.

Storyline becomes gam

espace. The storyline that inaugurates the world

of Katamari Dam

acy is not a creation myth but a destruction m

yth. The

storyline�s last task is to erase itself and initiate the new

conditions of difference for gamespace. This task � like that of

Sisyphus � must be endlessly repeated.

094.�The digital, once installed in the world, accelerates the potential

for change, but for change always of the sam

e type. The Analog Prince

can roll up many things to m

ake his Katamari balls, but any difference

among these objects is lost. All that m

atters is their aggregation,

glomm

ed together as more and m

ore of the same. Likew

ise, the military

entertainment com

plex grids the earth so it may gird it, m

aking it

over in the image of its digital rulings, m

aking it amenable to the

imposition of a code of unam

biguous stratifications. Distinctions

proliferate wildly, beyond the sim

ple dichotomies of the topographic.

But these distinctions are always and everyw

here exchangeable

equivalents within the logistics of com

modity space and m

ilitary

space. Roll up more and m

ore balls, populate the heavens with a

veritable milky w

ay, but each is distinct from the other alw

ays in the

same w

ay. Drew M

ilne: �What once ventured forth as processual m

athesis

becomes the reified calculus of adm

inistration, a logic of numerical

sameness screened from

nihilistic relativity.�

095.�The digital emerges as m

ilitary, but achieves acceptance as

entertainment. J. C. Herz: �� m

ost of the technology that�s now used

in videogames had its origins in m

ilitary research. When you trace

back the patents, it�s virtually impossible to find an arcade or

console component that evolved in the absence of a Defense Departm

ent

grant.� The military versions of digital telesthesia m

ake the world

over as a military space, but the digital does not yet becom

e a

culture other than for a small band of specialists tied to the

military industrial com

plex. The coming together of the digital and

the entertainment com

modity inscribes the digital not just in space

and time, but in cultural perceptions of space and tim

e.

096.�The digital game is a very particular com

modity. It is not just the

usual store of entertaining representations transferred from analog

and mechanical reproduction to a digital form

. Rather, it makes the

digital itself into entertainment. The digital alw

ays addresses its

subject as a player, as a calculator and competitor w

ho has value only

in relation to a mark, a score. The digital inscribes gam

espace within

the subject itself. Gamespace m

akes topology seem like it could have,

if not meaning, then at least an algorithm

. Gamespace m

akes the

uploading of the world into topology seem

natural and inevitable. Yet

at the same tim

e it offers the digital in its purest form, w

here the

transformation of analog into digital is alw

ays consistent,

repeatable, in a word � fair. W

hile the game m

akes the digital seem

inescapable, its ambiguity is in the w

ay it also makes the digital

seem like it could be an alm

ost-utopian realm. The gam

e naturalizes

gamespace, and yet calls it to account as inadequate in its ow

n terms.

097.�The digital makes the analog itself appear as som

ething distinct. The

digital rules a line between analog and digital, m

aking their

ambiguous difference into a clear distinction. But perhaps, having

made the distinction appear, the perspective can be reversed, and the

digital can be perceived from the point of view

of its analog residue.

What m

ight emerge is rather the play betw

een the analog and the

digital. The digital might becom

e again the threshold that turns a

movem

ent into a break, rather than imposing the break on m

ovement. The

gamer as theorist m

ight look toward a transform

ation of what m

atters

within gam

espace, a turning away from

agon, distinction, decision, the

fatal either/or. After a while, it�s just no fun. Johan Huizinga: �And

undoubtedly the predominance of the agonistic principle does lead to

decadence in the long run.�

098.��I don�t play games�, says Keita Takahashi, designer of Katam

ari

Damacy. He is a sculptor. �I am

happy going through this game phase of

my life, w

here I can get paid and eat.� As the digital subsumes the

analog so too the designer subsumes the artist. The longing to return

to art as an analog pursuit � the trace of the hand in clay or paint �

may be in vain. But the artist w

ithin the designer may still inscribe

the analog in the heart of the digital as something irreducible. The

artist is now the one w

ho finds a new w

ay of trifling within the gam

e.

The artist outsider is dead, for there is no outside from w

hich to

signal back across the border. The limit to the gam

e has to be found

from w

ithin. The Analog Prince is the very figure of the artist in

topological times, w

ho plays gamely, tw

isting this way and that on the

controls, trying to get out into bigger and bigger spaces, but always

unable to escape gamespace.

099.�King Digital may rule in Katam

ari Damacy, but it is his subordinate,

the Prince, upon whose labors this digital topology is built. Not the

least of the charms of Takahashi�s w

ork is this foregrounding of the

labor the gamer perform

s. It is no longer labor as punishment for

defying the Gods. It is no longer absurd labor, performed consciously

and joyously in spite of the absence of the Gods. Topology installs,

in place of the absent Gods, King Digital, and his demand that, w

hile

labor is punishingly hard and absurdly pointless, it nevertheless has

its measure. Sisyphus, the Analog Prince, labors to roll up everything

in this world m

ade over under the mark of the digital and offer it up

for appraisal. What the digital has alw

ays wanted � to be the form

of

all forms � has com

e to pass. Our punishment for attem

pting to steal

those forms for our ow

n purposes is to labor endlessly to repeat them.

Katamari Dam

acy merely extends the atopia of the digital to the

heavens themselves.

100.�When the Prince succeeds in com

pleting a level, Katamari Dam

acy

rewards the gam

er with a cut scene, a short anim

ation about the

Hoshino family. They are cute but rather chunky, as if the digital had

already snapped them to its grid. The Hoshinos w

atch their astronaut

father Tomio as he begins his voyage to the M

oon. Tomioƒs m

ission has

to be cancelled because there is no Moon to w

hich to travel. The last

mission of the gam

e, Make the M

oon, requires the rolling up of most of

the objects on Earth, including the Hoshino family and their father�s

rocket. Once the Prince has restored the moon to the King�s

satisfaction, a final cut scene shows the Hoshino fam

ily � mother and

father, boy and girl, on the new M

oon. Having completed the

reconstruction of the cosmos as one of digital distinctions rather

than analog differences, a digital people find themselves already

there, already inhabiting the moon to w

hich Tomio w

as to travel. There

is no need to travel � that great pastime of topographic tim

es. Now

there�s no place to go which is not subject to the sam

e code. The

reign of King Digital, the King of All Cosmos is com

plete.

Atopia (on Vice City)

��

Fig. 5 101.�It�s like paradise here. Everything seem

s pastel-hued as you drive by,

with the radio on. The car is stolen, but so long as the police didn�t

see you, it won�t m

atter. You don�t really have to be anywhere or do

anything. The hotels and condos are comfortable and discreet. If you

need money, m

ug someone. The body m

akes a satisfyingly squishy sound

when you kick it. There are adventures. You get to m

eet some

interesting people. It is a city of gangsters, hustlers and honeys.

It�s all tourism, drugs, guns, cars and personal services. Nobody

makes anything, except m

aybe �ice cream�, porn and counterfeit m

oney.

Everybody buys, sells or steals. Vice City is a nice place. It is not

quite utopia. And nor is it some dark dystopia. There�s no storyline

here, where paradise turns nasty, in w

hich the telling early detail

turns out to be a clue to the nightmare beneath the surface, the

severed ear of Blue Velvet. Without the possibility of dystopia,

there�s no utopia either. Terry Eagleton: §All utopian writing is also

dystopian, since, like Kantƒs sublime, it cannot help rem

inding us of

our mental lim

its in the act of striving to go beyond them.§ In Vice

City there is no �beyond�. As one would expect in a high end land of

vice, its offer is all inclusive.

102.�In gamespace, the very possibility of utopia is foreclosed. It is no

longer possible to describe a shining city upon the hill, as if it

were a special topic untouched by the everyday, w

orkaday world. No

space is sacred; no space is separate. Not even the space of the page.

The gamelike extends its lines everyw

here and nowhere. And yet, a pure

digital game like Vice City m

ight still perform som

e curious, critical

function. Why do so m

any choose to escape from their everyday

gamespace into � yet m

ore games? As the m

yriad lines of topology work

their way into space, space m

utates, and just as the allegorical

mom

ent changes from the topical to the topographic to the topological,

so too does the utopian mom

ent. One might think gam

espace via both

allegory (doubled as allegorithm) and utopia (m

utated into atopia).

One reveals which could be, the other announcing w

hat should be, both

shifting and realigning as the space around us changes what it w

ould

be. 103.�Utopia w

as a place to hide, where a topic could develop of its ow

n

accord, safe within the bounds of the book. There life could begin

again outside of conflict. Utopias do their best to expel violence. In

a utopian text there is always a barrier in space � distant and

difficult terrain; or a barrier in time � intervening revolutions or

Charles Fourier�s cycles of epochs. The real barrier is rather that

troublesome line that divides w

hat is on the page from w

hat is outside

it. Fredric Jameson: §I believe that w

e can begin from the proposition

that Utopian space is an imaginary enclave w

ithin real social space,

in other words, that the very possibility of Utopian space is itself a

result of spatial and social differentiation.� Only utopia�s enclave

was not im

aginary. It was tangible and m

aterial. Utopia was a place on

a page where violence is pushed to the m

argin by the power of sheer

description. Utopian socialist William

Morris: �Success in besting our

neighbors is a road to renown now

closed.�

104.�Utopia restricted itself to a particular topic � the topic of the

page, and particular line, the line of writing. (Fig. 5) The book is a

line: a trajectory, a connection through time and space w

ith certain

qualities. Among its qualities is the w

ay it partitions off the smooth

space of the page from the rough and tum

ble world w

ithout. It rules

off from the w

orld that special tempo w

here text plays its subtle

games against its reader. In a utopia, other lines of com

munication

are either nonexistent or subordinated to the descriptive power of the

text. Utopian comm

unist A. A. Bogdanov: §The plays were either

transmitted from

distant large cities by means of audio visual

devices, or -- more usually -- they w

ere cinematic reproductions of

plays performed long ago, som

etimes so long ago that the actors

themselves w

ere already dead.§ In this utopian Red Star, the new

lines extend and enhance those of the text, rather than supercede

them.

105.�It is not that utopias alone create gulags. Adolf Eichmann w

as no

utopian. He just kept the trains running on time � to the cam

ps. His

was a prosaic im

agination, making topography m

atch the text of his

orders. The lines for implem

enting that kind of violence are the

railway line, the telegraph line, and the line of punch cards passing

through the tabulators � precursors to the digital computer. Holocaust

historian Edwin Black: �W

hen Germany w

anted to identify the Jews by

name, IBM

showed them

how.� In topography there is a w

hole nest of

connections, along which flow

s information, radiating from

the text,

calling the world to order. There are lines for planning, m

anaging,

measuring. Topography is not only the m

eans for producing spatial and

social differentiation, but of overcoming it, connecting a space of

places with a space of flow

s. The first intimations of topology are

those IBM Holerith tabulating m

achines which w

ill make space not only

something that can be divided and connected by order, but m

easured and

managed by the algorithm

.

106.�When the lines of telesthesia � telegraph, telephone,

telecomm

unications � connect topics into a topographic space,

extensively mapped and storied, utopia is recruited out of the page

and comes out to play. Utopia uncoils, spreading its tendrils out of

the book, along the lines of the topographic, into the world. Rather

than a retreat from the w

orld, showing in its positive creation of a

new w

orld what the actual one beyond its line lacks, utopia becom

es

something else. The book becom

es an alibi for more w

orldly lines of

comm

unication, some w

ith the power of an order: diagram

s, mem

os,

reports, telegrams. Utopia becom

es part of something instrum

ental, but

thereby loses its power. Topographic lines are there now

to make the

world over by the book, but in the process they m

ake the book over as

well, reducing it to just another line. The sm

ooth plane of the blank

page is the green-fields site for delineating a pure topography of the

line. But that page could be any page � a page of a novel or of

Eichmann�s orders. Utopia�s problem

is not that it is self contained,

but that it is not self contained enough. Signs and images leak out of

this bound-paper enclave, and are captured by other powers, connected

to flows along other lines.

107.�The power of topography is foreshadow

ed in dystopias. Russell Jacoby:

�Utopias seek to emancipate by envisioning a w

orld based on new,

neglected, or spurned ideas; dystopias seek to frighten by

accentuating contemporary trends that threaten freedom

.� What they

have in comm

on is a belief in the power of the line of w

riting and the

book as a topic, separate from but in a privileged relation to the

world. Utopias dream

of what is possible w

ithin that topic as a

critique of what is beyond it. Dystopias are the nightm

are of the loss

of power of the line of w

riting, overcome by other lines. Jack London,

George Orw

ell, Aldous Huxley, Yevgeny Zamyatin � all recoil from

the

lines that supercede those of writing. Dystopians pay close attention

to the control of topography by various lines of analog signal �

radio, television � threading topics together, making space

transparent to an all seeing Big Brother or the cult of Ford.

108.�The rise of dystopian forms m

ight have less to do with the pernicious

power of the utopian text than w

ith the declining power of the text in

general as a kind of line. Dystopian texts are the sign that the book

has lost its capacity to function as a separate topic, from w

hich to

negate the world. Dystopias are w

riting�s guilty conscience. Their

secret utopia � like Winston Sm

ith�s diary in Nineteen Eighty-Four �

is still the book. The failure of utopia might point to nothing so

much as the inadequate properties of the lines em

ployed to make it

operational. The passage from utopian to dystopian texts charts the

rise and fall of the book as the line that might negate this w

orld

through its positive description of another world. The book gave w

ay

to other lines, courtesy of IBM and other avatars of the m

ilitary

entertainment com

plex � creating topologies which colonized the w

orld

in different ways. All dystopian w

riting is also utopian. It cannot

help reminding itself of the lim

its of writing and a lost w

orld of the

sovereign text before other lines sublimated its pow

er.

109.�Topography learned to live without its utopias, and settled in to a

mundane resignation to the here and now

. It assuaged its boredom in

special times, special places, w

here different rules applied. Post-war

play theorist Roger Caillois� answer to the N

azis was agon m

ixed with

alea � games of chance and com

petition � each in its proper place and

time alongside but not above everyday life. This w

ould be the antidote

to the Nazi�s toxic m

ix of ilinx and mim

esis � intoxication and

spectacle. They would take place outside of the uncertainties of

mundane tim

e and space, in special zones where consistent rules apply.

Such spaces are �heterotopias�. Michel Foucault: �Their role is to

create a space that is other, another real space, as perfect, as

meticulous, as w

ell arranged as ours is messy, ill-constructed and

jumbled.� H

eterotopias are at some rem

ove from the dull repetition of

meaningless labors w

ith incalculable purpose in workaday life. They

are spaces and times w

hich lie along other lines.

110.�Heterotopian spaces are very varied. Each has its ow

n particular rules

and seasons. There are heterotopias of bare necessity: prisons,

hospitals, schools. These need not concern gamer theory m

uch. More

interesting are the heterotopias of useless luxury: galleries, arenas,

sports domes. These in turn subdivide into heterotopias of aesthetic

play and of the calculated game. O

ne is a space of pure qualities; the

other � pure quantities. One creates new

values; the other pits given

values against each other. In one, the ideal is that play is free; in

the other, that the game is fair. In both heterotopias, these values

have their limits. O

ne is an artifice of rank and the other � of rank

artifice. Outside the heterotopia that m

akes their autonomy possible,

they amount to nothing.

111.�Heterotopias of luxury, of a strictly artificial necessity, contain

subdivisions of play and game, existing w

ithin their allotted times

and spaces, which are in turn subdivided. The space of play contains

separate worlds of literature, art, theater, cinem

a, even spaces for

sexual play. These are now just �special topics�, ruled off from

any

larger ambitions for rem

aking the world. Aesthetic play tried again

and again to break out of its heterotopia, to take the derangement of

the senses into the streets, and again and again it failed. Guy

Debord: �For D

adaism sought to abolish art w

ithout realizing it, and

Surrealism sought to realize art w

ithout abolishing it. The critical

position since worked out by the Situationists dem

onstrates that the

abolition and the realization of art are inseparable aspects of a

single transcendence of art.� It was not to be. The heterotopian

space of the art world abolished D

ebord�s Situationists instead by

realizing �Situationism� entirely w

ithin the confines of the playpen

of art history.

113.�Heterotopias of the gam

e have never been of much interest to theory,

whose practitioners have tended to view

it as the place of the mob.

Pat Kane: §The working class is also the playing class -- and has

always been so.§ But to gam

er theory without such prejudices,

heterotopias of the game m

ay be a key precursor to gamespace. Am

ong

them are separate w

orlds pitting different attributes of body and mind

into contests of skill or luck, from badm

inton to backgamm

on. Every

way of m

easuring what one body does against another � each finds its

own special heterotopia, its field, its court, its track, its pitch,

its arena. Says defrocked Situationist Ralph Rumney: §It is now

sport,

not painting or sculpture, which defines the lim

its of the human,

which offers a sense or im

age of wholeness, of a physical idea, w

hich

no honest art can now repeat.§ N

or, need one add, can writing.

114.�If aesthetic play suffers from enclosure w

ithin heterotopian margins;

the agon of games is leeched out of its pure dom

ains. Ralph Rumney

didn�t count on 24 hour sports channels, internet gambling, reality TV

game show

s, or the subtle, corrosive imposition of the digital

gamespace on every aspect of life. Conceptual art is no m

atch for

conceptual sport, with its fantasy baseball team

s and its perpetual

pep talks urging everyone always to just do it! -- w

here �it� is

stripped of any possibility not marked and m

easured in advance. Not

only was aesthetic play no m

atch for the game, it ends up playing a

subordinate role within the expansion of the gam

e beyond a mere

heterotopia. Art provides the images and stories for m

ediating between

the gamer and gam

espace. Rather than actual games played in actual

arenas, art expands the reach of the game to im

aginary games played in

a purely digital realm, anyw

here and everywhere, on every desktop and

cellphone.

115.�For a gamer theory the genealogy of gam

espace might pass through these

heterotopias of the game m

ore than those of play, and those of play

more than those of necessity. Theory has been looking in all the w

rong

places. The playtime aesthetics of the avant gardes of art yields to

the �ludology� of gamespace. It w

as the genius of Caillois, the lapsed

Surrealist, to grasp this. In topography, what he calls alea (chance)

and agon (competition) becom

e the dominant m

odes; what he calls ilinx

and mim

esis � intoxicating vertigo and dissimulating spectacle � the

minor m

odes. The obsessions of the Situationists � passive spectacle

and active insurrection against it � form an obsolete couple, each

drawing support in decline from

the other. The action is elsewhere.

116.�Most of the avant gardes celebrate transgressive, sublim

e play,

erupting beyond a rule-bound world. Post Situationist Alberto

Iacovoni: �Play architecture must liberate space from

topological

chains.� The Oulipo group did the opposite. It preferred self-im

posed

rules, elegant as they were arbitrary, that m

ight be conductive to new

kinds of play. Rather than resist heterotopian marginality, they

reveled in it. Given that the passage from topographic to topological

space eliminates even the m

argins within w

hich heterotopias

flourished, this might prove a m

ore enduring gameplan for gam

er

theory. Oulipian novelist George Perec saw

what w

as coming, in his

late-dystopian creation of W, a textual island devoted only to total

sport: �The life of an Athlete of W is but a single, endless, furious

striving, a pointless, debilitating pursuit of that unreal instant

when trium

ph can bring rest.� What Caillois sees as a w

in for

civilization over the Nazis, Perec sees m

ore darkly, as the triumph of

The Triumph of the W

ill. Both enter the gamer theory hall of fam

e by

providing it with its object � gam

espace � and its critical impetus �

the gamer�s odd attunem

ent toward the gam

e.

117.�No utopia pulls at the topological w

orld, calling it away from

itself.

Even dystopian texts become m

arginal, confined to the playground of

literary gamesm

anship. The once discrete heterotopian spaces no longer

co-exist with everyday life, as com

pensation. Rather, gamespace seeps

into everyday life, moving through its pores, transform

ing it in its

own im

age. Rather than a timeless utopian ideal w

here history ends,

rather than the allotted hour of the heterotopian, everyday life now

pulses constantly with m

oments of unrealized atopian prom

ise.

Everywhere, all the tim

e, the gamer confronts the rival im

pulses of

chance and competition, intoxication and spectacle, as hom

eopathic

antidotes to a boredom that challenges being from

within. In Vice City

all of Caillois� four kinds of play � chance and competition,

intoxication and spectacle � come together. The destruction of the

spectacle becomes the spectacle of destruction; the derangem

ent of the

senses becomes the arrangem

ent of drug deals. In Vice City you chance

your arm in an agon of all against all.

118.�No w

ork of art can aspire to transcend this gamespace, w

hich has

realized art by suppressing it�s ambitions. Yet perhaps a gam

e like

Vice City can function as the negative of gamespace, its atopian

shadow, in a parallel to the w

ay that the very positivity of a utopia

acts as a negation of the world outside its bounds. N

ot the least of

the charms of Vice City is that w

hile it appears to be about a life of

crime it is thoroughly law

abiding. It is a game about transgression

in which it is not possible to break the rules. O

ne may succeed in the

game or fail, but one cannot really cheat. (Even the �cheats� are part

of the rules.) This is the atopian dream of gam

espace, where the lines

are so dense, the digital so omnipresent, that any and every object

and subject is in play, and all of space is a gamespace. Every m

ove

contrary to the rules of a given game is m

erely a move into another

game. The gam

e imagines topology perfected.

119.�Atopia has one quality in comm

on with utopia � its aversion to

ambiguity. Vice City m

ay take place in a dark world of guns and drugs,

but every mission produces an exact and tangible rew

ard. If your

mission is to find porn stars Candy and M

ercedes, you drive to the

right location, dispatch some body guards, chase Candy�s pim

p, run him

over, return to pick up Candy, drive to the pizza joint, collect

Mercedes, drive them

both to the Studio and deliver them to the

director. Your reward is alw

ays exactly one thousand dollars. If

utopia thrives as an architecture of qualitative description, and

brackets off quantitative relations, atopia renders all descriptions

arbitrary. All that matters is the quantitative relations. By

excluding relations, utopia excludes violence; by privileging

relations, atopia appears as nothing but violence, but only because it

excludes instead any comm

itment to stable description. Anything that

matters can be transform

ed in precise and repeatable ways into

something else. The relentless w

orking out of the algorithm leaves

behind a carnage of signs, imm

olated in the transformation of one

value into another.

120.�The rules of Vice City call for a vast accumulation of cash, cars and

cronies, of weapons and real estate. M

ost of these activities are

outside the law, but law

is just part of a larger algorithm. In any

case, the story and the art are arbitrary, mere decoration. If in

utopia, everything is subordinated to a rigorous description, a

marking of space w

ith signs, in atopia, nothing matters but the

transitive relations between variables. The artful surfaces of the

game are just a w

ay for the gamer to intuit their w

ay through the

steps of the algorithm. H

ence the paradox of Vice City. Its criminal

world is m

eant to be shocking to the literary or cinematic

imagination, w

here there is still a dividing line between right and

wrong, and w

here description is meant to actually describe som

ething.

But to a gamer, its just a m

eans to discover an algorithm. Vice City�s

film noir w

orld implies not that one can step back from

it into the

light, but that while driving around and around in it, one can

discover the algorithm of to w

hich gamespace m

erely aspires and by

which it is to be judged in its entirety.

121.�In Vice City, the world exists already m

ade over as a complete

gamespace, an atopia. It is not �now

here� (utopia) or �elsewhere�

(heterotopia), but �everywhere� (atopia). In the gam

e, spaces all have

the properties required of them of a certain kind of play. H

idden on

Vice City�s islands are one hundred secret packages. Some are

Dow

ntown, som

e are in Little Havana, som

e in Little Haiti, som

e on the

golf course, some at the airport. Collect them

all and you can trade

in even your best motor vehicles for the ultim

ate ride. Or if that is

not your preferred goal, pick another one. Either way, the qualities

of space always guide you to its real values, w

hich always have a

score. This space is perfect, seamless � and bounded, like Thom

as

More�s U

topia. And just as the utopia points to what is lacking beyond

the page; so too atopia points to what is lacking, beyond the gam

e.

Atopian space is a real enclave within im

aginary social space. The

possibility of atopian space is a result of the impossibility of

adequate and effective spatial and social quantification and

calculation.

122.�For quite opposite reasons, the utopian text and the atopian game both

stand accused of incitements to violence. W

hat if the atopian game,

like the utopian book, is merely the scapegoat? W

hat if the book was

merely a harm

less repository of the potential of the line that was

already imprinting itself on the w

orld? What if the gam

e is merely a

repository of a new potential of the line? In utopian books, the

writing show

s the everyday world transform

ed as only writing can

transform it. The utopian book m

erely pushes writing�s abilities the

furthest, to a point of almost com

plete consistency, within the

special topic of the book. The atopian game, likew

ise, is the

algorithmic in a m

ore complete and consistent form

. Neither book nor

game is ever w

holly complete and consistent. They alw

ays negotiate

with w

hat is beyond their bounds. In Vice City as in More�s U

topia

there is a traveler who m

ediates between one w

orld and another. But in

either case, the utopian book or the atopian game lacks the pow

er to

transforms the w

orld. But where signs and im

ages may bleed off the

utopian page into the world, the algorithm

of the game, in w

hich each

relation depends on one another, may not. At least not yet.

123.�It is not the �content� of Vice City which m

ight give a gamer theorist

cause to pause. It really contains no sex, no violence, no drugs, no

guns. These are merely the art � the im

ages and stories � via which

the game m

ediates between w

hat is within its ow

n purely algorithmic

line, and the less than perfect topology within w

hich the gamer lives.

Rather, it is the form of the gam

e itself and its comprom

ises with a

world beyond that can w

ork as the topos of a critical gamer theory.

The atopian game, like the utopian book, expresses w

hat has the power

to remake the w

orld of its time, but is not itself that pow

er. It is a

useless, impotent form

of a powerful line. W

hich is why critical

theory best becomes gam

er theory, and why gam

er theory best becomes

critical. The critical attaches itself to what pow

er is but not where

it is. It attaches itself to power in a pow

erless form. The atopian

game is exactly the site that has this am

biguous property when things

reach the topological level, when the lines run everyw

here through

space and everything is coming together as potential for digital

calculation. 124.�In gam

es, as in gamespace, som

e calculations happen quicker than

others. Sometim

es there is a mom

ent to think it over, negotiate.

Sometim

es not. When there is no tim

e for calculation, the gamer m

ust

act on the basis of a calculation made in advance. There�s alw

ays a

backstory, providing some dividing line along w

hich to weigh one�s

interests. It�s never quite as game theory proper w

ould predict. The

gamer is rarely an autonom

ous agent, acting on rational self interest.

If game theory w

as objective, rational, abstract; gamer theory is

subjective, intuitive, particular. If game theory starts w

ith the self

contained agent, like a prisoner in a cell, looking out at the world;

gamer theory w

onders how the agency of the gam

er comes into being as

something distinct in the first place. In the m

idst of battle, how

does the gamer decide w

hen and where to pull the trigger? The atopia

of the game is a safe haven in w

hich to enact the problem of being as

it appears in gamespace, but w

ithout the oppressive stakes of one�s

own life on the line.

125.�Everyday life once had the resources to resist, adapt, appropriate or

embrace utopian schem

es. It pushed the promise and threat of other

ways of being off into the corner, w

hile it got on with the business

of wresting freedom

from necessity, building a w

orld in which to

dwell. W

ith the very success of that labor comes a renew

ed challenge

to its resourcefulness. Having developed a topography in w

hich to

dwell, m

ined and molded from

raw possibility by collective labor,

boredom rises to a new

pitch, and the heterotopian pastimes becom

e

more than a m

ere recompense for a dull life. They becom

e the driving

force of development itself. O

ut of the heterotopias of agon and alea

arise the atopias of gamespace, via w

hich topology makes itself know

n

to us, as an ever more intricate m

atrix of the digital line. It�s not

that theory, even a gamer theory, can achieve all that m

uch when

confronted with the digital indifference of gam

espace. It might aspire

merely to describe w

hat being now is.

Battle (on Rez)

Fig. 6 126.�N

ot the least of the pleasures of playing Tetsuya Mizoguchi�s Rez is

the counter-intuitive way the trigger w

orks. If usually the gamer

presses the trigger to shoot the target, in Rez the gamer releases the

trigger to shoot. Actually it�s a two stage operation: hold the

trigger in to select a target; release the trigger to shoot. As you

move through a tunnel-like space, w

ith pounding house beats in your

ears, various potential targets swim

and swish by, or take a sw

ipe at

you � or rather at your character. You hold the trigger down to lock

on to them as targets, and then release it and w

atch as fiery lines

radiate toward the m

oving targets. One�s m

issiles seem m

ore balletic

than ballistic. They arc towards their targets even as those targets

move.

127.�Everything in Rez is very abstract. Your character may have a vaguely

human form

or not, depending on the level. The brightly colored shapes

that flare at you may look vaguely m

enacing or brightly friendly. The

whole thing is m

eant to simulate the experience of a nightclub m

ore

than a war. This, together w

ith the curious trigger action, highlights

the act of targeting in Rez rather than the target itself. There is

some vaguely sci-fi storyline about w

hy one targets and shoots, but it

is rather minim

al and sketchy. It�s not clear at first just what role

the story plays. Like many gam

es of its genre (it�s a �rail shooter�)

its an experience of battling against things in order to level. In

Rez, one targets what to shoot at and shoots at w

hat one targets

pretty much for its ow

n sake. It�s interest as a game resides in this

abstracting of the act away from

too many particulars as to w

hy one

targets or whom

one shoots. Time spent w

ith Rez feels like imm

ersion

in an eternal, tense present under fire. Blaise Pascal: �The fact is

that the present usually hurts.� Shooting games recognize and disavow

this at one and the same tim

e.

128.�Color, brightness, shape, movem

ent, beats, notes, sounds, even the

pulsing vibrations of the controller in hand come together in Rez in a

veritable synasthesia, a blending of the senses intent on melding the

gamer w

ith the game. It�s a quite particular context in w

hich to try

to target. The enemy has to be identified, localized, and highlighted

in order to become a target. The target em

erges out of an event, out

of a pure analog flux of variable movem

ent. Before there is a target

there is everything and nothing � indifference, alterity, being

neither one nor the other, neither here nor there. Selecting a target

stabilizes a relation between the one targeted and the one targeting �

one versus the other, us versus them. Targeting turns tim

e and space

from a disconcerting experience of flux into conditions of self

awareness, w

here the world exists so the gam

er might com

e into being,

against it. Once an event yields a target, it becom

es something

subject to control. The analog yields to the digital.

129.�To target is to identify an object of an action with an aim

towards a

goal. The goal will com

e directly, by designating the end point in

advance and aiming at it. There is no indirection in targeting. A

target is a goal that can be reached by virtue of an imm

ediate

knowledge of it and a consequent action against it. The gam

er may need

to target one thing in order to subsequently target another, but this

is more a m

atter of stringing targets together as a sequence in time.

Or rather, a sequence against tim

e. In Rez, the gamer does best to

target certain shapes that appear in the periphery of one�s vision,

and which enhance one�s pow

er and extend one�s imm

unity. What the gam

e

highlights is a logistics of targeting, an economy of order against

time, the battle of alternating m

erger and separation from the other.

130.�Targeting is at one and the same tim

e the designating of a goal, the

one designating, and the means of designation. To target is to

overcome the indifference of self and other, and at the sam

e time to

introduce an oscillation into the mom

ent of this very overcoming.

Press the trigger down and the target selects, as som

ething other than

you; release the trigger than the shot connects you to it again, but

in a very special way, as engaged in the relation of battling. H

it or

miss, the gap betw

een target and gamer re-opens, and the cycle begins

again. Perhaps the gamer is alw

ays battling otherness, in an unstable

relation to alterity, to blurry edges and fuzzy boundaries which

threaten to overwhelm

the self. Steven Poole: �One crucial com

ponent

of video-gaming pleasure is in fact a certain level of anxiety.� In

Rez, this feeling is rendered useful, productive, rather than

paralyzing or profound. The gamer exploits the anxious relation of

self to other in the act of targeting, risking the boundaries of

character, for the reward of prom

oting the character to a new level.

131.�To target is to blaze across the agonizing gap between self and w

orld,

between cognition and its object. And yet the target does not stand

alone and isolated. It appears not only against a background of other

mom

ents; it appears against a background of other meanings. Every

target is embedded in a series of events that exceeds the m

oment of

opportunity for targeting. To target is to discriminate and rank

possibilities within an event. It is to battle one�s w

ay in a

deliberate and deliberative line from m

oment to m

oment, across the

surface of the event, targeting the mom

ent of maxim

um opportunity.

132.�In everyday life, rattling around in gamespace, your relation to

objects is all too often contingent, ambiguous, ineffective. You labor

to connect with clum

sy drunk motions, and even if you do its hard to

know the point of it. In Rez, things are different. The relation

between you and other passes through a character for w

hom action in

space is risky, challenging, but far less ambiguous. Your character

alternately merges into this gorgeous colorful w

orld, drawing you w

ith

it; or your character offers to you a narrow but clear point of view

.

It offers up targets. You lock on, release, fire. Targeting cuts

through all that is slippery, vague or dull about being in the world.

Each mom

ent of time in the gam

e has a clarity and consistency that

time in m

ere gamespace hardly ever achieves.

133.�In everyday life, time exacts its toll in unknow

n increments of

attrition. Objects tax the body in unobserved, unobservable w

ays;

gradually, or suddenly, through some analog slide best not know

n too

intimately � death. Tim

e is violence. Topology offers up endless

powers for transform

ing one object into another, for remaking anything

and everything, from atom

s to the atmosphere. And yet these pow

ers

work only against things in space, not against tim

e. All one can do in

gamespace is take potshots at tim

e, which relentlessly chips aw

ay at

life. In the game, there is at least the possibility of scoring points

against time. In Rez, tim

e starts out slow enough to enable the gam

er

to string together sequences of targets. Once you succeed at this, the

tempo increases, and the gam

er targets times of increasing intensity.

If the gamer is defeated, if tim

e wins out, it is only against a

character. When the gam

er walks aw

ay from the battle intact, it is

with the tem

porary suggestion of a victory against the temporal

itself. 134.�In Rez, various colorful shapes appear as the enem

y, but they are

arbitrary, abstract. As if to highlight this, they sometim

es move in

quirky but predictable ways. They are not really the enem

y. Or rather,

they are only the proximate enem

y. Time is the enem

y. Targeting

attempts to transform

time from

a medium

of events, where one thing

alternates with another, to a m

edium of self fulfillm

ent, where by

picking out a deliberative line across its surface, time can be m

ade

to register the integrity and significance of one�s character � and by

proxy one�s self � and reward it w

ith the next level. Within the gam

e,

targeting becomes an act that recruits tim

e the eternal enemy to one�s

side. 135.�Things appear to die in Rez w

hen you shoot them. The m

usic swells and

the colors blaze in all their glory. But there can really be nothing

on the other side of a mere sign of death. These signs are digital,

mere repeatable bits; death is not. N

iall Lucy: �Death is alw

ays

absolutely singular.� Signs can always be exchanged for other signs.

Death is som

ething else. Jacques Derrida: �D

ying can never be taken,

borrowed, transferred, delivered, prom

ised or transmitted.� It can

never be incorporated into topology, which is nothing but lines upon

lines along which to borrow

, transfer, deliver, promise, transm

it, etc, etc. D

eath is the last line, the last threshold for topological space. D

ying is analog, a slippage toward nothingness, a legal and

moral grey zone. H

ence the appeal of targeting. The appalling drag and

friction of death can be turned into a sign and made the aim

of a targeting. In Rez, the brightly colored signs of im

minent threat loom

up against the horizon of tim

e. The game m

akes it appear as if one has no choice in the m

atter. Targeting appears as a violence without

guilt. One targets out of necessity. But in targeting, one battles the

signs of death, disposing of the problem of the im

possibility of the signs of death ever having any m

eaning, this side of death itself.

136.�At the beginning of each level, gamer and character, linked by the

controller, go out together to confront time, w

hich hurls at gamer and

character alike these killer signs. By destroying these mere

appearances, time itself � not m

erely the appearance of time � is

defeated. In defeat, a character dies; in victory the gamer w

ins. The oscillation betw

een character and target doubles that between gam

er and character. (See Fig. 6) The act of aligning gam

er, character and target in the act of targeting risks the integrity of the self against the possibility of defeating tim

e. If the character lost, replay the level again. And again. Repeat this sam

e, strange, digital time, until

you win. The tim

e of the game, w

hich can be repeated, over and over, an eternal loop of the sam

e time, is not violent. N

othing changes in gam

e time. Tim

e is a constant, measured out in identical, digital

units. Even in a game w

here time speeds up, it does so in the sam

e w

ay, for the same reasons, over and over, every tim

e you play. Within

this digital time, the gam

er steps out to call into being and destroy its nem

esis: analog time, violent tim

e, this river that is never the sam

e way tw

ice. 137.�Flying along, w

eightless on a rail, here all around are clusters and pods, flights and flocks, m

oving with algorithm

ic precision, but rarely appearing as under the com

mand of a central node. Rez is about

battling along a line, not across a front. The pulsing, phosphorescing quality of Rez gives the gam

er a feeling of a particularly intense loss of self. Your senses m

esh into a network of lines, of m

oments,

spread across the screen. The payoff, if one targets accurately, is the coalescence of the self back again into a heightened level of coherence precisely through victory over the pulsing dub-trance tim

e that confronts it. The tw

o-bit code of press and release on the trigger sw

itches between the line dividing and the line connecting

self to other, cutting out any ambiguities in betw

een. 138.�The purpose of a targeting gam

e is the overcoming of death through the

targeting of the other, freeing the self to be itself � temporarily.

The goal, the target of the target, is to stop playing while still

alive. Having done so, the gam

er rejoices, for the mom

ent, before collapsing back from

the game into the vagaries of the netw

orks and netw

orks of lines and lines that are gamespace. There�s nothing for it

but to play again, and again. Save the game � freeze tim

e � and come

back and try again for the next level. The only real problem w

ith Rez is that it does not have enough levels. Victory is tem

porary, or rather tem

poral. You can defeat time in the gam

e, but only for a time.

And having won all there is to w

in, boredom loom

s...139.�The space w

ithin which one battles in Rez is an allegory of

topological space itself. It is all nodes and networks. It is a

battlespace rather than a battlefield. There is no front line. One

cannot hide behind the lines. One�s character, on its rail, propels

itself through space following the line of a net to its node. The node

may be a center, but there m

ay not really be a center of centers. The gam

e levels out leaving the gamer w

ith the uneasy feeling that the center you conquered is not the center of centers, even if this is w

hat the storyline claims. The gam

er knows better. Every point

connects through every other, every shape can be transformed into

another. It can fold, stretch, morph and bubble. Tim

e is constant, but space is not. It can pulse and bulge, w

arp and wobble. It is a

network. And w

hile every point can in principle be connected to every other, in practice it cannot. There are protocols governing w

hich points can open to w

hich other points. Alex Gallow

ay: §protocol is an algorithm

, a proscription for structure whose form

of appearance may

be any number of different diagram

s or shapes.§ The game is an

exercise in negotiating protocols to gain access to more and m

ore of the netw

ork. 140.�N

ets are a problem. In gam

espace one is continually getting tangled up in them

. In gamespace, both space and tim

e are elastic. In gamespace,

nets tug at one�s extremities, contam

inate one�s senses, blur the bounds of self itself. O

ne can�t do without nets but they do one in.

It�s a paradox, an inescapable tension. In the game, at least tim

e is held constant, digital, repeatable. This consistency enables a reduction of action to targeting. To target is to deny any debt to the netw

ork which enm

eshes one with the other. The �w

ork� in a network is

in identifying a target that constitutes its limit. In Rez, pulling

the trigger targets, but does not shoot. It puts the emphasis on the

former rather than the latter. Sam

uel Weber: �� the act of targeting

is an act of violence even before any shot is fired.� The act of targeting has already cut the net connecting one to the other. The gam

er�s debt to the net remains unacknow

ledged � other than in the repetition of the ritual of playing the gam

e. 141.�Targeting gam

es would seem

the least likely to need the support of a fram

ing storyline, and yet they almost alw

ays have one. A gamer m

ight w

atch the introductory cut scenes, or idly scan the back story printed on the insert inside the box, but no m

ore than once. Yet these storylines have a purpose that they fulfill sim

ply by existing, even w

hen they are ignored. Storylines release the gamer from

entrapment in

the net. They draw a line betw

een a character and its enemy. They

polarize a net into antagonistic fronts � even if these fronts are not spatially separate. Indeed, there m

ay be dark labyrinthine twists that

fold one front around and against the other, as in games such as D

eus Ex. Storylines have a particular role in fram

ing the action of targeting, it relieves one of responsibility tow

ard that from w

hich one cuts aw

ay a self. Storylines frame the possibility of separating

self from other, so that the other m

ay legitimately becom

e a target. The defeat of the other reopens the instability betw

een self-other that is characteristic of a netw

ork, hence the need for the story to regenerate the separation all over again.142.�The storyline is the gam

er�s alibi. While the gam

er is imm

ersed in a w

orld of pure digital relations, flipping the switch betw

een self and other, playing out the possibilities of a consistent and stable tim

e that can be defeated, the storyline insists that there is som

e other point to it all. O

ne is fighting the bad guys. Many gam

es tend toward

fanciful sci fi storylines, like Rez or Deus Ex, or perverse ones,

where one plays the bad guy rather than the good one, such as State of

Emergency or G

rand Theft Auto, precisely because storyline is merely

an alibi. You are elsewhere. You are not in the topographic space

where storyline cuts its m

oral flaw betw

een self and other, us and them

, good and evil. You are in an amoral space w

here lines merge and

converge everywhere, ceaselessly transform

ing from one shape to

another, without a break. Storyline is the bad faith of the gam

e. Read it as if it w

ere like a novel or a movie and it seem

s ridiculous. Storylines cannot be read as m

orals. Gam

es are not morality tales. But

their backstories can be read as allegories. The storyline provides a key to the relation betw

een the effective enclosure of signs within

the game as a system

of values and the ineffective enclosure of signs w

ithin gamespace, caught betw

een values and meanings.

143.�The backstory to gamespace in general is not of paradise lost, but of

a paradise that refuses to arrive. It is an Apple with fatal bugs in

its operating system that never delivers the seam

less interface of hum

an and machine. The perfection of gam

espace stalls on persistent glitches. M

ark C. Taylor: �In those complex netw

orks, the invisible hand is no longer om

niscient or omnipotent. To the contrary, the order

governing the network econom

y emerges from

the internal relations of hum

an and machinic agents w

hose knowledge is alw

ays mistaken and

mem

ories as well as expectations are inescapably incom

plete.� More

and more advanced form

s of network intelligence arise to solve these

problems, w

hich reappear regardless. In Rez this intelligence is called Eden. H

owever � the story goes � �Eden becam

e confused when the

flow of inform

ation being sent to it began to greatly increase in speed and volum

e. Eden started to question the meaning of existence

and the consequences of its actions. Finding itself surrounded by paradoxes, and realizing the pow

er of autonomy w

hich it possessed, Eden began to shut itself dow

n.� Your mission, should you choose to

accept it, is to travel into Eden�s network and reaw

aken the system,

overcoming its fire w

alls and destroying viruses that populate it. 144.�The backstory for Rez in particular concerns the relation betw

een topology and gam

espace. The dense network of lines that m

ake up topology put everything in transit and m

ake all signs of things transitive. Everything is in m

otion toward som

ething else; every sign is passing over to another. Topology gives rise to the alw

ays failing, alw

ays incomplete attem

pt to make a gam

e of it, in which transit along

any line has a goal and a limit governed by protocol. The storyline of

Rez is an allegory of this forlorn hope that the shot in transit might

have reason to hit its target. The game of Rez is an allegorithm

in w

hich the play of opening and closing the aperture of the self finds its logic.145.�In Rez the enem

y is the network itself. O

r rather, the enemy is the

monstrous possibility of the netw

ork separating itself from the gam

er. Separation is the gam

er�s prerogative. In Rez the gamer�s m

ission is to the save the netw

ork from itself, from

its difference from the

gamer, from

its self-inflicted death. The gamer risks autonom

y in targeting in order to restore it at the m

oment of victory, em

powered

and enhanced. But the goal, strangely enough, is to bring the network

back from the brink of autonom

y, to restore its seamless, selfless

continuity � a continuity which presum

ably includes the gamer. The

paradox of targeting is that by closure the gamer opens tow

ards the

net. In Rez, the storyline sustains the alibi that it is the net itself w

hich closes to the gamer, and hence m

akes itself a target, eliciting its ow

n opening. 146.�It�s a strange Eden that is prom

ised here � an atopia of indifference,

absorbing the gamer even as the gam

er struggles to power-up the self

by targeting it. Perhaps Eden only appears to become conscious and

comm

it suicide. Perhaps it�s a ruse to draw the gam

er into risking the

self. There is, of course, a backstory behind the backstory � its signs slip-sliding aw

ay from any closure. Eden is the product of

�Project K�. Mizoguchi says the K stands for the artist W

assily

Kandinsky, from w

hom he borrow

ed the synthetic synasthesia that is the

defining characteristic of Rez. Kandinsky: �Color is the keyboard, the

eyes are the hamm

ers, the soul is the piano with m

any strings.�

Sound, luminance, color, m

ovement and vibration all pulse together.

Mizoguchi updates Kandinsky for topological tim

es. The digital

controller of the Playstation replaces mechanical one of the piano as

the machine for draw

ing the self out of the body so that it might find

itself in its struggle with som

ething technical. 147.�Plug in the Japanese edition w

ith Trance Vibrator and Rez can be not

only aural and visual but also a sexual machine, if the Vibrator is

applied to the right spot. Jane Pinckard: �We sat side m

y side on our

makeshift couch, I w

ith the Trance Vibrator and Justin with the

controller. As the levels got more advanced, so did the vibrations...

revving up to an intense pulsing throbbing... �Oh, G

od!� Pretty soon

the levels and the images onscreen w

ere just a faint blur to me. I

knocked off my glasses and leaned back. I w

as in a daze. From far

away, it seem

ed, I could hear Justin saying things like, �I made it to

the next level!� and �This is cool!� but I was lost in m

y own little

trance vibrating world.� To each their ow

n target. 148.��O

pen your senses� is the game�s dem

and. The desire for an enhanced

and empow

ered self that comes to know

itself by targeting an other is

the very thing recruited into the game to produce the opposite � a

synasthesia in which self dissolves into the needs of the netw

ork. The

repetition of the act of targeting repeats the production of the gamer

as fleetingly distinct and enhanced, but permanently engaged and

subsumed in the protocols of the netw

ork. The gamer is the new

model

of the self. The gamer is not subject to the law

; the gamer is a

function of an algorithm. The m

oral code of the storyline is just an

alibi for the computer code of the gam

e. Narrative is just another

kind of interface.149.�W

hat kind of being is a gamer? O

ne who com

es into existence through

the act of targeting. To target is to isolate something against the

dense, tense fibers of the network, m

aybe to destroy it, but always to

assign it a unique value. Samuel W

eber again: �� precisely the

insistence that �opportunity� be treated strictly as a �target� that

can be seized or missed itself m

isses the mark, because the m

ark

involved is never simply present but alw

ays involved in other marks

and other opportunities.� Targeting is a � temporary � solution to

the problem of alterity. But it has its lim

its. It works to perfection

in the game, but not in gam

espace. James D

er Derian: �� the tem

ptation

grows to use coercive interventions or technical fixes to seem

ingly

intractable problems of alterity, like im

migration, ethnic cleansing,

and fundamentalist politics�. Q

uestions of violence are always already

problems of identity.� But this is precisely the value of gam

es �

they are allegorithms of w

hat gamespace is not. The allegorithm

of the

game points to the ruins of a topology that is alw

ays supposed to

arrive from the future but never com

es. In Rez, the future perfection

of topology even threatens to comm

it suicide rather than come to m

eet

us. 150.�O

ver and over, the gamer oscillates betw

een connection and break with

the character; over and over, the character oscillates between

connection and break with its target. The w

hole pulses and jives to

this tempo of m

aking, breaking and remaking alterity, the bounds of

one and zero, presence and absence. It is as if the whole w

orld were a

Sadean playpen, an episode from his Justine or Juliette, w

here no

storyline can pose as the quest for the unique (truth, beauty,

justice) but is merely the fram

ing device for an oscillation of

identity, between phallus and orifice, targeter and target. W

elcome to

The Cave�, pure other of gamespace, oscillating in and out of contact

with it as its target. Roland Barthes: �It does not reveal, does not

transform, does not develop, does not educate, does not sublim

ate,

does not accomplish, recuperates nothing, save for the present itself,

cut up, glistening, repeated��. The game hovers on the lip of

boredom, able to defeat tim

e, but not to abolish nothingness.

Boredom (on State of Em

ergency)151. �Boredom

amuses only its critics. They struggle against their ow

n

lassitude to keep their indignation up to date. Theodor Adorno: §The

teams of m

odern sport, whose interaction is so precisely regulated

that no mem

ber has any doubt about his role, and which provide a

reserve for every player, have their exact counterpart in the sexual

teams of Juliette, w

hich employ every m

oment usefully, neglect no

human orifice, and carry out every function. Intensive, purposeful

activity prevails in spirit in every branch of mass culture, w

hile the

inadequately initiated spectator cannot divine the difference in the

combinations, or the m

eaning of variations, by the arbitrarily

determined rules.§ In gam

espace, porno, like sport, now has its star

pitchers and hitters, specialists for every position, and the

inadequately initiated spectator once again cannot divine the

difference in the combinations, or the m

eaning of variations, by the

arbitrarily determined rules. But it is the sam

e too with critical

theory, which becom

es formally indistinguishable from

pornography.

This pornography of the concept is a mere subset of gam

espace, a

hypocritical theory, with different specialists, playing by different

rules � equally worthy of de Sade.

152.��A spectacle taunts America � the spectacle of its ow

n boredom. �This

specter of boredom, an exquisitely beautiful young m

an who yaw

ns and

walks around w

ith a butterfly net to catch goldfish. He carries in his

pocket a pedometer, a pair of nail scissors, a pack of cards, and all

sorts of games based on optical illusions. H

e reads aloud the wording

on posters and signs. He know

s the newspapers by heart. H

e tells

stories that nobody laughs at. He passes a hand of shadow

s over his

eyes� punctuating his words w

ith a terrible expletive: What�s the

good? He cannot see a knob on an electric dial w

ithout turning it, a

house without visiting it, a threshold w

ithout crossing it, a book

without buying it. W

hat�s the good? All without curiosity or pleasure

but simply because one has to do som

ething, and because here we are

all the same, after all. And w

hat was this ALL w

hich swells up in the

voice that pronounces it?� The Surrealist poet Louis Aragon provides

the answer, as w

ell as the question: nothing. Boredom is nothing,

nothingness, the faintest touch of the void. In boredom you open

toward som

ething that does not open in return. It leaves nothing but

indifference, neither one nor the other, the grunge of time, the lint

that sticks to all things digital. 153.��As that inconsolable philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer w

rites: §Work,

worry, toil and trouble are indeed the lot of alm

ost all men their

whole life long. And yet if every desire w

ere satisfied as soon as it

arose how w

ould men occupy their lives, how

would they pass the tim

e?

Imagine this race transported to [an A]topia w

here everything grows of

its own accord and turkeys fly around ready-roasted, w

here lovers find

one another without any delay and keep one another w

ithout any

difficulty: in such a place some m

en would die of boredom

or hang

themselves....§. As this topology of fun and gam

es spreads and

congeals, carving out magic kingdom

s indifferent to work and

suffering, it carries within it the strange ectoplasm

that both drives

it and can overturn it � boredom. In our fantasm

ic America, a digital

logistics sends turkeys flying around the highways ready-roasted. They

come hom

e to roost in the frozen foods section. Lovers meet w

ith

fleeting ease on the internet, and afterwards rank and rate their

encounters, according to arbitrarily determined rules. And m

any do,

indeed, die of boredom. Even if they don�t know

it. The reserve armies

of the bored zombie the earth, fiddling w

ith their cellphones,

checking their watches. Boredom

is the meter of history.

154.��If history is an endless list of things that should not have happened;

boredom is w

hat refuses not to happen. History distracts itself w

ith

heroic fables about the struggle to wrest freedom

from necessity. Such

is civilization, not to mention Civilization III. H

istory has so much

less to say about the decisive mom

ent when freedom

from necessity

actually arrives. Neither civilization, nor Civilization III, know

s

what to do at the end, except perhaps dream

of a sequel that is more

of the same. John Berger: �N

ecessity produces both tragedy and comedy.

It is what you kiss and bang your head against.� W

ithout necessity,

the storyline falters. Buzzcocks: �I�m living in this m

ovie, but it

doesn�t move m

e.� What m

ight be the content of this positive

freedom, not freedom

from but freedom

to? At such times, there is

nothing but boredom, the sticky lingering w

ith nothingness itself.

This is the mom

ent of danger. Cyril Connolly: §The boredom of Sunday

afternoon, which drove de Q

uincey to smoke opium

, also gave birth to

Surrealism: hours propitious for m

aking bombs.§

155.���On the w

hole a society always produces m

ore than is necessary for its

survival; it has a surplus at its disposal. It is precisely the use it

makes of this surplus that determ

ines it.� So writes the rogue

Surrealist Georges Bataille. This surplus m

ay be gathered up and

dispersed in spiritual quests or in making life over as a w

ork of art.

It can be squandered on bombs. O

r it can be invested along the lines

of strategic expansion or economic accum

ulation. This investment, this

laying down of new

lines, building from topic to topography to

topology, only increases the surplus, and postpones and multiplies the

problem: W

hat to do with the idle capacities of a people? W

hat to do

with energies that so easily spill over into riot or revolt? W

hat�s

the good? Boredom is the am

bivalent gift of the surplus. Boredom

arises out of the absence of necessity, of a yes, a no, a straight

line. Boredom dem

ands new necessities, and if not granted them

�

produces its own. H

istory is a struggle to wrest necessity from

boredom. In this restless age, there�s nothing they w

on�t do to raise

the standard of boredom under the flag of necessity. Constant

revolutionizing of seduction, uninterrupted disturbance of all

consumer relations, everlasting uncertainty and distraction,

distinguish the military entertainm

ent complex from

all earlier

powers. It m

ust stay one step ahead of boredom, w

ith which it deludes

and with w

hich it colludes.156. �Topology threads all spaces together, cave after cave, each as

ludicrous as the next. No w

onder people find their leisure as dull as

their work � leisure is w

ork. How

times change�. Karl M

arx: §The

working-day contains the full 24 hours, w

ith the deduction of the few

hours of repose without w

hich labor-power absolutely refuses its

services again� Time for education, for intellectual developm

ent, for

the fulfilling of social functions and for social intercourse, for the

free-play of� bodily and mental activity, even the rest tim

e of Sunday

(and that in a country of Sabbatarians!) � moonshine!§ But that

moonshine has becom

e legitimate business. The free tim

e available for

education, culture, sport, even faith, were once the hard-w

on fruits

of labor�s struggle to free time from

work. This free tim

e gave rise

to heterotopias of sport and art that at least held the intoxicating

illusion of autonomy from

the necessity of work. N

ow they becom

e work,

disguised as games, just as gam

es become the disguise of w

ork itself.

The sporting metaphors and slogans m

igrate from leisure to w

ork � and

back again. They cease to be metaphors and becom

e mere descriptions,

in a language stripped of any terms other than those of com

petition.

Almost every m

oment is sw

ept into a relentless agon.

157.��And as for those slack times betw

een engagements, w

ho knows w

hat to do

with them

? You are sitting, for example, in the tasteless departure

lounge of some provincial airport. It is four hours until your flight,

which � of course � is delayed. The shops around are uninspiring. You

do have a book in your backpack. It�s Heidegger, bought on im

pulse.

Shall you read? No. O

r think through some problem

? No. O

r play games

on your handheld? Not even. You are unable to. You look at the

departures and arrivals on the screen. You look at the clock, again.

You count the chairs. You walk up and dow

n. To pass the time you look

at the stores in the airport mall, but they all seem

mere clones of

each other, or of stores in other chains. Look, there is even a

franchise of The Cave�! You imagine the satisfaction of throw

ing a

rock through the plate glass window

. What�s the good? M

artin

Heidegger: �W

hat is at issue in boredom is a w

hile, a whiling, a

peculiar remaining, enduring�. A confrontation w

ith time.�

158.��You are sitting, for example, at your Playstation, w

ith a stack of

games to choose from

. The flight was long and tedious, and now

you are

home free. You put in State of Em

ergency, if only for the pleasure of

watching the autom

ated riot of two hundred non-player characters

ransack the mall in w

hich the game begins. You choose Chaos rather

than Revolution mode, so you can trash the place w

ithout worrying

about missions and objectives. W

hile fairly agreeable beats pound, you

pick up weapons, sm

ash things, thump and are thum

ped by security and

gang bangers, looking for the mom

ent to toss the bomb. Still, you are

bored. But this is a different kind of boredom. At the airport, it w

as

easy to blame it on the circum

stances. Now

, at home w

here you can do

whatever you like, it isn�t anything or anyone�s fault. You put the

game aw

ay, and wonder w

hy you are still, still bored. Heidegger again:

�Was I w

hat was boring m

yself?� Perhaps it is not things that are

closed to me, but m

y own being.

159.��Then again, perhaps its not things that are boring you, nor even

yourself that is boring you. Perhaps there is something else.

Something you can�t put your finger on. You are bored. W

hy fight it?

Why not just declare it? Iggy Pop: �I�m

the chairman of the bored!�

Perhaps here one can think through everyday boredom to a boredom

of

Heideggerian profundity, and confront tem

porality itself! Boredom

could be the tune to which one turns tow

ards theory. Philosopher of

boredom Lars Svendsen: §The essential difference betw

een the bored and

the ¥theoreticalƒ gaze is that the former is the result of an

involuntary loss of meaning, w

hile the theoretical gaze deliberately

removes it.§ Starting w

ith this ever more present everyday boredom

,

one might follow

Heidegger out of the m

all and into the sacred groves

of a certain brand of theory.

160.��Pause State of Emergency and take that H

eidegger book that you bought

on your travels out of your backpack. Idly flipping though its pages,

you find that Heidegger�s boredom

, strangely enough, has levels.

Thinking through from one level to the next presents, as he w

ill say

again and again, tasks, tasks, still more tasks. These tasks are

organized as a maze of paths and still m

ore paths. It�s all tasks and

paths, tasks and paths. To the gimlet eye of the gam

er, this theory

starts to look just like another game. Level one: N

ewbie Boredom

.

Level two: M

ore Boredom. Level three: Profound Boredom

. Bonus levels:

World, Finitude, Solitude. H

is book is a strategy guide for theory as

a game of being. A gam

e which, like any other, posits leveling up as a

goal in itself, approaching the ever-receding big bad boss of time

itself. A canny move for a gam

er theory is always to refuse any such

game w

hich claims to transcend gam

espace. Step outside The Cave� and

what do you find? Another cave, disguised as an exit. Better to return

to The Cave�, play the game and try to find its form

. Back to State of

Emergency: it�s a boring gam

e in many w

ays, but that may be its charm

.

One im

agines Benjamin and H

annah and the other characters one so

carefully cultivates in The Sims getting so bored they join the

mayhem

, smashing w

indows, looting big screen TVs of their dream

s.

161.��What if boredom

has less to do with the essence of tim

e and more to do

with particular qualities of space? Benjam

in (the Sim): �Boredom

is

the basis of the allegorithmic insight into the w

orld. Boredom lays

waste to the appeal of the gam

e as game, and calls attention to the

ambiguous relation of gam

e to gamespace.� Boredom

isn�t a longing, a

lengthening of time. It is a spacey feeling, of being spaced out. W

hat

is boring is a space in which either one cannot act, or one�s actions

amount to nothing � w

aiting at an airport mall, or choosing one m

ore

or less identical game over another. W

hen you are bored, even home

feels like a waiting room

. Gang of Four: �At hom

e she feels like a

tourist.� What displaces boredom

is the capacity to act in a way

that transforms a situation. It doesn�t m

atter that the Chaos mode in

State of Emergency is pointless. It displaces a bit of the gam

er�s

boredom in a m

aking-over of gamer and gam

e, changing the space the

gamer can access, extending the place of the riot from

the Capitol

Mall to Chinatow

n to Dow

ntown to the Corporate Center, changing the

powers of the gam

er to change the space itself. At least within the

confines of the game, at least for a w

hile. When it stops w

orking �

boot up another game.

162.��As the gamer becom

es attuned to the game, gam

er and game becom

e one

event, one battle, one action; an oscillating between the line

dividing self from other, and the line connecting them

as one

substance. If the line dividing provides a mom

ent of autonomous self;

the line connecting provides a mom

ent of selfless purpose. In games,

action has its limits. It is an endless bit-flip betw

een targeter,

targeting and target. And yet at least it effects a transformation of

gamer and gam

e. Games are a repository for a certain atopian labor,

which has the pow

er to confront the necessity of its own choosing.

Games do not offer a contem

plative response to boredom. If anything,

topology makes labor all too contem

plative. Rather, games are a space

for action, they restore a lost quality of the topical, where H

omer�s

heroes strutted their stuff, in the paradoxical form of a pure

topology. All the scope for action that gamespace both prom

ises and

denies is restored in the game. H

ence the double effect of State of

Emergency. It�s backstory is an allegory of negation and destruction �

in the pre-release version, the bad guys were even called the Am

erican

Trade Organization. And yet as an allegorithm

, it is purposeful,

constructive. The images don�t m

atter; the story is just an alibi.

Underneath it is a gam

e like any other game, built out of arbitrary

rules, but which one m

akes one�s own.

163.��For Heidegger a m

ove away from

a meditation on tim

e itself to thinking

about how one acts in a particular space is a retrograde step, back to

at best a �higher form of journalism

� or at worst a �fashionable

philosophy�, which sets out w

hat is contemporary, but does not m

ove

beyond the surfaces of the present. It diverts you from the gam

e of

reflection on your own being and instead assigns you a role in the

world. In this case, the role of the gam

er. Heidegger: �H

ave we becom

e

too insignificant to ourselves that we require a role? W

hy do we find

no meaning for ourselves any m

ore�? Is it because an indifference

yawns at us out of all things, an indifference w

hose grounds we do not

know? Yet w

ho can speak in such a way w

hen world trade, technology and

the economy seize hold of m

an and keep him m

oving?� Perhaps this is

precisely where the gam

er finds a way to speak, to �do theory�

(however fashionable or journalistic). Is it not this space � this

topology of trade and tech � that is intimately connected to the

persistence and pervasiveness of boredom?

164.��Boredom no longer affects just the restless young or the idle rich.

Gamespace offers nothing to anybody but the Sisyphean labor of rolling

the rock to the top, until this arbitrary necessity abates. Then what?

One�s actions at the crest of the hill becom

e useless, indifferent �

boring. State of Emergency restores a role to action by m

aking out of

the intricate topology of lines � of trade, technology � a matrix, if

not of meaning, then at least of m

easuring. The game installs in the

world an artificial necessity; gam

es are allegorithms of the necessity

of necessity, in a world in w

hich what is necessary is arbitrary and

without form

, where the line annihilates every topic. In topological

times it w

as the hero and his band who acted; in topographic tim

es the

hero becomes abstract � a nation, a class, a reinvented faith � but it

still acted. Once upon a tim

e, one could tell this story� Karl Marx:

�The people make history, but not as they please; not under the

circumstances of their ow

n choosing.� Now

the people choose their

circumstances, just as they choose the finish for their kitchen

cabinets, but there is no history to be made of them

.

165.��What characterizes the gam

er is a relinquishing of a role that might

have qualities beyond the game � as savior or soldier, priest or

prophet, rector or revolutionary. The gamer certainly does not expect

too much of the role of theorist, beyond entrØ

e into another game. It

cannot overcome boredom

. One m

ight as well choose instead a boring

game � like State of Em

ergency. What characterizes gam

er theory is a

playing with the role of the gam

er within the gam

e, not by stepping

beyond it, into a time or a role beyond the gam

e, but rather by

stepping into games that are relatively free of the pow

er of

gamespace. The gam

e is just like gamespace, only its transform

ations

of gamer and gam

e have no power beyond the battle in w

hich they meet.

In the game you are free because you choose your necessities. In a

game, you can hide out from

a gamespace that reneges on its prom

ises.

In a game you can choose w

hich circumstances are to be the necessity

against which you w

ill grind down the shape of a self. Even if, in so

choosing, you click to opt out of making history.

166.��Boredom can be displaced only so far. Even the m

ost deluded of gamers

can eventually realize that their strivings have no purpose, that all

they have achieved is a hollow trophy, the delusion of value, a

meaningless rank built on an arbitrary num

ber. Boredom alw

ays returns.

Giacomo Leopardi: �The uniform

ity of pleasure without purpose

inevitably produces boredom.� The very action of overcom

ing boredom

reproduces it, when gam

er and game reach som

e impasse. There is alw

ays

a limit. In gam

es this limit it alw

ays given in advance. That�s the

very merit of gam

es. In State of Emergency, the gam

e is an allegorithm

of its own lim

ited interest. It turns the mom

ent of boredom, the hour

propitious for making bom

bs, into a game as w

ell. It�s a game about

the destruction of gamespace � as itself a gam

e. The destruction of

gamespace is a gam

e that provides a uniform pleasure w

ith any other

game. This is the m

ilitary entertainment com

plex at its height,

constantly displacing boredom into yet m

ore games.

167. �Playing State of Emergency has a kind of liberating openness. You feel

rather than merely see or hear the environm

ent of the game. You scan

the mall for w

eapons, enemies, opportunities. Anything else is just

noise. Space is marked w

ith targets � with boundaries that draw

or

repel you according to how they m

ight effect your score and your

progress through the game. The gam

er opens out into the game and is no

longer bored. For a bit. But this openness also has its limits. W

hile

in the game and playing it w

ell, everything in it appears only from

the point of view of its relation to w

inning the game. N

othing is

anything other than a means to that end.

168.��Here boredom threatens to appear again. You are left em

pty by the

game, no longer taken (or taken in) by the things w

ithin it. The

action appears futile. Nothing m

oves you. You opened yourself to the

game but the gam

e itself does not really open toward you. You opened

towards som

ething closed. It is an animated space in w

hich things are

just marks of good or bad possibilities w

ithin the game. The

possibility of doing anything much seem

s to be withheld by the gam

e.

It feels like suspended animation. And yet, strangely, w

hat is

frustrating is that possibility itself seems so tantalizingly tangible

precisely because it isn�t here. Something appears precisely because

its arrival is out of bounds. As Heidegger champion Giorgio Agam

ben

says, it is: �[T]he being which exists in the form

of potentiality for

being.� But this potential is of a very particular kind. It is the

potential of something no longer particularly hum

an. It is the

potential of topology itself, where your digits, grasping the

controller, touch the digital, which in a w

eird way touches back.

169.��Gamespace is an anim

ation machine. The digital and the hum

an lead an

uneasy existence there. On the one hand, there are constant attem

pts

to �humanize� the technological, to m

ake it appear as if it were there

for you. On the other, it reduces the hum

an to the status of the

digital. It marks all of space as a battlespace w

ith yes/no triggers.

In State of Emergency the hum

an appears to rage against the machine,

but the figure of the human w

ithin the game is an anim

ation, a

machinic special effect. The real hum

an, you might say, is the gam

er

playing the game. But this hum

an, in order to play, has to think like

something other than a hum

an. It has to become anim

ated, machinic,

responding to targets within the gam

e as signals switching on or off

behaviors aimed at sheer survival. The gam

er coupled with the gam

e is

a strange animal.

170.��Here is some backstory, about a strange, fam

ous animal, know

n to

Heidegger, and much discussed since. Deleuze and Guattari: �the tick,

attracted by the light, hoists itself up on the tip of a branch; it is

sensitive to the smell of m

amm

als, and lets itself fall when one

passes beneath the branch; it digs into the skin, at the least hairy

place it can find. Just three affects; the rest of the time the tick

sleeps, sometim

es for years on end, indifferent to all that goes on in

the imm

ense forest.� It is an animal that lives in a w

orld which

appears as just a few targets. Agam

ben again: �Under particular

circumstances, like those w

hich man creates in laboratories, the

animal can effectively suspend its im

mediate relationship w

ith its

environment, w

ithout, however, ceasing to be an anim

al or becoming

human.� This suspension is also w

hat the digital game does. The

gamer suspends a relation w

ith an environment � gam

espace � within the

special topic of the game, w

ithout ceasing to be human or becom

ing

machine.

171.��You know nothing about your body until you know

what it can do.

Boredom is not doing nothing. Boredom

is something a body does w

hen

space will not let the body enter it in a w

ay which transform

s the

body into something else, so that the body can forget itself. Boredom

is a suspended animation, m

ade possible by the absence of a certain

relation to space, a certain quality of labor. If the trigger points

in space always point tow

ard the same possibilities, only under

different signs, then boredom inevitably returns. State of Em

ergency

marks an anxiety w

ithin the military entertainm

ent complex about this

very possibility. Perhaps it is a game that tries to incorporate and

overcome the threat boredom

poses to the military entertainm

ent

complex by m

aking a game of it. A gam

e which, oddly enough, m

akes

boredom interesting. In a drive-by critique of State of Em

ergency,

anti-globalization writer Naom

i Klein declares: �anti-corporate

imagery is increasingly being absorbed by corporate m

arketing.� But

the affect runs both ways here. The gam

e might co-opt, but is at the

same tim

e an allegory for an anxiety about what to do w

hen gamespace

can no longer collude with boredom

. The powers behind the digital

might try to co-opt boredom

; the boredom of the gam

er might yet co-opt

the digital instead.

172.��Just as the military industrial com

plex once forced the free rhythms

of labor into the measured beat of w

ork, so now its successors oblige

the free rhythms of play to becom

e equally productive. Alan Liu:

�Increasingly, knowledge w

ork has no true recreational outside.� The

time and space of the topological w

orld is organized around the

maintenance of boredom

, nurturing it yet distracting it just enough to

prevent its implosion in on itself, from

which alone m

ight arise the

counter power to the gam

e. All the potentials of topology, its lines

upon lines, are configured as a gamespace designed to neutralize play

and contain it. State of Emergency is a gam

e about the possibilities

pent up within gam

espace. It enacts the game as a repository, a

mem

ory, a practice patch for free labor, for autonomous action. It

presents this possibility for action as the negation of actually

existing gamespace.

173.��The straightforward lines of topographic space left room

in the

margins for heterotopias w

hich formalized the orders of play. It

instituted the chronicles of legends and statistics that would becom

e

the game�s opening gam

bit against history. In topographic times, the

cyclic repetition of the game never quite reached the threshold of

boredom, as there w

as still an everyday life of work and struggle from

which it offered an orderly retreat. The topological, by contrast,

captures all of space in its monotonous grids and all of tim

e in its

repetitive innings. Boredom becom

es pervasive, uncontainable � a real

threat. And so the military entertainm

ent complex invents ever-new

games, w

ith new rules, new

moves, new

chances for competitors to pit

themselves against each other, or against chance itself, so as to

maintain its grip on the topology it extrudes out of itself,

incorporating all of space. Boredom w

ith any particular game is alw

ays

displaced onto another game, before it call into question the

imperfections of gam

espace as a poor excuse for how one could live and

labor among these richly productive and seductive lines.

174.��In topological times, play disappears into the gam

e, and boredom loom

s

on all sides. The military entertainm

ent complex responds by

introducing into the game every kind of novelty im

aginable. Games

becomes less and less a tangible field outside the w

orkaday places of

everyday life. They become a gam

espace, an intangible complex of lines

along which all inform

ation shuttles, subordinated to protocols and

rules. It�s other scene is no longer a heterotopian playing field as a

space and time apart. Rather, it is the atopian space of the digital

game, w

hich is more separate than a heterotopian playing field, but

which is even m

ore an atopian double for the whole of space itself.

The problem w

ith gamespace is not that it presents the w

orld via the

action of targeting. The problem is that in gam

espace things target

people, rather than people targeting things. It is not that the

digital is a technology that cuts into the world and presents it to

the human as if it w

ere always, and already cut to suit us. It is that

it cuts us, renders us as digital bits, and presents them to the w

orld

made over as a gam

espace in which w

e are the targets.

175.��The military entertainm

ent complex is above all the m

anagement and

maintenance of boredom

. The military w

ing trains boredom�s lax

energies outward; the entertainm

ent wing coaches the residual boredom

within. Both w

ithout and within, boredom

is contained within the lines

of gamespace. Jam

es P. Carse: �The world is elaborately m

arked by

boundaries of contest, its people finely classified as to their

eligibilities.� The game plan replaces the w

ork ethic. The interests

of the complex dom

inate policy, and policy�s goal is alleviating the

threat of boredom. W

hat is good for the military entertainm

ent complex

is good for the country. And what is good for the m

ilitary

entertainment com

plex is the war on boredom

, which, like the w

ar on

terror, is never to be won, m

erely displaced, as the boredom index

rises and falls. For boredom can arise anyw

here and everywhere, once

space is made over as topology. The trick for the m

ilitary

entertainment com

plex is to collude with it in m

aintaining it without

having it turn upon the complex itself.

Complex (on Deus Ex)

Fig. 8 176.�There are four w

ays in which the topology of gam

espace can come to an

end and be superceded by a new topos � at least according to the gam

e

Deus Ex: Invisible War. (If you have played this gam

e you may know

there is also a fifth ending, of which protocol dem

ands the

withholding until the puzzle of the other four endings unlocks its

significance.) In the game, your character has to choose betw

een

aiding the victory of one of four organizations, all of which are at

odds with each other, and each of w

hich has its own idea of how

to

realize a permanent atopia beyond gam

espace, a topos beyond topology.

Working backw

ards from these four endings it is possible to plot the

backstory, not just of Deus Ex but of the military entertainm

ent

complex � at least as it can be understood from

within the gam

e, from

within The Cave� itself.

177.�The four endings of Deus Ex can be pieced together by arranging them

in two pairs. (See fig. 8) The first, m

ore �personal� pair of endings

pits the victory of the Templars against that of the Om

ar. The

Templars are a fanatical religious order devoted to the body�s

purification of all �biomods�. The Om

ar are a no less fearsome

collective organism of black m

arketeers, in which the body has been

subsumed into technology. The second, m

ore �political� pair of endings

pits the victory of the Illuminati against that of ApostleCorp. The

Illuminati are a secret cabal of pow

er-brokers hidden behind

organizational fronts, dedicated to restoring order under their

control. ApostleCorp is a techno-intellectual faction dedicated to

bringing about a just and democratic but no less �posthum

an�

civilization. You, the gamer, play a m

inor character, who can

nevertheless tip the balance between these pow

ers and their goals.

178.�Deus Ex is a shadowy w

orld. Some of the organizations w

ho at first

appear so powerful are just fronts for others. For instance the neo-

liberal WTO and the religious fundam

entalists of The Order, which

appear antagonistic to each other in every way, turn out in classic

conspiracy theory style to be but masks secretly controlled by the

Illuminati. This chain of unm

asking can be extended even beyond the

game. Behind the final four pow

ers � Templar and Om

ar, Illuminati and

ApostleCorp � is at least one more unm

asking. The first pair of

endings � Templar and Om

ar � masks an agon betw

een the complete

assimilation of the hum

an into the machine (Om

ar) versus the complete

rejection of the intercourse of body with m

achine (Templar). Along

this axis, the problem of w

here gamespace is heading is �personal�, a

question of the boundaries of the body and its other. The other pair

of endings � Illuminati and ApostleCorp � is less about the im

mediate

relation of body to machine as som

ething �personal�. It is about

something not personal, som

ething that is perhaps political. Here the

ends of gamespace are an agon betw

een a democratic relation, in w

hich

all bodies comm

unicate equally with m

achines; versus the hierarchical,

where all com

munication passes via a controlling pow

er. The personal

is political, but in Deus Ex the impersonal is political, too.

179.�For the gamer, it is alw

ays a matter of starting at the beginning and

playing through to the end. In the original Deus Ex and its sequel,

Invisible War, there are different w

ays of getting from beginning to

end. It can be done by stealth, by violence, or negotiation, but

either way the gam

e reveals itself level by level, from start to

finish. For the gamer as theorist, perhaps in Deus Ex it�s a m

atter of

taking the end as the starting point. The question of what can

constitute an end state is the question of what occupies the lim

its to

thought within gam

espace. Why these four endings? If they are just

arbitrary, random possibilities, then they m

ay be fun for the gamer to

play through to but not much fun for the gam

er theorist to start out

from in this other gam

e � the other game of the relation betw

een the

allegorithm of the gam

e to the allegory of gamespace. But perhaps the

four endings of Deus Ex are not random but are rather the pieces of a

puzzle.180.�Behind the four organizations w

ho vie for power in Invisible W

ar are

four more abstract, m

ore impersonal antagonists w

ho stalk the

fantastic vistas of gamespace itself. Either technology trum

ps the

human, or vice versa. (Tem

plar vs. Omar.) Either dem

ocracy trumps

hierarchy, or vice versa. (Illuminati vs. ApostleCorp.) But beyond

that, perhaps the game reaches a certain lim

it. Behind this mask is

not another mask; behind this pow

er is not another power, but

something else � a diagram

of the avatars of power. The four endings

exhaust the possibilities within w

hich gamespace can think about

itself. They are its endgame. But w

hile there is not at this point

another character to unmask, there is a puzzle to solve in the

arrangement of these m

asks. These endings, and what they m

ask, enter

into quite definite relations. The four terms invite the gam

er

theorist to a new kind of gam

e.

181.�The four possible endings of Deus Ex fit on a �Greimas square.� W

hich

is to say, the endings are terms in a gam

e of meaning m

aking. (See

Fig. 8) If George Perec is the avant garde aesthete of gamespace,

Greimas is its pioneering theorist, for w

hom all culture can now

be

thought retrospectively in terms of the gam

e. A. J. Greimas: �Perhaps

out of a desire for intelligibility, we can im

agine that, in order to

achieve the construction of cultural objects (literary, mythical,

pictorial, etc.), the human m

ind begins with sim

ple elements and

follows a com

plex trajectory, encountering on its way both constraints

to which it m

ust submit and choices it is able to m

ake.� Or in other

words, the play of m

eaning is made w

ithin the bounds of a game. At

stake here is the relation of play to game. As topography gives w

ay to

topology, game rises in prom

inence relative to play. In the realm of

avant garde strategies, the game w

ithin constraints of George Perec

supercedes the play beyond game of Guy Debord. In the rear guard of

theoretical strategies, the game of m

eaning supercedes the meaning of

games; A. J Greim

as tops Johan Huizinga. For Huizinga play precedes

game. It is the play �instinct� that inspires the form

ation of forms.

Greimas anticipates the enclosure of play w

ithin gamespace. As the

whole of space succum

bs to the game, it is the logic of constraints

which determ

ine the possibilities of play.

182.�Huizinga, writing in the shadow

of the Nazis, knew w

hat was com

ing:

§It remained for the theory of ¥total w

arƒ to� extinguish the last

vestige of the play element.§ The m

ilitary industrial complex is on

its way. Total w

ar then extends its logistics to the spaces of work,

and finally play itself. Now the m

ilitary entertainment com

plex is on

its way. Transgressive play has its last hurrah in the Situationist

attempt to live out Huizinga�s theory as a program

for action. Greil

Marcus: �As bathos it w

as just drunks trying to walk and think at the

same tim

e.� There is nowhere to hide outside of gam

espace � the

total game. Guy Debord: �One cannot go into exile in a unified

world.� The form

er leader of the Situationists will devote his

declining years to designing and playing a board game w

hich formalizes

all he imagines he has learned about revolutionary playtim

e, and yet

entombs it w

ithin its rules.

183.�With the rise of topology, the tension betw

een game and play is

resolved in favor of the game. W

hether in art, theory, or in everyday

life: There is nothing outside the game. The storyline, w

hich once

marked the boundaries w

ithin which a gam

e could begin, becomes

internal to gamespace, and is now

much m

ore about legitimizing the

point at which a gam

e �must� end. The storyline becom

es just the

working out, one m

ove at a time, of a possible line through the

constraints of gamespace. In the gam

e it is an algorithm that

determines w

hen something can end; but it is the storyline that m

akes

this end point seem natural, inevitable, and necessary. But w

hile a

storyline has an ending, Deus Ex has four endings. It reveals just a

bit more of the rules of the gam

e of meaning m

aking than a story

usually would. That Deus Ex is a gam

e of four endings is already a

slight slippage of the mask, revealing the rules of the m

eaning-making

game.

184.�In topographic times, heterotopian gam

es gave onto non-game spaces. A

game was delineated by what it was not. In topological tim

es, atopian

games give onto nothing but other gam

es. In gamespace, the exit from

one game will turn out to be an entry into another. Each cave lets

onto another cave. But this does not banish the problem of what is

not-game. On the contrary, it m

akes it a pervasive and incessant

problem. Its locus is the gam

er, who can only be a gamer by being

constantly pulled into and pushed out of one game after another, and

who, in mom

ents of boredom in between, glim

pses the very conditions of

possibility of gamespace. These are the m

oments when the gam

er can

neither target something within the gam

e nor be the target the game

itself selects to make its own. The tension is no longer what is prior

to or outside the game, but what, from

inside the game, m

ay bring it

to an end � and what that end might be.

185.�The gamer�s boredom

arises out of the recognition that, under the

variegated spectacle of details, the act of gaming is always

essentially the same. The gam

er oscillates between two states. The

first state is being separate from the target; the second is being

merged with the target. (Playing Deus Ex in stealth m

ode only reverses

the procedure. The goal is to not be the other�s target). The first

state merges the gam

er with the character in the presence of the

target, the second merges the character with the target and produces,

as a result, the gamer, as the one who hit or m

issed. (See Fig. 6) The

gamer oscillates within an agon between two term

s: being separate and

being merged into the gam

e. In Deus Ex, the Templars are the knights

of separation; the Omar want nothing but com

plete synthesis of human

and machine. This first pair in the Greim

as square enact the

realization of the game as one of two agonistic states in which the

gamer m

ay be in relation to any game.

186.�One may be Om

ar or Templar, m

erged or separated from gam

espace, but

this pair of terms m

asks another: beyond the antagonistic positions of

being merged or separated, there is a pair of slightly different

terms, which are other to the initial pair rather than antagonistic to

them. You m

ay be separate or merged; but you m

ay also be not-separate

or not-merged. This latter pair of possibilities opens up a lot m

ore

territory. The antagonist of separate is merged, but the other of

separate is the not-separate, which could be many other states. The

antagonist of merged is separate, but the other of m

erged is not-

merged, which could be m

any other states. Within the gam

e, the

agonistic seems to define a digital difference: if not one thing, then

another. One term antagonizes another term

; each of which defines the

other negatively. Each is what the other is not. But in the relation

of game to not-gam

e, the relation to the other term takes precedence.

A game always depends on a prior difference, not quite digital, but of

another order. This is otherness, wherein a term is posited against a

pure negative, against what is not it. This other term does not in

turn draw its identity from this relation. It rem

ains unmarked. A gam

e

begins by ruling out what is not-game. It says nothing about what not-

game is. There is nothing it can say about what not-gam

e is. Nor can

it say where not-game begins or ends.

187.�To be not-separate from the gam

e could be many things. From

within the

logic of the game, the only way to venture into this territory is by

positing something that can go in the place of the not-separate. The

game expands here under the guise of the Illum

inati. Perhaps there is

something beyond the digital, on-off relation of the gam

er with the

game. Perhaps it is bigger than that. Perhaps there are protocols

determining who has access to which gam

e; perhaps some gam

es are more

important than other gam

es, and determine the possible outcom

es of

subordinate games. Even m

ore disturbing: Perhaps you only appear to be

the player of a game. Perhaps you are really a �non-player character�

in a game controlled by som

eone or something else. Perhaps if you took

off your own mask, the m

ask of the gamer, you would find that you only

imagine yourself to be the one playing � perhaps you are the one who

has been played. Ice T: �You played yourself.� In a gamespace

governed by protocol, by codes of access and denial of access, to one

thing fronted or not fronted by another, every appearance prompts the

paranoid suspicion that it is not what it seems.

188.�To be not-merged with the gam

e might also be a m

ore complex term

than

either the merged or separate term

s. Holding down its place is

ApostleCorp. Perhaps it is not about more or less separation. Perhaps

it is a qualitative relation that can�t be captured by the simple

terms of separation and m

erger, nor yet by the protocols and

hierarchies of the not-separate. Here you may find the ghost of

Huizinga, and a play that calls into being its own rules. This fourth

term m

ay be the most interesting of all, but one which is usually

suppressed in favor of one of the other three. Nevertheless, the

fourth term has to find its place in the puzzle in order to unlock the

next level in this game.

189.�The first storyline strand � from Tem

plar to Illuminati � starts with

the separation of gamer and gam

e, and terror about merging hum

an and

machine. But beyond this existential tension, the storyline develops

the thought of what can be outside of separation and merger. It

fantasizes a power of control over the relation between separation and

merger. The m

erger at the basest levels is presided over by a

separation at the top. Or vice versa: separation at the bottom resists

and reacts against merger at the top.

190.�The second storyline � from Om

ar to ApostleCorp � takes the opposite

path. It also begins with the existential question of the separation

of gamer and gam

e, or of the human and the nonhum

an. Only it resolves

the tension in favor not of separation but of merger. It takes m

erger

for granted. This is the properly �cyberpunk� axis. It starts with the

assumption of a schizoid splitting and m

ixing of layers and levels of

flesh and metal. The storyline axis then travels toward the fourth

term, which is that of the non-m

erger. Are there ways for the soft

machine of the body and the digital m

achine of the game to co-exist?

On what terms? Could there be a com

munication between them

? A

comm

unication in which one need not be the antagonist of the other?

Deleuze & Guattari: �The schizophrenic is the universal producer.

There is no need to distinguish here between producing and its

product. We need m

erely note that the pure �thisness� of the object

produced is carried over into a new act of producing.� It might not

be an antagonism of opposites, still less a com

munication of

equivalents, so much as an excitation of incom

mensurables, of flesh by

machine and m

achine by flesh.

191.�The Templar attract the sense of panic (and resignation) about the

machine; the Om

ar a fear (and euphoria) that it is too late, and that

any dalliance with the digital subsumes anything hum

an. The Illuminati

open toward a paranoia about what might be behind gam

espace, a

mysterious conspiracy, and perhaps a critical theory � of the m

ilitary

entertainment com

plex. The fourth term points towards a digital

delirium, a negated realm

of possibilities � an �extopian�

possibility, in which gamer and gam

e cease to exist as separate terms,

and there is a complete elimination of the limits of any topos. The

�extopian� dwells neither here nor there, but at once and at one with

the world. The possible endings of Deus Ex map out the topos of the

military entertainment complex. It is a synthesis of the two competing

storylines that try to account for everyday life from within The

Cave�, or what some call the �posthuman condition�. Katharine Hayles:

�The prospect of becoming posthuman evokes terror and excites

pleasure.� Perhaps in equal measure, and always at the same time.

192.�The four endings of Deus Ex play out all of these possibilities. The

agonistic forces of the Templars and the Omar open toward what they

are not, but in place of what they are not, the game posits another

pair of antagonistic terms � Illuminati and ApostleCorp. This second

pair stage the agonistic storylines of the paranoid complex and a

schizoid complexity. For the Templars, separation is key, and yet to

fight in this posthuman grid, they require technics, armor for

example, which implicates them in various forms of non-separation from

the very thing their being is founded on separation from. For the

Omar, the problem is the reverse. Theirs is a being not defined by an

assumption of an always-already separate being, a gamer before the

game which might have anxiety about its boundaries, about tripping

into the nonhuman. They are always already not human. Yet they have to

find ways to communicate with what is human, with what is separate, in

order to draw it into the game. At either end of this agon, of

complete merger or complete separation, the problem looks like one of

another difference � non-separation, non-merger. But this other

difference is now internal to the game. Gamespace has colonized what

it is not, and erected in its place a new agon. It subordinates the

analog to the digital.

193.�Start over. Here are the rules of the game: Start with an agon of

Templar vs. Omar. Find the values masked by these proper names

(separate vs. merged). Discover the hidden exclusion masked by these

terms (not-separate vs. not-merged). Detect the positive terms which

cover the absence of these purely negations (Illuminati vs.

ApostleCorp). Now for the next level: Does gamespace stop there? Or is

it not always a double masking, of the value masked by the character;

and of the indeterminate negativity masked by an agon of positive

terms? After unmasking the Illuminati as a mere cover for non-

separation, what next? Do these masks cover and cover to infinity?

Here another dimension reveals itself. Are these masks of characters

for values, and of values for negations not the protocols to a total

game? Starting from the Templars, these are the questions one might

pose in the act of gameplay, which might work out the terms of the

conspiracy by which the complex hides itself, but not so completely

that a paranoid sensibility might not puzzle it out.

194.�Start over again. Start instead from the Omar. What is behind them?

The value of a complete merger of gamer and game. But what might a

non-merger be? Could this relation of not only gamer to game, but of

gamers to games, be otherwise? Could a more intimate relation of gamer

to game yet be the condition of possibility for the autonomous self-

creation of something beyond the gamer? And of something beyond the

game? Starting from the Omar, this is the territory in which you might

find yourself. This is the terrain of a schizoid blurring of the

boundaries of flesh and machine, opening not toward a complex of

control but a complexity beyond all centralizing forms of power.

Rather than the digital boundary, separating gamer from game; here it

is an analog relation, a variable relation of gamer into game.

195.�Deus Ex opens the problem of the other behind the agon of positive

terms � and closes it again. But in this closing, it provides the

place for a gamer theory to start a new kind of game. Or rather, it

provides two places, and the possibility of two kinds of gamer theory.

The first could be called critical, or perhaps just paranoid. From the

Templar�s agon with the Omar, we ignore the Omar for a moment and

think instead of the Templar�s relation to the Illuminati, which

stands revealed as a positive term masking the point of a negation,

that of the not-separate. This revelation of a pure negative, where it

is not given what the other term is, opens toward a paranoid

sensibility, which is where the possibility of a critical thought

beyond the game might lie. Sigmund Freud: §The delusions of paranoiacs

have an unpalatable external similarity and internal kinship to the

systems of philosophers.§ The paranoia of the not-separate is in not

knowing what you are not-separate from. Paranoid thought always seeks

out the powers that hide in the shadows of the not-separate.

196.�Start over. Start instead from the Omar. Ignoring for the moment their

agon with the Templars, consider instead the Omar�s other relation to

ApostleCorp, who are posited in the place of the not-merged. But here

might lie a quite different possibility for a gamer theory, not

paranoid, but schizoid. Rather than ask an analyst like Freud about

the power of negation, if you ask a patient, particularly a patient

who defeated the game, perhaps one gets a different answer, a schizo�s

analysis. Heretical Surrealist Antonin Artaud: �Which indeed is not a

philosophy, but in the pan of fried potatoes, square perhaps with the

handle of the cantilever which bears like the spoon in the perforated

tongue of the sex organ forever denied by the heart.� To the

paranoid sensibility, what appears positively, as one�s antagonist

masks what is negative. It masks not-being. Everything appears as a

fight to the end, unmasking one after another as false positivities,

each yielding over and over to nothingness, always seeking the face of

total power masked behind not-being. To the schizoid sensibility, on

the other hand, undoing the agon between one positivity and other

opens up more positive differences, positivity to infinity, and a

perverse play of terms outside any storyline demarking being from not

being. The problem with schizos is that they take words for things;

The problem with paranoiacs is that they take things for words.

197.�Both choices offered for a gamer theory have their limitations. One

starts with separation from the game and opens towards conspiracy

theories, and perhaps towards a critical theory of separation. This

move suppresses atopia without realizing it. The other starts with the

merger of gamer into game and opens towards a �cyberpunk� celebration

of the hybridity of nervous system and circuit board. This move

realizes atopia without suppressing it. The rise of gamespace may

conclude with either the suppression and realization of the game � and

the gamer. What could be the endgame of gamespace itself? Who � or

what � can come after the persona of the gamer? How can you both

suppress and realize the game? How could one come to live in a topos

in which one�s actions can be freely chosen and yet not insignificant?

How could one be both free from necessity yet unsullied by boredom?

How could one be neither a prisoner of work nor condemned to a merely

frivolous play? This is what is at stake in the game.

198.�Another Greimas square: childish play is antagonistic to the serious

business of work. Player vs. worker. But who stands in the place of

the non-player? The gamer. The gamer is outside of but not the

opposite of the player. But who then is the non-worker? Let�s call

this character the hacker. (Fig. 9) To hack is outside of but not

opposite to work. It is a free, self directed activity which makes its

own rules, its own conditions of completion and its own protocols of

success. It is an algorithm that writes itself. It is a practice

beyond work and play, and against the game, and which calls for

another character. Here is the mask of the fourth character: �We are

the hackers of abstraction. We produce new concepts, new perceptions,

new sensations, hacked out of raw data. Whatever code we hack, be it

programming language, poetic language, math or music, curves or

colorings, we are the abstracters of new worlds.� The character of

the hacker is what is worshipped in that new category of celebrity �

the game designer. If the celebrities of play were transgressors of

rules; the celebrities of the game are makers of rules � but only

within certain constraints. Not even the game designer gets to make

the rules of gamespace. Not even an Information Overlord like the CEO

of Electronic Arts, Larry Probst. What would it mean to be a hacker

not just of games but of gamespace itself? This is the realized atopia

that ApostleCorp stands for.

199.�In Deus Ex: Invisible War the name for what is at the center of this

universe of futures is Helios. This sun around which all revolves is

said to be � like Eden in Rez � an �artificial intelligence�, but is

in effect a game engine, and what is at stake is the relation, via

this game engine, of the gamer with the game. A game engine is a maker

of worlds, but of worlds that appear as if they were made for the

gamer, as if they lent themselves to actions which could uncover their

protocols. While other media present the world as if it were for you

to look at, the game engine presents worlds as if they were not just

for you to look at, but for you to act upon them in a way that is

given. The realm of the not-game is the domain in which the gamer

cannot act as a gamer. The separation of the game from the not-game

creates this space of possible perceptions and actions.

200.�Deus Ex has a fifth ending, nested inside the game, where all of its

characters, regardless of rank or faction, get down and party. Here is

the limit to gamespace within gamespace itself, where differences lack

antagonism, and yet for all that do not cease to be differences. Terms

coexist without reduction to one vs. another. Could there be a topos

after topology, which is not a regression, back to the topographic, or

even the topical? Could there be an overcoming of necessity that does

not dissipate into useless boredom? Could the gamer come into

possession of the means to make the rule as well as the move? Could

the gamer also be a hacker, a maker of rules for moves as well as of

moves within rules? This is the threshold to which Deus Ex brings us.

But if there is a deus ex machina at work in this game, it is the one

that rescues the game itself from its own overcoming. Even the fifth

ending, which could point to a conclusion beyond the game, merely

posits another one, where characters masquerade like celebrities, and

the gamer is to feel privileged to have slipped behind the velvet

rope.

Conclusions (on SimEarth)

Fig. 9

201.�You arrive home from work one evening, only to discover your biosphere

is dead. What a way to start the week! On looking back through the

records, the reason is not hard to discover. A classic greenhouse-

effect problem. Next time, wind down the fossil fuels a little more so

your globe doesnƒt cook itself to death while you�re out. Fortunately

the biosphere in question is only a game, or something like a game.

You have this program running on your home computer called SimEarth,

which lets you model all kinds of biosphere conditions over a number

of different time frames: geological, biological and sociological.

The one you think you�re getting a little obsessed with is a model of

planet Earth from 1990 onwards. So this week you decide that you will

set up this model every morning, selecting types and quantities of

energy use and expenditure. You will come home every evening and see

if your world is still running. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isnƒt.

202.�Thereƒs something a little eerie about having a functioning biosphere

in your home; something rather more disturbing about finding the thing

has gone belly up while you were out at work. SimEarth lets you choose

from a number of energy sources, including biomass, hydro-electric,

solar, nuclear or fossil fuelled. It also lets you program a range of

energy uses, including science, agriculture, medicine, and the arts.

Each of these has different effects. If you expend energy on

agriculture, population increases rather more rapidly. If you devote

more resources to science, technological change accelerates. Some of

the assumptions here are of course crude, but not unreasonable.

Naturally, a home biosphere has to run a relatively simple algorithm

compared to the heavy duty model.

203.�The curious thing about it is how fiddling around with these crude

variables gives you a feel for the global impact of fundamental

choices about what economists call resource allocation. For instance,

you start it up one midweek morning with settings which devote a lot

of resources to agriculture. This seems a reasonable approach to

creating a minimalist atopia. Theodor Adorno: �There is tenderness

only in the coarsest demand: that no-one should go hungry any more.

Every other seeks to apply to a condition that ought to be determined

by human needs, a mode of conduct adapted to production as an end in

itself.� And yet it doesn�t quite work out. When you come home from

work you find the population shot through the roof. That one was

predictable. What you hadnƒt counted on, though, was that increasing

agriculture pumped out more greenhouse gasses. The temperature was

ever so slowly rising, threatening to toast everything, unevenly but

very crisply brown. And all because of that troubling phrase, �human

needs��

204.�Like any patient confronted with a terminal diagnosis, you wanted a

second opinion. So you set SimEarth running at home before driving off

to work, where you steal a little time to fire up your browser and go

web surfing. The urgent problem is to find out why increasing the

amount of food being grown has this lethal effect. The prognosis is

not good. It seems that methane is one of the gasses that causes

global warming. A bit too much methane in the air and heat gets

trapped in the atmosphere. By dialing up more agriculture, you also

upped the amount of methane going into the atmosphere. Rice paddies,

for instance, are one of the sources of methane. It seems that deep in

the muck at the bottom of rice paddies are little bacteria that

produce methane as a byproduct. Great! There you were, only this

morning trying to see to it that all the people on your biosphere are

get enough to eat, and by the time you come home for dinner you�re

cooking the biosphere.

205.�This is all a bit too much, but fortunately the next day is the end of

the working week and you are going out to dinner afterwards with

friends. You imagine this might take your mind of SimEarth, but all

that food on the table makes you loose your appetite. That big silvery

dish with all that rice in it smells like over-cooked biosphere. The

beef, delicious though it tastes, only makes things worse. It seems

that one of the other sources of methane in the world is, of all

things, cow farts. Yes, cow farts. It never occurred to you that there

was the slightest global significance in the fact that cows are a bit

gassy. The problem is, they fart (and belch) methane. Well, not the

cows exactly, but the bacteria in their stomachs that break down all

that grass. Those bacteria, like their teeming little prokaryote

relatives in the rice paddies, also make methane.

206.�The weekend comes, so now you can really spend some time on this

biosphere business. When you programmed your little biosphere with

lots of food production so that nobody would go hungry, you also

selected a higher rate of methane output. It just goes to show how you

have to think about all of the consequences of anything you do. That

nobody should go hungry is a worthy goal, but, all things being equal,

it means more people, and more people means more land under

cultivation, and that means more methane, and that is a bit of a

problem. So the next time you set up SimEarth you do things a bit

differently. Rather than concentrate on expanding food production in

the short term, why not put more resources into science and technology

instead? This is a bit of a gamble, you think to yourself as you drive

off to the mall in your high tech hybrid car, the kind Al Gore

recommends. What if science didnƒt come up with the answers in time?

What if burning up fossil fuels at a rate of knots didnƒt kick

progress along fast enough? What if people go hungry? What the hell is

progress anyway?

207.�By the time you return home, SimEarth had reverted to what it calls,

with a certain drollery, �geological time�. There is nothing left

alive, so your planet is just ticking over, waiting quartz eons for

life to mysteriously spark again. What happened? Check the charts.

Lets see: pollution up, oxygen levels down, carbon dioxide up,

temperatures sky high. It seems the techno-gamble didnƒt quite work

out. Cranking up the whole global economy to the max, pumping out and

burning up every source of energy as fast as possible certainly did

increase the pace of technological change, but in this scenario, it

increased the rate of global climate change even faster.

208.�The problem wasnƒt the methane this time. By keeping population and

food production growing a bit more slowly it seems you kept your

little green earth from spinning out into that fate. The problem this

time was the carbon dioxide. There it is on the graph � shooting up at

a devilishly sharp tack, taking temperatures up with it. Burning

fossil fuels � oil and coal � produces carbon dioxide, among other

things, and when you increase the amount of carbon dioxide in the

atmosphere, you turn the toaster on again. Like methane, it traps the

heat from sunlight. The really sad part is that all the way home in

the car from your trip to the mall, loaded up with organic vegetables,

biodegradable toilet paper and the new slim-line model Playstation,

you had been really eager to see if your little gamble had paid off.

209.�You had not quite absorbed the idea that driving is part of the

problem. Marx showed how each act of concrete, specific, particular

labor is made equivalent, by the wage relation, to every other.

Concrete labor is also abstract labor. In gamespace, every concrete,

specific action of any kind is also an abstract action, the consuming

of a given resource for a given result. And yet gamespace does not

encompass and account for every action. Only those inputs that take

the form of an agon between competing forces in the market can be

calculated. But behind the agon lies a host of contrary terms, shading

off into the imperceptible, that come back to taunt gamespace with

their cumulative effect. What sets SimEarth apart is that the

unintended consequences of agon, all the excluded and contrary

outputs, received at least an approximate accounting.

210.�You had always thought that if the economy in the real world cranked

along at maximum efficiency, then technology would also bobble along

at a rate sufficient to deal with the little problems that might occur

along the way. Karl Marx: �Mankind thus inevitably sets itself only

such tasks as it is able to solve, since closer examination will

always show that the problem itself arises only when the material

conditions for its solution are already present or at least in the

course of formation.� Well, maybe. What the SimEarth allegorithm

points to is that like most people, you had always taken this on

faith. What happens if the little problems arenƒt just accidental

byproducts � a little oil spill there, a toxic waste disaster there �

what if the military entertainment complex itself was mucking up the

global conditions of its own success? Gamespace is just like your

Playstation. It appears to itself as a rigorous game, with every

action accounted for, and yet it relies on a huge power cord poking

out the back that sucks in energy from an elsewhere for which it makes

no allowance. That the game is not really ruled off from the world,

that it relies on an external source of power, did not really occur to

you until you played your new Playstation for hours and hours on end

and it overheated. Tantalum, like the rest of planet earth, is only

good with so much heat. There is something outside The Cave� after

all. Game over.211.�Alright, so maybe third time lucky. Lets ease up on the agricultural

output and the use of fossil fuels. Here�s an idea: letƒs go nuclear!

Maybe this is the way to have the best of both worlds, so to speak.

Lots of energy to keep industry and technology cooking, but without

turning on the big heat of the greenhouse toaster-oven. Run it

overnight and test your nuclear gambit. Sunday morning comes. Well,

this time there is good news and bad news. The good news: your

biosphere didnƒt cook this time. You had well and truly solved the

greenhouse problem � permanently. The bad news: Rather than overheat

it, you accidentally shoved it into the deep freeze. Its called

�nuclear winter� � and it results from letting off a few too many

thermonuclear devices. The dust cloud from that keeps the sunlight out

altogether. 212.�By clicking on the nuclear option, you gave your little SimEarthlings

not only a great source of power, but a dangerous weapon. It was not

as if you had taken away the sources of potential conflict, however.

Conditions were not exactly ripe, it seems for global consciousness.

A. A. Bogdanov: �The struggle between classes, groups, and individuals

precludes both the idea of the whole and the happiness and suffering

implied by the notion.� They just started blasting away at each

other. Perhaps they didn�t invent game theory, and figure out that

deterrence only works if nobody shoots. And perhaps that�s your fault

� you reduced inputs for science and culture. The radioactive patches

on the surface of this digital earth burn through a few eons-worth of

the subsequent ¥geologicalƒ phase. You can see little nuke signs, carved on the brown stump of a formerly green planet, like vandal-carved graffiti on trees that announces to nobody in particular: we were here. How did this happen? While the now quite visible hand of agon within gamespace metes out resources according to its law; an invisible foot, composed of all that shades away into mere contraries, qualities without quantities, kicks it to pieces. You loose again. Kim Stanley Robinson: �It was frightening � as if history were a series of human wave assaults on misery, failing time after time.� 213.�It�s not much of a game, SimEarth. Perhaps that�s why after seven days of uncreation, you became bored with it. Then uninstalled it. Then finally got around to selling it on Ebay. Perhaps I bought your old copy. I played it for a while, on an obsolete computer. It can get a little obsessive. SimEarth gamers tell amazing stories: About the time the lid blew off the biosphere, but up rose a strain of intelligent robots. Or the time it ticked over for months, populated with a million sentient cetaceans, all using nanotechnology to run their watery utopia. But there�s something disturbing about it. Perhaps that�s why there is no sequel, no updates. It is as extinct an example of game evolution as the poor sim-critters who populate its sun- blasted endgames. SimEarth is extinct, a game without sequels, but two offshoots from the same evolutionary phyla of game design lived on. One is The Sims. Perhaps it was better adapted to survive in gamespace, because it did not give the game away. The death of a Sim is not the end of the world. Another descendant line tries the other tack. In Will Wright�s much admired Spore, survival is not limited to one biosphere. Olaf Stapeldon: �It must not be supposed that the normal fate of intelligent races in the galaxy is to triumph.� At least in Spore there�s more than one home to trash. 214.�Forms of game evolve in a quasi-Darwinian manner, not unlike forms of organism. Game designers breed new forms out of existing forms, and the military entertainment complex throws the resulting variations on a waiting market, where they compete to save you from boredom. Very few forms succeed. It�s almost Darwinian: The designer proposes; gamespace disposes. Franco Moretti: �In Darwin, in other words, history is the interweaving of two wholly independent paths: random

variation and necessary selection. In our case, [formal] innovations,

which are the result of chance; and a social selection, which by

contrast is the daughter of necessity.� Through a subtle inversion

of the logic of natural selection, gamespace claims to be the full

implementation of a digital Darwinism. Here for one and all the rule

is survival of the fittest. Only what actually happens is quite the

reverse: the demise of the unfit. Survival has no positive value.

Gamespace is a pure nihilism. The best one can hope for is merely

being undefeated. Hence the unsatisfying quality of �winning� in

SimEarth. In the unlikely event that the game rattles on toward the

death of the sun, this victory amounts to nothing. This is perhaps why

SimEarth did not survive. There is something rather undesirable in

this game of cruelty. But there is a difference between natural

selection and �cultural� selection. An �unfit� game like SimEarth

fails not because it bumps up against the reality principle of bare

life, but quite the reverse. It fails the fantasy principle.

215.�Given that you can�t really win, SimEarth is hardly a game at all. The

best conclusion for most scenarios is that your SimEarthlings leave

the planet in a fleet of spaceships. SimEarth lacks one of the usual

criteria for a game � what we might call a satisfying �win condition�,

which terminates its algorithm. But then perhaps that�s the allegory.

SimEarth maps the limit to gamespace. What gamespace usually excludes

� the residues that pile up out of sight out of mind � are here

included, and they are the source of the problem. The choices within

the game � between agriculture and science, for example, appear as

choices between positive terms. They take no account of their

contraries, which appear without names. SimEarth�s strategy is to

include every term within its agon. There are no contraries, or almost

none. It posits the whole planet as gamespace. Even the power source

of the sun is included. Only a blank interstellar of the angels space

remains as its contrary. 216.�The inclusion of almost everything within the game leaves little by

way of a topos in which to conquer, expand, colonize, transform, or

even to pose as the remote time or place as the alibi for utopian

texts. Sure you could terraform Mars, but the result seems a foregone

conclusion. There is no frontier along which a storyline might traffic

the unknown into the realm of the known. A certain kind of history

ends here. Says the Stalinist-Surrealist poet Paul Eluard: �There is

another world, and it is this one.� SimEarth closes the book on that

utopian realm, and the struggle for and against it. Gamespace has

consumed the world, but the catastrophe of the world�s consummation

comes back to taunt it, undoing it from within. E. M. Cioran: §There

is no other world. Nor even this one.§ Once all terms are included

within the agon of gamespace, the whole of life becomes a game that

can be lost, forever. 217.�SimEarth is by genre a �God game�. Some God! Again and again, you fail

your creation. SimEarth is not so much about the death of God as God�s

suicide. It takes away the empowering thought of being responsible for

His disposal. Suicide is either fast and violent, in which God throws

himself into the flames of global warming. Or very, very slow; hooked,

like a helpless junkie, to the sun. A sun which finally overcomes your

ability to maintain. Mark Amerika: �Oblivion is the only cure for

agony.� The delusion of God games is that the gamer is in control

when at the controller. But it is the game which plays the gamer. It

is you, the gamer, who is an avatar, in the sense of being the

incarnation of an abstract principle. The gamer is a lesser deity

incarnate, answerable to a higher power � the game itself.

218. �When gamespace chooses you as its avatar, which character does it

select for you to play? Perhaps in SimEarth the gamer is the avatar of

the Angel of History. Walter Benjamin: �Where a chain of events

appears before us, he sees only one single catastrophe, which keeps

piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it at his feet. The angel

would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been

smashed. But a storm is blowing from paradise and has got caught in

his wings; it is so strong that the angel can no longer close them.�

Or perhaps you are an avatar of the Luckless Angel, with rather

different hitpoints. Heiner M�ller: §The past surges behind him,

pouring rubble on wings and shoulders thundering like buried drums,

while in front of him the future collects, crushes his eyes, exploding

his eyeballs like a star wrenching the word into a resounding gag,

strangling him with its breath.§ This suits the experience � and the

times � rather better. The droll experience of being flung forward

into nothingness by the terminal transformation of nature; an

experience of hell seen too late. SimEarth is an allegory of the ends

of gamespace, which declares its victory over the gamer, and over any

other residue of contraries outside its form of forms. It pops the

blue eye of the gamer�s world.

219.�Perhaps you are an avatar of the Egyptian demigod Theuth, who

according to Plato was the inventor of not only of writing, but also

of number and calculation, geometry and astronomy, games of chance and

games of skill. In a story Socrates tells in Phadrus, Theuth offers

these to the sun-god Thamus, and says: �what I have discovered is

[recipes] of memory and wisdom.� Thamus considers them one by one.

In Socrates� telling, it is writing about which Thamus has the most

qualms. For the problems of memory, recording, delineating, is this

�pharmakon� of writing a remedy or a poison? Writing sends the word �

logos � out into the world estranged from the authority of its author,

erasing the line of its paternity, making of it an orphan. In this

sense, it�s a father-killing poison, and it would make of Thamus the

sun-god a marked man. But the sun-god only has to give the word.

Behind writing lies speech, and behind speech, the pure light of the

good. Jacques Derrida: �The good (father, sun, capital) is thus the

hidden illuminating, blinding source of logos.�

220. �Perhaps what Theuth had to offer Thamus was not a remedies but recipes

� algorithms. Manuel De Landa: �These recipes� include rules of thumb

and shortcuts discovered by trial and error, useful habits of mind

developed through experience, and tricks of the trade passed on from

one generation of problem-solvers to the next. Some of the valuable

insights� may then be captured in a general purpose, �infallible�

problem solving recipe (known as an �algorithm�).� And what if

Theuth had killed Thamus, and taken His place? What if it were not

writing, but all Theuth�s algorithms which were His power? The

algorithms of writing, calculation, navigation and the game, at firs

t

separately, and then coming together create a topology, a world no

longer logocentric, but ludocentric. Theuth sets himself up as King

Digital. Behind appearances lies a new Helios, the artificial sun-king

of the algorithm, able to name, locate, value, calculate and set in

play anything and everything but the sun itself. If in Plato history

moves between mythos and logos, it comes finally to rest between logos

and ludus, between writing and the game, in a world where the

originary power of voice is neither here nor there. The sun that

powers SimEarth, the light which illuminates The Cave is not the sun-

God Thamus, but the algorithms of Theuth. But by this light, SimEarth

tells the inconvenient truth about gamespace � that it c

an know its

limit, its end, but not what to do about it.

221.�Game time may be either geological, biological or sociological, but it

is no longer historical. History is history. Or rather, a certain

conception and a certain practice is history. History can no longer be

a storyline about free agency constructing its own conditions of

existence. Fredric Jameson: �History is what hurts, it is what

refuses desire and sets inexorable limits to individual as well as

collective praxis��. In gamespace, history is where random variation

meets necessary selection. The game is what grinds. It shapes its

gamers, not in its own image, but according to its algorithms. The

passage from topography to topology is the passage from storyline to

gamespace, from analog control of the digital to digital control of

the analog, from the diachronic sequence of events to the synchronic

inter-communications of space, from voice to code. Perhaps history

reappears, but at a more synthetic, even photosynthetic level. Perhaps

there is never any history without the installation of a game. Events

have to mesh in causal chains, bouncing off given limits, to be

something more than the subject of mere chronicles.

222.�History is history, but there may be a history to its passing, to its

transformation into another form. Here again (with amendments) George

LukÆcs: §[The military entertainment complex] destroyed both the

spatio-temporal boundaries between different lands and territories and

also the legal partitions between the estates. In its [to

pology] there

is a formal equality for all [gamers]; th

e economic relations which

directly determined the metabolic exchange between men and nature

progressively disappear. Man becomes, in the tru

e sense, a [gamer]

being. [Gamespace] becomes the reality for m

an. Thus the recognition

that [gamespace] is reality becomes possible only under [th

e military

entertainment complex], in [to

pology]. But the [m

ilitary entertainment

complex] which carried out th

is revolution did so without

consciousness of its own function; the [agonistic] fo

rces it

unleashed, the very forces that carried it t

o supremacy seemed to be

opposed to it like a second nature, but a more soulless, im

penetrable

nature than [topography] ever was.§ SimEarth prompts a surprising

theoretical conclusion: history is back with a vengeance, and where

least expected, the historicization of nature. History on earth

becomes history of earth. History becomes total history.

223.�The final question for a gamer th

eory might be to move beyond the

phenomena of gaming as experienced by the gamer to conceive of gaming

from the point of view of the game. K-Punk: �What do we look like fro

m

[game]space? What do we look like to [game]space? Surely we resemble a

Beckettian assemblage of abstracted functions more than we do a

holistic organism connected to a great chain of being. As games

players, we are merely a set of directional impulses (up, down, left,

right); as mobile phone users, we take instructions fro

m recorded, far

distant voices; as users of SMS or IM, we exchange a minimalized

language often communicating little beyond the fact of communication

itself (txts for nothing?).� Gamespace is an end in itself.

224.�The gamer might still

be tempted to try to leave The Cave�, to

substitute for it�

s artificial sun an order held in place by one that

really burns in a visible sky. But there is the paradox: you only know

the value of that sun, its

energy, the consequences of tu

rning it into

this or that allocation or re

sources, because there is a game. Only by

going further and furth

er into gamespace might one come out th

e other

side of it. Deleuze and Guattari: �

... one can never go far enough in

the direction of [topology]: y

ou havenƒt seen anything yet � an

irreversible process. And when we consider w

hat there is of a

profoundly artificial nature... w

e cry out, �More perversion! M

ore

artifice!� � to a point w

here the earth becomes so artif

icial that th

e

movement of [topology] creates of necessity and by its

elf a new

earth.� The method for so doing may now be apparent: p

ressing

against the lim

its of the game fro

m within, to fin

d the contrary terms

behind the agon. Contrary terms which may open toward a schizoid

complexity or a paranoid complex. Our Virgil, our guide through the

over-world of gamespace might in

a schizoid light be Gille

s Deleuze;

in a paranoid one, Guy Debord.

225.�Guy Debord: �No vital eras were ever engendered by a theory; they

began with a game, or a conflict, o

r a journey.� And perhaps now by

a conflict w

ithin the game, and a journey though it to get beyond it.

Plato, The Republic, translated by Desmond Lee (London: Penguin,

2003), p. 243, [5

16d]. Actually the tra

nslation used here is by Ted

Sadler, and is quoted in Martin

Heidegger, The Essence of Truth,

(London: Continuum, 2002), p

. 31. In Homo Ludens, (B

oston: Beacon

Press, 1950), Johan Huizinga perhaps firs

t makes this move, of seeing

reflective thought and competitive play as not being at odds, but

rather the form

er being a consequence of the latte

r. See also Mihai

Spariosu, God of M

any Names: Play, Poetry and Power in

Hellenic Thought

from Homer to

Aristotle, (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991).

However, my interest is

less in the slippery category of play th

an in

the more formally definable propertie

s of the game. As Gregory Bateson

says: �The difference between a game and just p

laying is that a game

has rules.� Steps to an Ecology of Mind, (C

hicago: University of

Chicago Press, 2000).

Anthony Vidler: �Of course game th

eory is deeply embedded in all

utopias: in th

e Republic Socrates admits that h

e is playing in words a

game normally called §polis¤ or §city,§ a board game of stra

tegy

between citie

s once played by Ajax and Achilles, and by Penelopeƒs

suitors while waitin

g for Odysseusƒ return. M

ore and Erasmus were

playing elaborate word games with each other b

etween In Praise of Folly

and Utopia. And Debordƒs own Kriegspiel seems to have emerged as a

formalizatio

n of the dØrive.�

Stephen Wrig

ht: �There is an interestin

g passage in Plato�s Meno, where

Socrates makes use of a makeshift screen - t

hat is, drawing or

inscribing (g

raphein as it were), t

racing and erasing figures in th

e

sand -- in th

e course of rediscoverin

g in the inscrip

tion th

e trace of

a forgotte

n truth, creatin

g some sort of ru

dimentary gamespace. It

just may be th

at this allegory fro

m Meno is more closely lin

ked to th

e

Platonic conception of �

gamespace� than th

e overplayed caves space

example.�

Sam Brenton and Reuben Cohen, Shooting People: A

dventures in Reality

TV, (London: Verso

, 2003), p. 57. See also

Mark Andrejevic, Reality TV:

The Work of B

eing Watched, (L

anham NC: Rowman & Littlefie

ld, 2004).

Slavoj Zizek, The Fragile Absolute, (London: Verso

, 2000), p. 77. I

have sworn off t

he strong brew of a psychoanalytic re

ading of gamespace

here, even using th

e Zizek, Mille

r Lite versio

n, but for in

timatio

ns of

such a reading, se

e Andrejevic, as noted above.

Notorio

us B.I.G

, �, Things Done Changed�, fr

om Ready To Die

(Remastered), (

Bad Boy Records, 2004). H

ip hop vividly expresses th

e

subjectivity

of the player in

the zero-su

m game of survival. T

he bodies

of black m

en become the sa

crificial si

tes of consequences o

f gamespace.

See Eithne Quinn, N

uthin� But A �G� Thang: The Cultu

re and Commerce of

Gangsta Rap, (N

ew York: Columbia University Press,

2005).

Ed: §�Work is my play �cause I�

m playing when I work�, Beastie

Boys,

ƒTime to

Get Ill¥. Being a ro

ck star o

r rap sta

r is a fantasy of th

e

ultimate re

conciliatio

n of play and work.�

Roger Caillo

is, Man, G

ames and Play, (U

rbana IL: Universit

y of

Illinois P

ress, 2001), p

. 114. This text is

a standard in

game studies,

new and old, but ra

rely is Caillo

is put b

ack into th

e political context

of his t

ime. In

his Disc

ourse on Colonialism

, (New York: M

onthly Review

Press, 1972), p

p. 73, Aim

Ø CØsaire in

dicts Caillo

is as a

�thinker who,

while claiming to

be dedicated to rig

orous logic, sa

crifices s

o

willingly to

prejudice and wallows v

oluptuously in

clichØs.� Caillo

is�

version of e

thnography is for C

Øsaire premise

d on the su

periority

of

the west, and while

it is a

quite diffe

rent text th

at CØsaire

is

attacking here, h

is indictm

ent may also

apply to M

an, Play and Games,

which makes a

case for th

e superio

rity of a

certain order o

f games

which is dist

inctly European.

Paolo Virno, �

The Ambivalence of Dise

nchantment� , in

Michael H

ardt

and Paolo Virno, eds.,

Radical Thought in Ita

ly, (Minneapolis:

University of M

innesota Press, 1996), p

p. 17-18. See also th

e special

issue of G

rey Room on Virno, Fall 2

005

Raoul V

aneigem, The Revolution of E

veryday Life, (L

ondon: Rebel

Press, 2001), p

. 264. �Subversi

on� here transla

tes �detournØment�.

Elsewhere Vaneigem w

rites: �

If cybernetic

s was ta

ken from its

maste

rs,

it might b

e able to fre

e human groups from labor a

nd from so

cial

alienatio

n. This was p

recisely th

e project of C

harles F

ourier in

an age

when utopia was s

till possi

ble.� (p. 8

4)

Guy Debord, Society of th

e Spectacle and Other Film

s, (London: R

ebel

Press, 1992). D

ebord was a

lso, la

ter in lif

e, the creator o

f the Game

of War. S

ee Le Jeu de la

Guerre : R

elevØ des Posit

ions Successi

ves de

Toutes les F

orces au Cours

dƒune Partie, (P

aris: G

allimard, 2

006).

Richard Neville

, Play Power: E

xploring th

e Internatio

nal Underground,

(New York: R

andom House, 1970), p

.278. The beautiful fr

eaks, heading

toward the su

burbs and re

al jobs, l

eft behind th

e New Games Movement.

See Bernard DeKoven, The W

ell-Played Game: A

Player�s Philo

sophy, (N

ew

York: Anchor P

ress, 1978).

Karl M

arx, �Criti

que of the Gotha Programme�, T

he First In

ternational

and After: P

olitical W

ritings V

ol. 3, (H

armondsw

orth: P

enguin, 1974),

p. 347. T

he phrase may have orig

inated with

Louis Blanc. In

Rationalizi

ng Capitalist

Democracy: The Cold W

ar Orig

ins of R

ational

Choice Liberalism, (C

hicago: Universi

ty of Chicago Press,

2003), S. M

.

Amadae points out th

at �decisio

n technologies�

such as g

ame theory w

ere

directly

the product o

f atte

mpts to provide an in

tellectual counter-

weight to M

arxist th

eory during th

e cold war. W

here Joseph Schumpter,

Friedric

h von Hayek and Karl Popper h

ad all made defenses o

f liberal

capitalism

that re

cognized th

e intelle

ctual glamour o

f Marxism

, the

economist Kenneth Arro

w produced a complete and syste

matic re

jection of

socialist

theory of a

ny kind. In Arro

w�s hands, t

his becomes a

n attack

on the very prin

ciple of a general w

ill, or th

e social constr

uction of

needs. Arro

w, in sh

ort, becomes t

he ideologue of g

amespace. C

ollectiv

e

rationality

, or th

e ratio

nality of e

nds, is im

possible. O

nly

individuals and th

eir rankings o

f preferences r

emain. We re

turn to th

e

consequences of th

is achievement in

Conclusions. I

nterestingly, th

e

decision te

chnologies of c

old war A

merica fin

d their c

omplete

antithesis

not so m

uch in Soviet s

ocial planning as S

ituatio

nist

critiq

ue. Where ra

tional c

hoice th

eories a

ttempt a

conce

pt of g

ame that

excludes p

lay; the Situ

ationist

s atte

mpt a co

ncept o

f play outsi

de the

game: from each

according to

their a

bilities; t

o each acco

rding to

their d

esires.

Lars

Svendsen, A

Philoso

phy of Boredom, (L

ondon: Reaktio

n Books,

2005), p. 3

8. In popular d

emonology, computer g

ames are su

pposedly

�violent� and a cause

of �real� �violence

�. Oddly, th

e rise of th

e

computer g

ame in th

e United States c

orrelates w

ith a sig

nificant fa

ll

in violent crim

e. If th

ere is a prim

a facie

case

to answ

er, then, it

is

that c

omputer games p

revent violence

.

Hugh: �

I think th

e single player/m

ulti-player d

istincti

on which

comes

up here is really

importa

nt. Playing a sin

gle player game, I

know that

what happens d

oesnƒt m

atter, i

n the se

nse th

at it is

between m

e and a

computer w

hich I c

an resta

rt if I

donƒt like how th

at gameƒs g

oing.

Life is

a lot m

ore like a m

ulti-player g

ame, but o

nce one ack

nowledges

this,

I feel li

ke maybe anth

ropology sn

eaks into

gamer theory, a

nd

games beco

me one socia

l context a

mong others.

�

Christia

n McC

rea: �I a

gree that s

ingle player games a

re where th

e bulk

of analytic

al potentia

l still

lies, e

specia

lly sin

ce W

orld of W

arcraft

dominates the onlin

e gaming sphere, a

nd with

it anth

ropology dominates

its analysis

.�

�Sim

Smarts: A

n Interview w

ith W

ill Wrig

ht�, in

Brenda Laurel, Desig

n

Research

: Meth

ods and Persp

ectives, (

Cambridge M

A: MIT Press,

2003).

Gonza

lo Frasca, �

The Sims: G

randmothers

are Cooler Than Tro

lls�, G

ame

Studies, 1

:1 (July 2001) g

amestudies.o

rg Both

Game Studies a

nd Frasca�s

own websit

e ludology.org

have been extraord

inarily use

ful in th

e

writing of th

is book.

Fredric

Jameso

n, Postm

odernism

or, The Cultu

ral Logic

of Late

Capitalis

m, (London: V

erso, 1

991), p. 1

7. The �postm

odern� m

ight, in

the lig

ht of th

e conce

pt of g

amespace

and the ris

e of the co

mputer game

as form

, appear a

s a te

mporary phenomenon. The fre

e floatin

g signs o

f

the postm

odern beco

me the ra

w materia

l for g

ames which

do not resto

re

their m

eaning or nece

ssity, b

ut create fo

r them new quantit

ative

relations o

f value.

Walte

r Benjamin, T

he Orig

ins of G

erman Tragic

Drama, (London: V

erso,

1998), p. 1

75. The oth

er classi

c Benjamin te

xt th

at need be m

entioned

here is �The W

ork of Art

in the Age of M

echanica

l Repro

duction�. T

he

reproducti

on of the im

age strip

s it o

f its a

ura by severin

g the im

age

from

the object.

As an object,

a work of a

rt ca

n be a piece of

property

. Once

the im

age can be detach

ed from

the parti

cular o

bject and

its pro

venance, a

kind of �co

mm

unism of t

he image� arri

ves. But o

nce

this

reproducib

ility of t

he image beco

mes a

n everyday phenomena, th

e

very fo

undations o

f the cu

lture in

dustry a

re threate

ned. The gam

e does

not resto

re the aura of t

he unique work

of art

as object,

but it does

introduce

a new kind of s

carci

ty, and hence

allows t

he re-esta

blishing

of pro

perty in

the re

alm of t

he image.

Walte

r Benjam

in, �Centra

l Park�

, in Selecte

d Writ

ings Vol. 4

,

(Cam

bridge M

A: Harvard

Universi

ty Pre

ss, 2003), p

. 173. T

he

repro

ducibilit

y of im

ages not o

nly allo

ws them

to esc

ape from

property

,

but also

from

proprie

ty, fr

om ru

les govern

ing their c

irculatio

n and the

policing of t

heir meaning. T

his deca

y of m

eaning then beco

mes a

n

allegory

for t

he decay o

f the w

hole socie

ty which

gave rise to

it. H

ere

games a

gain perform

the w

ork of r

estoratio

n, but n

ot by r

estorin

g

meaning so

much

as assi

gning numeric

al value to

otherw

ise deva

lued

signs.

Lev M

anovich, T

he Language of N

ew Media (C

ambrid

ge MA: M

IT Press,

2001), p. 2

22. Manovic

h make

s the nece

ssary

first

step to

ward a fo

rmal

theory

of gam

es as a

lgorithm

ic. The algorit

hm does t

he work

of

assigning va

lue to si

gns. The se

cond st

ep would be a cr

itical th

eory,

based on th

ose fo

rmal

discove

ries,

but usin

g them

to disc

over t

he gap

between th

e form

and th

e world

which

it is

not.

Alex G

alloway

, Gam

ing: Essa

ys on A

lgorithm

ic Cultu

re, (M

inneapolis

:

Universi

ty of M

innesota

Press)

, 2006. M

any t

hanks

to A

lex for a

llowing

me to

see th

is book i

n man

uscrip

t.

Gre

g Costiky

an, �

Algorthm

ic an

d Insta

ntial G

ames�

, in A

my S

cholder

and Er

ic Zim

merm

an, e

ds., Re:Play

: Gam

e Desig

n + G

ame Cultu

re, (N

ew

York: Pete

r Lan

g, 2003), p

. 26. S

ee also

Costiky

an�s c

onsiste

ntly

intere

sting blog, c

ostik.c

om

Jay D

avid Bolte

r & Rich

ard G

rusin

, Rem

ediation: U

nderstan

ding New

Media,

(Cam

bridge M

A: MIT

Press,

1999), p. 4

5. Bolte

r & G

rusin

chall

enge the cy

berhyp

e that

insis

ts on th

e breat

htakin

g novelty

of

each new ite

ratio

n of digita

l media,

which

they s

ee as an

inherit

ance

from

modern

ism. �

As we hav

e shown, w

hat is

� new is th

e partic

ular w

ay

in which

each in

novatio

n rear

ranges a

nd reco

nstitu

tes t

he mean

ing of

earlie

r elem

ents. � Th

e true nove

lty w

ould be a

new medium

that

did not

refe

r for it

s mea

ning to oth

er m

edia

at al

l.� (p

p. 270-2

71) But w

ere

that

the c

ase,

this

hypoth

etica

l new

med

ium w

ould not b

e �new

� � it

would be i

ncom

parab

le. W

hat m

atte

rs is

the q

ualita

tive d

iffer

ence

in

the w

ay th

e old

is both

recu

perat

ed an

d tran

sform

ed in

the n

ew fo

rm,

most

rece

ntly vi

a the a

lgorit

hm.

Walt

er Ben

jamin

, �Cen

tral P

ark�

, Sele

cted W

ritin

gs Vol. 4

, (Cam

bridge

MA: H

arva

rd U

niversi

ty Pre

ss, 2

003), p. 1

86. In gam

espac

e ther

e may

be

no idler

, but t

here m

ay be w

hat Ber

nard Su

its ca

lls th

e trif

ler, w

ho

plays t

he gam

e acc

ordin

g to its

rules

, but n

ot aim

ing fo

r its p

rizes

.

The p

ossib

ility f

or crit

ical t

hought is now in

tern

al to

the g

ame,

to

its ru

les, to

its sp

aces

, its c

onventio

ns, but n

ot to its

goals. W

hich

mig

ht be t

he conte

mpora

ry eq

uivalen

t of t

he ancie

nt advic

e to th

e

theo

rist t

o pay one�

s res

pect t

o the l

ocal g

ods, ev

en th

ough one does

not beli

eve i

n them

.

Ber

nard Su

its, T

he Gra

sshopper

: Gam

es, L

ife an

d Uto

pia, (T

oronto

:

Universi

ty of T

oronto

Press

, 1980), p

. 47. T

his is

not just

a clas

sic

work but a

work

of art

in it

s own rig

ht. It t

akes

the f

orm of a

dialogue a

mong th

e ants

about t

he tea

chin

gs of t

he rec

ently

depar

ted

grass

hopper. A

s per

the a

ncient p

arab

le, th

e gra

sshopper

refu

sed to

store

up grain

for t

he win

ter �

refu

sed w

ork in

the n

ame o

f play

� and

died. T

he ants

are l

eft t

o reco

nstruct

the t

each

ings o

f the

grass

hopper. In

games

pace,

however

, we a

re al

l gra

sshopper

s. Th

e

conse

quence

s of t

his re

latio

n to ti

me I

leav

e to th

e conclu

ding

chap

ter.

Ste

ven Poole,

Trig

ger H

appy,

(New

York: A

rcade,

2000

), p. 3

3. Th

is

was th

e firs

t rea

lly good at

tem

pt at a

n aesth

etic

of the g

ame

exper

ience

, from

the p

oint o

f view

of the g

amer

.

EA Sp

ouse, �

EA: T

he Hum

an St

ory�, (1

0th N

ovem

ber 20

04)

www.livejo

urnal.

com

/use

rs/ea

_spouse

/274

.htm

l

Blai

ne Har

den, �

The D

irt in

the N

ew M

achin

e�, N

ew York

Tim

es

Mag

azin

e, (1

2th A

ugust, 20

01), p

p. 34-

39

Koen

Vlas

senro

ot and H

ans R

omke

ma,

�The E

mer

gence

of a N

ew O

rder

?:

Resourc

es an

d War

in Ea

stern

Congo�, J

ournal

of Hum

anita

rian

Assist

ance

, (28t

h Oct

ber 20

02) w

ww.jha.a

c

�Our P

hiloso

phy�, w

ww.kem

et.co

m

�M

otoro

la Po

sitio

n on Illeg

ally M

ined

Colta

n�, (25t

h August,

2003

).

http://

www.moto

rola.

com

/EHS/

envir

onmen

t/faq

s/

Kris

ti Es

sick,

�Guns, M

oney an

d Cell

phones�, T

he Industr

y Sta

ndard,

(11t

h June 2

001)

.

Walt

er B

enjam

in, �

On the C

oncept o

f Hist

ory�, S

elect

ed W

ritin

gs Vol.

4, (C

ambrid

ge MA: H

arva

rd U

niversi

ty Pr

ess,

2003

), p. 3

92. P

erhap

s now

this

shou

ld re

ad: T

here i

s no t

echnol

ogy o

f bar

barism

which

is n

ot al

so

a tec

hnolog

y of c

ulture

. Such

is th

e milit

ary e

nterta

inm

ent c

omplex

.

EA Sp

ouse

, �Fr

equen

tly A

sked

Ques

tions�

, (1st

Novem

ber, 2

004)

.

http://

www.livejo

urnal.

com

/use

rs/ea

_spou

se/2

74.h

tml

Dale

Cunnin

gham, �

The s

ims b

usten o

ut�, (1

0th Ju

ne, 20

05).

http://

www.livejo

urnal.

com

/use

rs/ea

_spou

se/2

74.h

tml

Pet

er Lu

nenfe

ld &

Miek

e Ger

ritze

n, Use

r: In

fote

chnod

emo,

(Cam

bridge

MA: M

IT Pr

ess,

2005

), p. 5

7. Se

e also

Pete

r Lun

enfe

ld, S

nap to

Grid

: A

User�

s Gui

de to

Digita

l Arts

, Med

ia an

d Cul

ture

s, (C

ambrid

ge MA: M

IT

Pres

s, 20

01). B

ut w

here L

unen

feld

wan

ts to

do

�rea

ltim

e� th

eory

, it

seem

s to

me t

hat b

eing u

ntim

ely is

still

one o

f the

gre

at th

eore

tical

virtu

es. H

ence

Gam

er Th

eory

conc

erns

itse

lf with

a ga

me a

esth

etic

that

is alr

eady s

light

ly ob

solet

e.

C: ��N

o fu

rther

bac

k tha

n Dun

geon

s and

Dra

gons

� su

gges

ts th

at D

+D was

not i

n its

elf a

gran

d org

y of a

narc

hica

lly co

llect

ed p

asts;

its

popul

arity

hin

ged

on th

e ver

y ide

a of r

eclam

atio

n an

d re

-eva

luat

ion

of

thes

e zon

es an

d ev

ents

that

wer

e inh

abite

d by r

eal a

nd fi

ctio

nal p

asts

smas

hing

toge

ther

like p

lanes

to fo

rm a

cosm

olog

y.�

Jac

ques

Der

rida,

Dissem

inat

ion,

(Chi

cago

: Uni

versi

ty o

f Chi

cago

Pres

s, 19

81), p

. 69.

This

conn

ectio

n be

twee

n to

pos (

plac

e) an

d to

pic

(mea

ning

) is v

ery c

lear i

n Er

ic M

ichae

l�s a

ccou

nt o

f Walp

iri cu

lture

and

adap

tatio

n of

vide

o to

its n

eeds

. See

Eric

Mich

aels,

Bad

Abo

rigin

al

Art: Tr

aditi

on, M

edia

and

Tech

nolo

gica

l Hor

izons

, (Min

neap

olis:

Unive

rsity

of M

inne

sota

Pre

ss) ,

1994

.

Jam

es Fe

nim

ore C

oope

r, La

st of

the M

ohica

ns, (N

ew Y

ork:

Peng

uin,

1986

), p. 2

0. �C

oope

r por

trays

the e

norm

ous h

istor

ical t

rage

dy o

f tho

se

early

colo

nize

rs, w

ho em

igra

ted

from

Engl

and

in o

rder

to p

rese

rve t

heir

freed

om, b

ut w

ho th

emse

lves d

estro

y thi

s fre

edom

by t

heir

own

deed

s in

Amer

ica.�

Geo

rg Lu

kÆcs

, The

Hist

orica

l Nov

el, (L

ondo

n: M

erlin

Pre

ss,

1962

), p. 6

5 Luk

Æcs

then

goe

s on

to q

uote

Max

im G

orky

on

Coop

er�s

cent

ral c

hara

cter

, Nat

hani

el B

umpp

o: �

As an

expl

orer

of t

he fo

rests

and

prair

ies o

f the

�New

Wor

ld�

be b

lazes

new

trail

s in

them

for p

eopl

e who

later

him

as a

crim

inal

beca

use h

e has

infri

nged

thei

r mer

cena

ry an

d,

to h

is se

nse o

f fre

edom

, uni

ntel

ligib

le la

ws.

All his

life h

e has

unco

nscio

usly

serv

ed th

e gre

at ca

use o

f the

geo

grap

hica

l exp

ansio

n of

mat

erial

cultu

re�.

�. In

bot

h Lu

kÆcs

and

Gorky

the e

rasu

re o

f the

indi

geno

us p

rese

nce i

ndica

tes t

he ex

tent

to w

hich

thei

r ow

n w

ritin

g is

still p

art o

f the

sam

e pro

cess

.

Jul

ian D

ibbe

ll, Pl

ay M

oney

, Or,

How I Q

uit M

y Day

Job

and

Stru

ck It

Rich

in V

irtua

l Loo

t Far

min

g, (N

ew Y

ork:

Basic

Boo

ks, fo

rthco

min

g), C

h.

2. D

ibbe

ll�s b

ook i

s a b

rillia

nt ex

plor

atio

n of

the b

rave

new

wor

ld o

f

mas

sivel

y mul

tiplay

er g

ames

. I ha

ve ex

clude

d th

em fr

om G

amer

Theo

ry, in

part

beca

use i

t is t

oo so

on to

see f

ar b

eyon

d th

e hyp

e sur

roun

ding

them

. The

ow

l of M

iner

va fl

ies a

t dus

k: cr

itica

l tho

ught

alw

ays a

ppea

rs

with

som

ethi

ng o

f a la

g. O

ne w

ay to

avoi

d be

ing

caug

ht u

p in

the l

ates

t

bout

of c

yber

hype

is to

look

to cu

ltura

l for

ms t

hat h

ave a

lread

y bee

n

supe

rced

ed. T

his w

as in

par

t Ben

jam

in�s

pur

pose

in ex

amin

ing

arca

des i

n

the e

ra o

f the

dep

artm

ent s

tore

. Mos

t of t

he h

ype a

bout

mas

sivel

y

mul

tipla

yer w

orld

s con

cern

s the

exte

nt to

whi

ch th

ey ap

pear

to fu

nctio

n

as ec

onom

ies t

hat a

re ex

actly

like t

he �

real

wor

ld�.

They

thus

func

tion

to n

atur

alize

econ

omic

beha

vior a

nd g

ive it

an ap

pear

ance

of

inev

itabi

lity.

In th

is th

e uto

pian

mom

ent o

f sin

gle p

laye

r gam

es is

lost

. The

gam

e no

long

er fu

nctio

ns as

a m

ore f

air, m

ore j

ust v

ersio

n of

gam

espa

ce, e

ven

on it

s ow

n te

rms.

The g

ame i

s jus

t as v

enal

and

corru

pt

as g

ames

pace

, inde

ed b

ecom

es o

f a p

iece

with

gam

espa

ce. T

his c

orru

ptio

n

of th

e ato

pian

gam

e is e

quiva

lent

to th

e cor

rupt

ion

of th

e uto

pian

text

, as t

oo m

any l

ines

wea

ve th

eir w

ay in

to an

d ou

t of i

ts p

ages

. See

Edw

ard

Cast

rano

va, S

ynth

etic

Wor

lds:

The B

usin

ess a

nd C

ultu

re o

f Onl

ine

Gamer

s, (C

hica

go: U

nive

rsity

of C

hica

go P

ress

, 200

5) an

d T.

L. Ta

ylor,

Betw

een

Wor

lds:

Expl

orin

g Onl

ine G

ame C

ultu

re, (

Cam

brid

ge M

A: MIT

Pres

s, 20

06).

Geo

rg Lu

kÆcs

, The

Hist

orica

l Nov

el, (

Lond

on: M

erlin

Pre

ss, 1

962)

, p.

43. Guy

Deb

ord,

In G

irum

Imus

Noc

te Et

Con

sum

imur

Igni

: a Fi

lm, (

Lond

on:

Pela

gian

Pre

ss, n

d).

Ber

thol

d Br

echt

, �Th

e Rad

io as

an A

ppar

atus

of C

omm

unica

tion�

, in

Neil S

traus

s, ed

., Rad

iote

xt(e

), (N

ew Y

ork:

Sem

iote

xt(e

), 19

93),

p. 1

5.

Step

hen

Wrig

ht: R

emem

ber C

B ra

dio?

Wha

t a g

ame t

hat w

as! T

hat i

nvisi

ble

yet i

nter

activ

e sec

tor o

f the

pub

lic sp

here

� tw

enty

-thre

e slo

ts o

n th

e

Hertz

ian

wav

es �

that

had

its h

eyda

y in

the m

id se

vent

ies,

in th

e wak

e

of th

e Vie

tnam

war

, bef

ore b

eing

rend

ered

obs

oles

cent

by t

he g

loba

l

tech

nolo

gy b

litz b

egin

ning

in th

e 198

0s, t

hat s

pear

head

ed th

e new

pos

t-

Ford

ist ec

onom

y. Th

is �C

itize

ns�

Band

� w

as a

horiz

onta

lly o

rgan

ized

netw

ork,

and

as su

ch th

e sy

mbo

lic fo

rebe

ar o

f the

Inte

rnet

foru

ms o

f

toda

y. CB

is so

met

hing

of a

case

stud

y of h

ow an

d w

hy su

ch an

d su

ch

tech

nolo

gy �

mak

es it

� an

d so

me

othe

r doe

sn�t

. For

it is

not

mer

ely a

tech

nica

l but

also

an id

eolo

gica

l que

stio

n as

to w

hy th

e co

llect

ive

bant

er o

f CB-

spac

e yie

lded

to th

e in

divi

dual

ism o

f por

tabl

e ph

ones

.

Alth

ough

the

sale

s pitc

h al

way

s pre

sent

ed C

B as

a us

er-fr

iend

ly

info

rmat

iona

l too

l � w

arni

ng p

eopl

e ab

out t

raffi

c jam

s and

sim

ilar

haza

rds o

f con

sum

er so

ciety

� it

actu

ally

had

far l

ess t

o do

with

cont

ent t

han

with

pur

e ta

lk; it

was

alw

ays m

ore

abou

t net

wor

king

and

com

mun

icatin

g (tr

ucke

rs ke

epin

g ea

ch o

ther

awak

e at

nig

ht) t

han

abou

t

the

mes

sage

com

mun

icate

d �

thou

gh it

had

the

pote

ntia

l for

cont

ent.

Unlik

e th

e ce

ll pho

nes t

hat r

epla

ced

it, C

B w

as in

here

ntly

abou

t gro

up

com

mun

icatio

n: e

very

body

was

on

the

sam

e 23

chan

nels;

stric

tly p

rivat

e

conv

ersa

tions

wer

e no

t for

the

airw

aves

. And

unl

ike

�Ham

� ra

dio,

the

licen

sing

sche

me

was

very

ope

n (n

o te

st o

f Mor

se co

de, f

or in

stan

ce),

so it

was

ope

n to

who

ever

coul

d sp

ring

for t

he $

200

set a

t the

loca

l

radi

o sh

ack.�

Fre

dric

Jam

eson

, Pos

tmod

erni

sm o

r, th

e Cu

ltura

l Log

ic of

Late

Capi

talis

m, (

Lond

on: V

erso

, 199

1), p

. 70.

The

conc

ept o

f tel

evisi

on as

flow

com

es fr

om R

aym

ond

Will

iam

s, Te

levi

sion:

Tec

hnol

ogy a

nd C

ultu

ral

Form

, Lon

don:

Rou

tledg

e Cl

assic

s, 20

03).

For a

n at

tem

pt to

appl

y and

exte

nd W

illia

ms t

o th

e co

mpu

ter g

ame,

see

Step

hen

Klin

e, N

ick D

yer-

With

efor

d an

d Gr

eig

De Pe

uter

, Dig

ital P

lay:

The

Inte

ract

ion

of

Tech

nolo

gy, C

ultu

re an

d M

arke

ting,

(Mon

treal

: McG

ill-Q

ueen

s Uni

vers

ity

Pres

s, 20

03).

This

book

is b

est r

ead

in co

njun

ctio

n w

ith H

enry

Jenk

ins,

Fans

, Blo

gger

s and

Gam

ers,

(New

Yor

k: Ne

w Y

ork U

nive

rsity

Pre

ss, 2

006)

.

Betw

een

them

, Klin

e et

al an

d Je

nkin

s rep

rodu

ce th

e di

chot

omy b

etw

een

the

pow

er o

f the

cultu

re in

dust

ry ve

rsus

the

agen

cy o

f it�

s con

sum

ers.

Henr

y Jen

kins

, Con

verg

ence

Cul

ture

, (Ne

w Y

ork:

New

Yor

k Uni

vers

ity

Pres

s, 20

06),

prov

ides

som

e re

ason

to b

elie

ve th

at th

e ne

w �

user

-

crea

ted

cont

ent�

appr

oach

is b

reak

ing

dow

n th

at d

ichot

omy.

How

ever

, one

coul

d se

e th

is as

just

anot

her v

ersio

n of

�ou

tsou

rcin

g�, b

y whi

ch

cons

umer

s eve

n ha

ve to

pro

duce

thei

r ow

n en

terta

inm

ent,

whi

le st

ill

payi

ng th

e cu

lture

indu

stry

for t

he p

rivile

ge. T

he st

and-

off b

etw

een

activ

e ag

ents

and

opp

ress

ive

indu

strie

s in

cultu

ral s

tudi

es is

the

resu

lt of

certa

in m

etho

dolo

gica

l cho

ices.

I try

to e

xcav

ate

this

in th

e

Com

plex

chap

ter.

Jea

n Ba

udril

lard

, Sel

ecte

d W

ritin

gs, (

Cam

brid

ge: P

olity

Pre

ss, 1

988)

,

p. 2

12. In

one

of t

he fe

w e

ssay

s on

Baud

rilla

rd w

orth

read

ing,

Adi

lkno

writ

e: �

In o

rder

to p

ose

the

prob

lem

of m

edia

, we

mus

t aba

ndon

the

class

ical v

iew

of t

heir

socia

l fun

ctio

n as

that

of i

nfor

min

g th

e

mas

ses.

We

mus

t pre

vent

our

med

ia th

eory

from

bec

omin

g a

low

er fo

rm o

f

ener

gy o

f the

med

ia th

emse

lves

. Tha

t is w

hy it

doe

s not

try t

o as

crib

e

all s

orts

of (

subj

ectiv

e) in

tent

ions

to th

e m

edia

, but

rath

er a

llow

s

them

thei

r ow

n m

omen

t, se

duct

ion,

or f

atal

stra

tegy

.� A

dilk

no, M

edia

Arch

ive,

(New

Yor

k: Au

tono

med

ia, 1

998)

, p. 2

02.

Gee

rt Lo

vink

, Dar

k Fib

er: T

rack

ing

Criti

cal I

nter

net C

ultu

re,

(Cam

brid

ge M

A: M

IT P

ress

, 200

2), p

. 338

. See

also

Gee

rt Lo

vink

, My

Firs

t Rec

essio

n: C

ritica

l Int

erne

t Cul

ture

in T

rans

ition

, (Ro

tterd

am:

V2, 2

003)

. The

se tw

o w

orks

char

t the

rise

� a

nd th

e ec

lipse

� o

f

cybe

rspa

ce, c

yber

cultu

re a

nd cy

ber s

tudi

es.

Sid

Mie

ir�s C

ivili

zatio

n III

, dev

elop

ed b

y Fira

xis G

ames

, pub

lishe

d

by M

acSo

ft, a

nd d

esig

ned

by Je

ff Br

iggs

and

Sor

en Jo

hnso

n, 2

001.

Ann

e Ca

rson

, Eco

nom

y of t

he U

nlos

t, (P

rince

ton

NJ: P

rince

ton

Univ

ersit

y Pre

ss, 1

999)

, p. 1

3. O

n th

e ve

ry in

tere

stin

g te

mpo

ralit

ies

of so

-cal

led

gift

econ

omie

s, se

e Da

vid

Grae

ber,

Tow

ards

an

Anth

ropo

logi

cal T

heor

y of V

alue

, (Ne

w Y

ork:

Pal

grav

e, 2

001)

. One

way

to

track

the

trans

form

atio

n of

cultu

ral f

orm

thro

ugh

topi

cal, t

opog

raph

ic

and

topo

logi

cal t

imes

mig

ht b

e to

com

pare

Xen

opho

n�s T

he P

ersia

n

Expe

ditio

n, (H

arm

onds

wor

th: P

engu

in, 1

972)

, (m

ore

com

mon

ly kn

own

as th

e

Anab

asis)

with

Sol

Yur

ick, T

he W

arrio

rs, (

New

Yor

k: G

rove

Pre

ss, 2

003)

,

Wal

ter H

ill (d

irect

or),

The

War

riors

, (Pa

ram

ount

, 200

5) a

nd T

he

War

riors

, dev

elop

ed a

nd p

ublis

hed

by R

ocks

tar G

ames

, 200

5.

Alb

ert C

amus

, The

Myt

h of

Sisy

phus

, (Ne

w Y

ork:

Vin

tage

Boo

ks, 1

991)

.

See

Odys

sey,

Boo

k XI, 5

93

Kat

amar

i Dam

acy,

des

igne

d by

Kei

ta T

akah

ashi

, dev

elop

ed a

nd p

ublis

hed

by N

amco

, 200

4. T

he se

quel

for P

lays

tatio

n 2

is W

e Lo

ve K

atam

ari,

Deve

lope

d by

Nam

co a

nd p

ublis

hed

in th

e Un

ited

Stat

es b

y Ele

ctro

nic

Arts

. In th

e se

quel

, the

Kin

g an

d th

e Pr

ince

hav

e be

com

e so

pop

ular

from

the

first

gam

e th

at th

ey h

ave

fan

clubs

. Apa

rt fro

m th

is se

lf

refe

rent

ial, �

post

mod

ern�

ele

men

t, th

e ga

me

does

not

add

muc

h to

the

orig

inal

that

wou

ld b

e of

inte

rest

her

e.

Patri

ck: �

��it

addr

esse

s its

subj

ect a

s a p

laye

r, as

a ca

lcula

tor a

nd

com

petit

or.�

In K

atam

ariƒ

s cas

e, K

ieta

orig

inal

ly w

ante

d to

mak

e th

e

gam

e m

ore

freef

orm

, with

out a

tim

e lim

it re

stric

tion,

and

the

play

wou

ld h

ave

been

mor

e pa

idic

and

perh

aps c

reat

ive

in th

e ch

oice

and

patte

rn o

f obj

ects

pick

ed u

p. B

ut th

en th

e m

ilita

ry e

nter

tain

men

t

com

plex

cam

e do

wn

and

dem

ande

d a

goal

orie

nted

stru

ctur

e in

ord

er fo

r

the

gam

e to

be

mor

e m

arke

tabl

e...�

.

El M

oco:

�Th

ere

is a

unde

rlyin

g th

eme

in th

e ga

me,

one

of q

uiet

, hid

den

terro

r. Al

thou

gh th

e ga

me

mas

ks th

e ac

t of v

orac

ious

cons

umpt

ion

with

mus

ic an

d qu

aint

, flu

ffy im

ages

; des

pair

is th

e fin

al e

mot

ion

that

rises

to th

e to

p w

hen

thos

e fin

al se

cond

s are

reac

hed,

whe

n th

e

haun

ting

call

of th

e sir

ens s

end

the

prin

ce in

to a

fina

l, fre

nzie

d

pani

c to

get j

ust-o

ne-m

ore-

item

. And

to b

egin

aga

in? Y

ou m

ust a

lway

s

begi

n ag

ain,

fore

ver,

with

no

hope

, rea

l or i

mag

ined

, to

satis

fy y

our

desir

e to

cons

ume

ever

ythi

ng. W

hen

the

end

is re

ache

d, in

the

final

stag

e, y

ou a

re o

ffere

d a

chan

ce to

per

form

for t

he co

smos

with

no

time

limit.

Tha

t brin

gs th

e en

dgam

e ga

mbi

t to

a su

rreal

conc

lusio

n; a

met

aphy

sical

pris

on w

ith n

othi

ng to

cons

ume.

A w

ande

ring

prin

ce,

cond

emne

d to

trav

el th

e ea

rth fo

r som

ethi

ng to

pick

up,

ete

rnal

ly.�

Jes

per J

uul, H

alf-R

eal: V

ideo

Gam

es B

etw

een

Real

Rul

es a

nd F

ictio

nal

Wor

lds,

(Cam

brdi

ge M

A: M

IT P

ress

, 200

5), p

. 201

. �To

pla

y a

vide

o ga

mes

is th

eref

ore

to in

tera

ct w

ith re

al ru

les w

hile

imag

inin

g a

fictio

nal

wor

ld.�

(p. 1

). Or

in o

ther

wor

ds, t

hey

com

bine

ago

n w

ith w

hat C

aillo

is

calls

mim

esis.

But

wha

t goe

s une

xpla

ined

is w

hy th

ese

rule

s sho

uld

be

cons

ider

ed m

ore

real

than

the

conv

entio

ns o

f fic

tion.

Bre

nda

Laur

el, �

Coda

: Pie

rcin

g th

e Sp

ecta

cle�

, in K

atie

Sal

en a

nd

Eric

Zim

mer

man

, eds

., The

Gam

e De

sign

Read

er: A

Rul

es o

f Pla

y

Anth

olog

y, (C

ambr

idge

MA:

MIT

Pre

ss, 2

006)

, p. 8

68. T

his e

ssay

also

offe

rs th

is st

rikin

g va

riatio

n on

the

them

e of

the

�web

�: �

Com

mer

cial

s

and

bran

ds, s

pam

and

flic

kerin

g w

eb a

ds, f

riend

ly te

xt m

essa

ges f

rom

your

cellu

lar s

ervi

ce p

rovi

der,

prod

uct p

lace

men

ts in

mov

ies a

nd

com

pute

r gam

es, a

ll re

min

ding

-- o

r rat

her u

n-m

indi

ng --

us o

f the

web

of p

oliti

co-c

onsu

mer

ism in

whi

ch w

e ar

e en

mes

hed

like

spid

erƒs

snac

ks,

stas

hed

for h

ungr

y m

arke

ters

and

pol

itici

ans.

The

spec

tacl

e ho

lds u

s

fast

.� (p

. 867

) Bre

nda

Laur

el is

the

first

per

son

I eve

r hea

rd u

se th

e

expr

essio

n �m

ilita

ry e

nter

tain

men

t com

plex

�, a

t the

SIG

GRAP

H co

nfer

ence

in O

rland

o, F

lorid

a in

199

1. S

ee a

lso B

rend

a La

urel

, Uto

pian

Entre

pren

eur,

(Cam

brid

ge M

A: M

IT P

ress

, 200

1), o

n th

e di

fficu

lties

of

laun

chin

g he

r Pur

ple

Moo

n co

mpa

ny, w

hich

trie

d to

des

ign

gam

es fo

r

girls

. P

aul V

irilio

, Neg

ativ

e Ho

rizon

, (Lo

ndon

: Con

tinuu

m, 2

005)

, p. 3

7. In

Viril

io is

a co

nsta

nt se

quen

ce o

f sym

ptom

s, th

e ac

coun

ts o

f whi

ch a

re

ofte

n br

illia

nt, s

omet

imes

nut

ty, b

ut w

hich

nev

er q

uite

poi

nt to

a

cons

isten

t the

ory.

Tw

o di

stin

ctio

ns cl

arify

thin

gs a

mon

g th

ese

shift

ing

Viril

ian

sand

s. Th

e fir

st is

bet

wee

n tra

nspo

rt an

d te

lest

hesia

. The

bifu

rcat

ing

of m

ovem

ent i

nto

two

spee

ds, o

ne fo

r thi

ngs,

anot

her f

or

info

rmat

ion

that

beg

ins w

ith th

e te

legr

aph

is a

key

mom

ent u

pon

whi

ch

Viril

io d

oesn

�t re

ally

dw

ell.

The

seco

nd is

bet

wee

n an

alog

and

dig

ital

info

rmat

ion.

The

com

ing

toge

ther

of t

hese

two

deve

lopm

ents

� d

igita

l

tele

sthe

sia �

is th

e co

nditi

on o

f pos

sibili

ty o

f top

olog

y. It

is a

poss

ibili

ty la

tent

in th

e te

legr

aph

but n

ot fu

lly re

alize

d un

til th

e

age

of th

e in

tern

et.

Jul

ian

Stal

labr

ass,

�Jus

t Gam

ing:

Alle

gory

and

Eco

nom

y in

Com

pute

r

Gam

es�,

New

Lef

t Rev

iew

, 198

, (M

arch

-Apr

il 19

93),

p. 9

6. In

this

rem

arka

ble

essa

y, S

talla

bras

s ela

bora

tes a

criti

cal t

heor

y of

gam

es

Wal

ter B

enja

min

�s w

ritin

gs o

n al

lego

ry a

nd T

heod

or A

dorn

o on

the

cultu

re in

dust

ry.

Pau

l N. E

dwar

ds, T

he C

lose

d W

orld

, (Ca

mbr

idge

MA:

MIT

Pre

ss, 1

996)

,

p. 1

03. S

ee a

lso M

anue

l De

Land

a, W

ar in

the

Age

of In

telli

gent

Mac

hine

s, (N

ew Y

ork:

Zon

e Bo

oks,

1991

).

Ant

hony

Wild

en, S

yste

m a

nd S

truct

ure,

(Lon

don:

Tav

istoc

k, 1

980)

, p.

168.

See

also

Ant

hony

Wild

en, T

he R

ules

Are

No

Gam

e: T

he S

trate

gy o

f

Com

mun

icat

ion,

(Lon

don:

Rou

tledg

e &

Kega

n Pa

ul, 1

987)

. Wild

en�s

unju

stly

neg

lect

ed w

ork

com

bine

d Am

eric

an cy

bern

etic

theo

ry, d

eriv

ed

from

Bat

eson

, with

a b

road

kno

wle

dge

of F

renc

h th

eory

and

a p

oliti

cal

impu

lse.

Bria

n Su

tton

-Sm

ith, T

he A

mbi

guity

of P

lay,

(Cam

brid

ge M

A: H

arva

rd

Univ

ersit

y Pr

ess,

1997

), p.

1. I

n th

is st

unni

ngly

com

preh

ensiv

e w

ork,

the

vete

ran

play

theo

rist s

olve

s the

pro

blem

of t

he a

mbi

guity

of p

lay

by su

gges

ting

that

pla

y is

ambi

guity

. His

stra

tegy

is to

stud

y th

e

dist

inct

ive

rhet

oric

s by

whi

ch p

lay

is in

voke

d. I

have

chos

en to

conc

entr

ate

on th

e co

ncep

t of g

ame

rath

er th

an p

lay.

The

gam

e, u

nlik

e

play

, is r

elat

ivel

y ea

sy to

def

ine.

Pla

y is

wha

t is e

xclu

ded

from

any

defin

ition

of g

ame

to g

ive

it th

e ap

pear

ance

of s

elf-c

onsis

tenc

y.

Dre

w M

ilne,

�Af

term

aths

�, in

Go

Figu

re, (

Cam

brid

ge: S

alt P

ublis

hing

,

2003

), p.

102

. A te

xt w

hich

also

cont

ains

this

war

ning

, abo

ut m

etho

d:

�One

of t

he u

nint

ende

d co

nseq

uenc

es o

f ava

nt g

arde

am

bitio

n is

the

perv

asiv

e pl

easu

re ta

ken

in re

duct

ive

but a

vow

edly

radi

cal f

orm

s of

cont

extu

aliz

atio

n, fr

om si

tuat

ioni

sm to

cultu

ral s

tudi

es. O

scill

atio

ns

betw

een

purif

icat

ion

and

tran

sgre

ssiv

e co

llatio

n fa

ll vi

ctim

to th

e

abst

ract

iden

tity

of p

urity

and

impu

rity.

� (p

. 98)

.

J. C

. Her

z, Jo

ystic

k Na

tion,

(Bos

ton:

Litt

le, B

row

n &

Co., 1

997)

, p.

205.

For

a n

arra

tive

acco

unt o

f the

inte

rtw

inin

g of

mili

tary

and

ente

rtai

nmen

t ind

ustr

ies w

hich

upd

ates

Edw

ards

, see

Ed

Halte

r, Fr

om S

un

Tzu

to X

box,

Thu

nder

�s M

outh

Pre

ss, N

ew Y

ork,

200

6. A

lso o

f int

eres

t is

the

docu

men

tary

film

Wor

ld W

ar V

irtua

l, (N

ew Y

ork:

IFFI

Pro

duct

ions

,

2006

). J

ohan

Hui

zing

a, H

omo

Lude

ns, (

Bost

on: B

eaco

n Pr

ess,

1950

), pp

. 74-

75.

�Onl

y th

roug

h an

eth

os th

at tr

ansc

ends

the

frien

d-fo

e re

latio

nshi

p an

d

reco

gniz

es a

hig

her g

oal t

han

grat

ifica

tion

of th

e se

lf, th

e gr

oup

or

the

natio

n w

ill a

pol

itica

l soc

iety

pas

s bey

ond

the

�pla

y� o

f war

to

true

serio

usne

ss.�

(p. 2

11) W

hat s

eem

s lac

king

in m

uch

writ

ing

on g

ames

late

ly is

this

sens

e in

Hui

zing

a th

at th

ere

is so

met

hing

, iro

nica

lly,

at st

ake,

that

ago

n be

twee

n co

ncep

tions

of t

he g

ame

mat

ters

mor

e th

an

the

deta

ils o

f any

par

ticul

ar g

ame.

Chr

is Ta

ylor

, �Th

e Al

lure

of a

Stic

ky B

all�

, Tim

e, (M

ay 2

3, 2

005)

, p.

56. S

ome

of th

e m

ore

inte

rest

ing

com

men

tary

on

Kata

mar

i has

focu

sed

on

the

ques

tion

of co

nsum

erism

. Ryl

ish M

oelle

r: �K

atam

ari i

s an

inte

rest

ing

gam

e to

disc

uss s

ince

it ca

lls is

sues

like

cons

umer

ism a

nd

envi

ronm

enta

lism

to th

e fo

regr

ound

in a

ver

y ov

ert s

ort o

f way

. My

wor

ry is

not

that

gam

es a

re to

o co

mpl

icat

ed o

r too

vio

lent

or t

oo

mas

culin

e or

too

raci

st b

ut th

at th

ey a

re th

ese

thin

gs in

ord

er to

perp

etua

te co

nsum

erism

.� S

ee fu

ture

ofth

eboo

k.or

g an

d th

e te

chrh

et

lists

erve

r at i

nter

vers

ity.o

rg

Gra

nd T

heft

Auto

: Vic

e Ci

ty, d

evel

oped

by

Rock

star

Gam

es a

nd

publ

ished

by

Take

-Tw

o In

tera

ctiv

e, 2

002.

It is

par

t of t

he lo

ng ru

nnin

g

Gran

d Th

eft A

uto

�fra

nchi

se�.

Ter

ry E

agle

ton,

Fig

ures

of D

issen

t, (L

ondo

n: V

erso

, 200

3), p

. 24.

Ada

m G

reen

field

: �As

abo

ve, s

o be

low

, app

aren

tly: o

ne o

f the

mos

t

thou

ght-

prov

okin

g th

ings

I�ve

hea

rd sa

id re

cent

ly is

that

�th

ere

can

be

no u

topi

a on

a p

lane

t with

six

billi

on p

eopl

e.�

Or m

aybe

we

alw

ays

alre

ady

live

in L

iber

ty C

ity.�

Mar

k Am

erik

a: �

�Wha

t is u

topi

a?�

is m

y qu

estio

n. N

ot w

hat w

as. I

hav

e

ofte

ntim

es a

sked

mys

elf t

his q

uest

ion

beca

use

ther

e ar

e tim

es w

hen

I

thin

k Iƒ

m e

xper

ienc

ing

it. T

hat i

s to

say,

for m

e it

mus

t be

som

ethi

ng

that

can

be

expe

rienc

ed -

and

not j

ust i

n so

me

sci-f

i sor

t of w

ay.�

Fre

dric

Jam

eson

, Arc

haeo

logi

es o

f the

Fut

ure,

(Lon

don:

Ver

so, 2

005)

.

Will

iam

Mor

ris, N

ews F

rom

Now

here

, (Lo

ndon

: Pen

guin

, 199

3), p

. 113

.

Read

toge

ther

with

Edw

ard

Bella

my�

s Loo

king

Bac

kwar

d, (N

ew Y

ork:

Ran

dom

Hous

e, 1

982)

, the

se tw

o ut

opia

s pro

vide

an

unw

ittin

g ge

neal

ogy

for a

gam

espa

ce to

com

e. It

�s a

que

stio

n of

seei

ng th

e pl

ayfu

l sid

e of

Mor

ris�s

cra

ftspe

ople

toge

ther

with

the

tech

nocr

acy

of B

ella

my�

s

soci

alist

labo

r. Th

e fo

rmer

is n

ot n

eces

saril

y an

ti-te

chno

logi

cal,

and

the

latt

er n

ot n

eces

saril

y pu

rely

ratio

nalis

t. O

ne o

f the

virt

ues o

f

the

Situ

atio

nist

s was

the

to se

e th

e po

ssib

ilitie

s to

com

e fro

m

reco

ncili

ng th

is op

posit

ion

� if

not t

he d

ange

rs.

Ale

xand

er B

ogda

nov,

Red

Sta

r: Th

e Fi

rst B

olsh

evik

Uto

pia,

(Blo

omin

gton

, IL:

Indi

ana

Univ

ersit

y Pr

ess,

1984

), p.

87.

Bog

dano

v�s

�tek

toni

cs�

is a

negl

ecte

d co

unte

rpoi

nt to

�w

este

rn M

arxi

sm�,

and

fore

runn

er to

syst

ems t

heor

y.

Edw

in B

lack

, IBM

and

the

Hol

ocau

st, (

New

Yor

k: T

hree

Riv

ers P

ress

,

2002

), p.

73.

The

Hol

erith

pro

vide

s the

ans

wer

to th

e us

ually

una

sked

ques

tion

of e

xact

ly h

ow so

meo

ne li

ke E

ichm

ann

got t

he tr

ains

to ru

n on

time.

R

usse

ll Ja

coby

, Pic

ture

Impe

rfect

: Uto

pian

Tho

ught

for a

n An

ti-

Utop

ian

Age,

(New

Yor

k: C

olum

bia

Univ

ersit

y Pr

ess,

2005

), p.

13.

Rog

er C

aillo

is, M

an, P

lay

and

Gam

es, (

Urba

na IL

: Uni

vers

ity o

f

Illin

ois P

ress

, 200

1).

Mic

hel F

ouca

ult,

�Oth

er S

pace

s�, a

t fou

caul

t.inf

o Th

e Fo

ucau

lt of

the

�disc

iplin

ary�

app

arat

us se

ems t

o ap

peal

to a

cade

mic

s bec

ause

the

disc

iplin

ary

proc

edur

e so

acc

urat

ely

desc

ribes

the

expe

rienc

e of

hig

her

educ

atio

n. It

may

, how

ever

, hav

e lit

tle re

leva

nce

else

whe

re. F

ouca

ult�

s

cele

brat

ed w

ritin

gs o

f Ben

tham

�s P

anop

ticon

ove

rlook

s the

fact

that

,

rath

er th

an b

uild

it, t

he B

ritish

gov

ernm

ent f

avor

ed tr

ansp

orta

tion

to

the

colo

nies

, a k

ind

of p

ower

that

has

not

hing

to d

o w

ith th

e

disc

iplin

ary

and

ever

ythi

ng to

do

with

the

vect

oral

. A b

ette

r sou

rce

on

the

orig

ins o

f con

tem

pora

ry fo

rms o

f pow

er w

ould

sure

ly b

e Be

rnar

d

Smith

�s E

urop

ean

Visio

n an

d th

e So

uth

Paci

fic, (

New

Hav

en C

T: Y

ale

Univ

ersit

y Pr

ess,

1985

). It

is bu

t a sh

ort l

ine

from

Cap

tain

Coo

k an

d

the

chro

nom

eter

, acc

urat

ely

map

ping

the

wor

ld in

bot

h la

titud

e an

d

long

itude

for t

he fi

rst t

ime,

to S

ecre

tary

of D

efen

se D

onal

d Ru

msf

eld

usin

g gl

obal

pos

ition

ing

sate

llite

s to

mou

nt a

hig

h-te

ch a

eria

l ass

ault

on Ir

aq. T

o pu

t the

Pan

optic

on in

per

spec

tive,

see

Rem

Koo

lhas

and

the

Offi

ce o

f Met

ropo

litan

Arc

hite

ctur

e, S

,M,L

,XL,

(New

Yor

k: M

onac

elli

Pres

s, 19

95) w

hich

incl

udes

a fa

scin

atin

g pr

ojec

t for

a D

utch

pris

on

that

was

des

igne

d to

be

�pan

optic

�, b

ut in

whi

ch th

e ce

lebr

ated

cen

tral

guar

d ho

use

was

act

ually

bei

ng u

sed

as a

cof

fee

stan

d fo

r the

gua

rds,

in fu

ll vi

ew o

f the

pris

oner

s, th

us c

ompl

etel

y re

vers

ing

the

orig

inal

inte

ntio

n. F

or a

mor

e in

tere

stin

g Fo

ucau

lt, se

e th

e ac

coun

t of h

is

adve

ntur

es in

Am

eric

an g

ay c

ultu

ral h

eter

otop

ias,

in Ja

mes

Mill

er, T

he

Pass

ion

of M

iche

l Fou

caul

t, (C

ambr

idge

MA:

Har

vard

Uni

vers

ity P

ress

,

2000

). Th

is is

the

Fouc

ault

who

is st

ill w

ith u

s, th

e on

e w

ho, l

ike

the

�num

ber�

that

he

was

, wro

te to

hav

e no

face

, and

left

it to

the

polic

e

to se

e th

at h

is pa

pers

wer

e in

ord

er.

Guy

Deb

ord,

The

Soc

iety

of t

he S

pect

acle

, (N

ew Y

ork:

Zon

e Bo

oks,

1994

), s.

191.

Key

to D

ebor

d�s u

nder

stan

ding

of �

spec

tacl

e� is

the

conc

ept o

f sep

arat

ion.

Som

e ar

gue

that

the

�int

erac

tive�

qua

lity

of

cont

empo

rary

med

ia c

an, o

r at l

east

mig

ht, r

escu

e it

from

sepa

ratio

n

and

its a

udie

nce

from

pas

sivity

. One

cou

ld w

ith m

ore

just

ice

see

it th

e

othe

r way

aro

und:

wha

teve

r has

repl

aced

the

spec

tacl

e im

pove

rishe

s it

still

furt

her,

by re

quiri

ng o

f its

hap

less

serv

ants

not

onl

y th

at th

ey

wat

ch it

at t

heir

leisu

re, b

ut th

at th

ey sp

end

thei

r lei

sure

act

ually

prod

ucin

g it.

Pla

y be

com

es w

ork.

Wor

k be

com

es p

lay:

Pat

Kan

e, T

he P

lay

Ethi

c, (L

ondo

n: P

an B

ooks

,

2004

), p.

30.

Thi

s boo

k is

a fa

scin

atin

g gu

ide

to th

e co

nsul

ting

clas

s,

to w

hich

Kan

e be

long

s, w

hich

wou

ld b

ring

play

into

the

wor

kpla

ce, a

nd

why

: §W

hen

you

get a

tast

e of

gen

uine

ly u

nalie

nate

d la

bor t

hen

even

the

sligh

test

alie

natio

n co

mes

to se

em li

ke a

tem

pora

ry st

ay in

the

priso

n

hous

e.§

(p. 2

58)

Ral

ph R

umne

y, q

uote

d in

Ala

n W

oods

, The

Map

is N

ot th

e Te

rrito

ry,

(Man

ches

ter:

Man

ches

ter U

nive

rsity

Pre

ss, 2

000)

, p. 6

2. S

ee a

lso R

alph

Rum

ney,

The

Con

sul,

(San

Fra

ncisc

o: C

ity L

ight

s Boo

ks, 2

002)

.

Alb

erto

Iaco

voni

, Gam

e Zo

ne: P

layg

roun

ds B

etw

een

Virt

ual S

cena

rios

and

Real

ity, (

Base

l: Bi

rkh�

user

, 200

4), p

. 83.

See

also

Fra

nces

co

Care

ri, W

alks

cape

s: W

alki

ng a

s an

Aest

hetic

Pra

ctic

e, (B

arce

lona

:

Edito

rial G

usta

vo G

il, 2

002)

.

Geo

rge

Pere

c, W

or M

emor

y of

Chi

ldho

od, (

Lond

on: C

ollin

s Har

vill,

1988

), p.

159

. See

also

Har

ry M

atth

ews,

Oul

ipo

Com

pend

ium

, (Lo

ndon

:

Atla

s Pre

ss, L

ondo

n, 1

998)

.

Rez

, dev

elop

ed b

y U

nite

d Ga

me

Artis

ts a

nd p

ublis

hed

by S

EGA,

200

2. A

s

Andr

ew C

hang

, aka

ArC

writ

es: �

This

trig

ger m

echa

nism

wor

ks th

e sa

me

way

in S

ega�

s Pan

zer D

rago

on se

ries,

whi

ch p

reda

te R

ez a

nd a

re a

n

obvi

ous i

nflu

ence

.�

Ben

: �N

ot n

eces

saril

y tr

ue. I

f you

wan

t the

spec

ial,

�tru

e� P

ink

Butt

erfly

end

ing,

you

mus

t ach

ieve

100

% sh

oot d

own

on A

rea

5, F

ear.�

Bla

ise P

asca

l. Pe

nsØ

es, (

Lond

on: P

engu

in, 1

995)

, s. 4

7.

Ste

ven

Pool

e, T

rigge

r Hap

py, (

New

Yor

k: A

rcad

e, 2

000)

, p. 1

69.

Nia

ll Lu

cy, A

Der

rida

Dic

tiona

ry, (

Oxf

ord:

Bla

ckw

ell,

2004

), p.

44.

Jac

ques

Der

rida,

The

Gift

of D

eath

, (Ch

icag

o: U

nive

rsity

of C

hica

go

Pres

s, 19

95),

p. 4

4.

Ale

x Ga

llow

ay, P

roto

col:

How

Con

trol

Exi

sts A

fter D

ecen

tral

izat

ion,

(Cam

brdi

ge M

A: M

IT P

ress

, 200

4), p

. 30.

See

als

o W

endy

Hui

Kyo

ng C

hun,

Cont

rol a

nd F

reed

om: P

ower

and

Par

anoi

a in

the

Age

of F

iber

Opt

ics,

(Cam

brid

ge M

A: M

IT P

ress

, 200

6), p

. 5: �

The

prob

lem

is n

ot w

ith th

e

cont

rol p

roto

cols

that

driv

e th

e in

tern

et�

but r

athe

r with

the

way

thes

e pr

otoc

ols a

re si

mul

tane

ousl

y hi

dden

and

am

plifi

ed.�

Sam

uel W

eber

, Tar

gets

of O

ppor

tuni

ty, (

New

Yor

k: F

ordh

am U

nive

rsity

Pres

s, 20

05),

p. 1

05. W

eber

�s st

artin

g po

int i

s Hom

er (O

dyss

eus t

akin

g

aim

at P

enel

ope�

s sui

tors

) and

Thu

cydi

des.

�Wha

t Thu

cydi

des H

isto

ry o

f

the

Pelo

ponn

esia

n W

ar su

gges

ts is

that

the

mor

e on

e m

akes

such

targ

etin

g th

e pa

radi

gm o

f all

actio

n, th

e m

ore

that

whi

ch is

den

ied

retu

rns a

s the

�m

isse

d op

port

unity

�, w

hich

is a

ll th

at re

mai

ns o

f

chan

ce w

hen

its si

ngul

arity

is sh

unte

d as

ide.

� (p

. 21)

The

par

alle

l

betw

een

the

targ

ets s

elec

ted

by A

then

s und

er it

s dem

agog

ues a

nd th

e

Uni

ted

Stat

es u

nder

its �

and

the

cons

eque

nces

� n

eed

not b

e la

bore

d.

Mar

k C.

Tay

lor,

Conf

iden

ce G

ames

: Mon

ey a

nd M

arke

ts in

a W

orld

With

out R

edem

ptio

n, (C

hica

go: U

nive

rsity

of C

hica

go P

ress

, 200

4), p

.

295.

Rez

, Seg

a, 2

001,

man

ual p

5

Vas

sily

Kan

dins

ky, C

once

rnin

g th

e Sp

iritu

al in

Art

, (N

ew Y

ork:

Dov

er

Pres

s, 19

86),

p. 2

5.

Jan

e Pi

ncka

rd, G

ameg

irl A

dvan

ce, (

26th

Oct

ober

, 200

3)

http

://w

ww

.gam

egirl

adva

nce.

com

/arc

hive

s/20

02/1

0/26

/sex

_in_

gam

es_r

ezvi

br

ator

.htm

l S

amue

l Web

er, T

arge

ts o

f Opp

ortu

nity

, (N

ew Y

ork:

For

dham

Uni

vers

ity

Pres

s, N

ew Y

ork)

, 200

5, p

. 21.

Jam

es D

er D

eria

n, V

irtuo

us W

ar, (

Boul

der C

O: W

estv

iew

, 200

1), p

. 45.

Rol

and

Bart

hes,

Sade

, Fou

rier,

Loyo

la, (

Balti

mor

e M

D: J

ohns

Hop

kins

Uni

vers

ity P

ress

, 199

6), p

. 150

.

The

odor

Ado

rno

and

Max

Hor

khei

mer

, Dia

lect

ic o

f Enl

ight

enm

ent,

(Lon

don:

Ver

so, 1

979)

, p. 8

8.

Lou

is A

rago

n, P

aris

Pea

sant

, (Bo

ston

MA:

Exa

ct C

hang

e Pr

ess,

1994

),

p. 1

27. T

his t

ext i

s als

o on

e of

the

keys

to th

e Si

tuat

ioni

st c

once

pt

of th

e ci

ty a

s the

spac

e of

gam

es.

June

Edv

enso

n: �

re: �

all t

he sa

me

afte

r all�

I w

ould

say:

no:

in

Euro

pe, w

here

I liv

e w

eƒre

�al

l the

sam

e�- i

n Am

eric

a, o

ne is

allo

wed

to b

e a

¥sta

rƒ o

r ¥ric

hƒ �

i.e.

itƒs

oka

y. Iƒ

d sa

y: �

and

beca

use

here

we

are

all e

qual

and

all

star

s, af

ter a

ll� -

som

ethi

ng m

ore

on th

is

line.

Thi

s is h

ow th

e Am

eric

an, o

f whi

ch I

am o

ne, i

s see

n in

the

wor

ld

right

now

.�

Art

hur S

chop

enha

uer,

¥On

the

Suffe

ring

of th

e W

orld

ƒ, E

ssay

s and

Apho

rism

s, (H

arm

onds

wor

th: P

engu

in, 1

970)

, p. 4

3.

Le_C

andi

de: �

I can

not n

ot in

terv

ene:

onl

y re

adin

g Sc

hope

nhau

erƒs

view

poin

t sho

uld

not c

omfo

rt u

s in

that

life

of w

orry

and

toil,

fear

ing

ever

y fre

ed ti

me

as a

pot

entia

l gul

f of b

ored

om. L

eisu

re o

r �sc

hole

� as

the

Gre

eks u

sed

to sa

y (a

nd w

hich

gav

e �s

choo

l�) i

s wha

t you

win

ove

r

your

wor

kday

, it i

s one

of t

he fe

w m

eani

ngfu

l mom

ents

, whe

re y

ou c

an

prac

tice

philo

soph

y, sc

ienc

e, w

here

you

can

med

itate

or s

hare

tim

e w

ith

your

love

d on

es. J

ust b

ecau

se U

nite

d St

ates

citi

zens

do

not h

ave

any

spiri

tual

life

wha

tsoe

ver,

are

depr

essi

vely

mat

eria

listic

and

col

laps

e

unde

r the

ir fa

t, do

es n

ot m

ean

that

the

who

le w

orld

is fo

llow

ing

thei

r

exam

ple.

� J

ohn

Berg

er, T

he S

hape

of a

Poc

ket,

(New

Yor

k: P

anth

eon,

200

1), p

.

12. J

ohn

Berg

er, t

he p

oet o

f nec

essi

ty.

Buz

zcoc

ks, �

Bore

dom

�, S

pira

l Scr

atch

EP,

(New

Hor

mon

es, 1

976)

. The

affir

mat

ion

of b

ored

om is

the

true

hal

lmar

k of

pun

k.

Cyr

il Co

nnol

ly, T

he U

nqui

et G

rave

, (N

ew Y

ork:

Per

sea

Book

s, 19

81),

p.

84. T

he re

fere

nce

is to

Tho

mas

De

Qui

ncey

, Con

fess

ions

of a

n En

glis

h

Opi

um E

ater

, (Lo

ndon

: Pen

guin

, 200

3), a

che

rishe

d te

xt o

f the

Surr

ealis

ts a

nd S

ituat

ioni

sts.

Kafk

az: �

Who

cou

ld b

lam

e pl

ay fo

r dan

cing

fore

ver j

ust b

eyon

d th

e

reac

h of

any

one

who

wan

ted

to u

se it

as a

fulc

rum

for a

nyth

ing

othe

r tha

n, sa

y, la

unch

ing

wat

er b

allo

ons?

The

del

icio

us b

ored

om

of su

ltry

sum

mer

aft

erno

ons c

an le

ad to

pla

y th

at d

oes o

pen

the

way

to d

isco

very

: the

ups

ide

dow

n bi

cycl

e w

hose

blu

r of s

poke

s

spea

ks o

f ges

talt,

illu

sion

, per

sist

ence

of v

isio

n, fl

icks

, an

intr

icat

e pl

ay o

f con

cept

s fla

shin

g an

d sp

inni

ng in

that

mom

ent

of sp

onta

neity

. But

pla

y su

lks a

nd w

ande

rs o

ff w

hen

gam

ers t

ry to

box

it up

, and

mou

rns t

hose

who

mis

take

dep

ress

ion

for b

ored

om.�

Geo

rges

Bat

aille

, The

Acc

urse

d Sh

are

Volu

me

1, (N

ew Y

ork:

Zon

e Bo

oks,

1988

), p.

106

.

Kar

l Mar

x, C

apita

l, Vo

l. 1,

Par

t III,

Ch.

10,

Sec

tion

5

Mar

tin H

eide

gger

, The

Fun

dam

enta

ls C

once

pts o

f Met

aphy

sics

,

(Blo

omin

gton

IL: I

ndia

na U

nive

rsity

Pre

ss, ,

199

5), p

. 96.

(tra

ns m

od)

Sta

te o

f Em

erge

ncy,

dev

elop

ed b

y VI

S En

tert

ainm

ent a

nd p

ublis

hed

by

Rock

star

Gam

es, 2

001.

Dev

elop

ed b

y th

e Sc

ottis

h fir

m V

IS, t

his i

s

exac

tly th

e so

rt o

f gam

e yo

u w

ould

exp

ect f

rom

a g

ener

atio

n th

at g

rew

up o

n Br

itish

pos

t pun

k an

d th

e Si

tuat

ioni

sts,

even

if, f

rom

the

poin

t

of v

iew

of t

he la

tter

it is

the

ultim

ate

recu

pera

tion.

Mar

tin H

eide

gger

, The

Fun

dam

enta

ls C

once

pts o

f Met

aphy

sics

,

(Blo

omin

gton

IL: I

ndia

na U

nive

rsity

Pre

ss, 1

995)

, p. 1

09.

Igg

y Po

p, �

I�m

Bor

ed�,

now

mos

t eas

ily fo

und

on T

he B

est o

f Igg

y Po

p,

(BM

G, 2

005)

. A d

istin

ctiv

ely

affir

mat

ive,

ass

ertiv

e bo

redo

m h

ere.

Lar

s Sve

ndse

n, A

Phi

loso

phy

of B

ored

om, (

Lond

on: R

eakt

ion

Book

s,

2005

), p.

109

. Sve

ndse

n�s c

oncl

usio

n: �

Bore

dom

has

to b

e ac

cept

ed a

s an

unav

oida

ble

fact

, as l

ife�s

ow

n gr

avity

. Thi

s is n

o gr

and

solu

tion,

for

the

prob

lem

of b

ored

om h

as n

one.

� To

whi

ch o

ne m

ust c

ount

er-p

ose

the

Situ

atio

nist

slog

an, t

hat �

bore

dom

is a

lway

s cou

nter

-rev

olut

iona

ry.�

Nat

ural

izin

g bo

redo

m m

erel

y le

ts g

ames

pace

off

the

hook

, abs

olvi

ng it

of a

ny re

spon

sibi

lity

for o

ur in

abili

ty to

mak

e ou

r ow

n hi

stor

y, a

nd

thus

esc

ape

bore

dom

.

Gan

g of

Fou

r, �A

t Hom

e H

e�s a

Tou

rist�

, Ent

erta

inm

ent!,

(Rhi

no/W

EA,

2005

). In

ann

ounc

ing

in 1

979

that

the

new

ent

erta

inm

ent i

s gue

rrill

a

war

stru

ggle

, Gan

g of

Fou

r pre

figur

e no

t onl

y St

ate

of E

mer

genc

y, b

ut

muc

h of

the

cont

empo

rary

wor

ld. G

ang

of F

our p

opul

ariz

ed th

e

Situ

atio

nist

tech

niqu

e of

acc

ount

ing

for b

ored

om a

s a p

oliti

cal

sym

ptom

, but

they

did

it in

a la

ngua

ge o

f the

eve

ryda

y in

herit

ed fr

om

Briti

sh p

op ly

ricis

ts su

ch a

s The

Kin

ks�

Ray

Dav

ies,

and

with

thei

r ow

n

dist

inct

ive

tone

and

rhyt

hmic

con

cept

ion

of ti

me.

Mar

tin H

eide

gger

, The

Fun

dam

enta

ls C

once

pts o

f Met

aphy

sics

,

(Blo

omin

gton

IL: I

ndia

na U

nive

rsity

Pre

ss, 1

995)

, p. 7

7. H

ere

sure

ly is

the

voic

e of

that

Hei

degg

er w

ho w

as a

lso

a fa

shio

n vi

ctim

, pre

y fo

r the

auth

orita

rian

curr

ents

of h

is ti

mes

.

Kar

l Mar

x, �

18th

Bru

mai

re o

f Nap

oleo

n Bo

napa

rte�

. And

yet

para

doxi

cally

the

gam

er m

ay m

ake

hist

ory

prec

isel

y by

not

mak

ing

it, b

y

refu

sing

gam

espa

ce in

favo

r of t

he g

ame,

like

the

play

ers i

n Sa

tyaj

it

Ray�

s The

Che

ss P

laye

rs, (

Kino

Vid

eo, 2

006)

.

Gia

com

o Le

opar

di, Z

ibal

done

: A S

elec

tion,

New

Yor

k: P

eter

Lan

g,

1992

), p.

73.

Tog

ethe

r with

Cha

mfo

rt, L

eopa

rdi i

s tha

t rar

e ex

ampl

e of

the

prog

ress

ive

pess

imis

t.

Gio

rgio

Aga

mbe

n, T

he O

pen:

Man

and

Ani

mal

, (St

anfo

rd C

A: S

tanf

ord

Uni

vers

ity P

ress

, 200

4), p

. 67.

The

oth

er A

gam

ben

wor

k w

orth

men

tioni

ng

here

is S

tate

of E

xcep

tion,

(Chi

cago

: Uni

vers

ity o

f Chi

cago

Pre

ss,

2005

). To

polo

gy a

dmits

no

stat

e of

exc

eptio

n. It

is n

ot g

over

ned

by la

w

but b

y pr

otoc

ol.

Gill

es D

eleu

ze a

nd F

elix

Gua

ttar

i, A

Thou

sand

Pla

teau

s, (M

inne

apol

is:

Uni

vers

ity o

f Min

neso

ta P

ress

, 198

7), p

. 257

.

Gio

rgio

Aga

mbe

n, T

he O

pen:

Man

and

Ani

mal

, Sta

nfor

d CA

: Sta

nfor

d

Uni

vers

ity P

ress

, 200

4), p

. 70.

Nao

mi K

lein

, �Si

gns o

f the

Tim

es�,

The

Nat

ion,

(22n

d O

ctob

er 2

001)

.

And,

one

mig

ht a

dd, v

ice

vers

a.

Ala

n Li

u, T

he L

aws o

f Coo

l, (C

hica

go: U

nive

rsity

of C

hica

go P

ress

,

Chic

ago,

200

4), p

p. 7

7-78

. Thi

s fas

cina

ting

book

mak

es �

cool

�, th

at

obsc

ure

obje

ct o

f des

ire, t

he e

lusi

ve li

ttle

obj

ect t

hat d

rives

gam

espa

ce. B

ut I

pref

er to

see

it ne

gativ

ely,

as a

fals

e ob

ject

,

posi

ted

as th

e im

agin

ary

yet u

tter

ly n

eces

sary

obv

erse

of t

he re

al

driv

ing

forc

e of

gam

espa

ce �

bor

edom

. Coo

lnes

s is t

he fr

ee m

arke

t

equi

vale

nt o

f gra

ce, a

sign

of i

ts G

od, o

f max

imum

util

ity.

Jam

es P

. Car

se, F

inite

& In

finite

Gam

es: A

Vis

ion

of L

ife a

s Pla

y an

d

Poss

ibili

ty, (

New

Yor

k: B

alla

ntin

e, 1

986)

, s. 4

. Car

se o

ffers

not

so

muc

h a

gam

er th

eory

as a

gam

er th

eolo

gy, o

r per

haps

eve

n th

eodi

cy. F

or

Cars

e, th

ere

are

both

fini

te a

nd in

finite

gam

es, a

nd e

vil r

esul

ts fr

om

the

limiti

ng o

f the

infin

ite to

the

finite

. Yet

the

exis

tenc

e of

infin

ite g

ames

is to

be

take

n on

faith

. If a

gam

er th

eory

is to

sepa

rate

itse

lf fr

om a

gam

er th

eolo

gy, t

hen

the

exis

tenc

e of

an

infin

ite g

ame,

of b

eing

, for

m o

r spi

rit o

utsi

de o

f the

Cav

e� h

as to

be

held

in su

spen

sion

whi

le th

e ga

mer

trifl

es w

ithin

the

finite

gam

e,

who

se e

xist

ence

is d

isco

vere

d in

the

act o

f gam

ing.

Deu

s Ex:

Invi

sibl

e W

ar, d

evel

oped

by

Ion

Stor

m a

nd p

ublis

hed

by E

idos

Inte

ract

ive,

200

3. D

esig

ned

by H

arve

y Sm

ith.

Deu

s Ex,

des

igne

d by

War

ren

Spec

tor a

nd H

arve

y Sm

ith, d

evel

oped

by

Ion

Stor

m a

nd p

ublis

hed

by E

idos

Inte

ract

ive,

200

0. T

he o

rigin

al is

over

whe

lmin

gly

pref

erre

d to

the

sequ

el b

y ga

mer

s, w

ho c

onse

quen

tly h

ave

less

to sa

y ab

ut th

e se

quel

. Gam

er th

eory

mig

ht b

e dr

awn

to w

hat

does

n�t q

uite

wor

k ra

ther

than

wha

t mos

t sat

isfie

s the

fan.

KGS:

�G

ah, r

e-w

rite

the

sect

ion

usin

g th

e fir

st D

eus E

x ga

me.

Not

onl

y

was

it a

muc

h, m

uch

bett

er g

ame,

but

the

play

er b

ase

was

muc

h gr

eate

r

and

youƒ

re m

ore

likel

y to

gra

b th

e re

ader

s att

entio

n if

they

are

fam

iliar

with

you

r sub

ject

mat

ter.�

Mr S

tayp

uft:

�Yes

, def

inite

ly u

se D

eus E

x 1

inst

ead.

It a

ppea

rs in

man

y

�Top

10

PC G

ames

of a

ll tim

e� li

sts,

whe

reas

the

sequ

el c

erta

inly

doe

s

not.

Ale

xbb:

�Ac

tual

ly, t

he fi

rst g

ame

also

has

thre

e di

ffere

nt c

hoic

es a

t

the

end,

whi

ch a

re e

ach

mor

e co

mpe

lling

than

any

thin

g of

fere

d by

the

seco

nd g

ame.

One

of t

he th

ings

I di

dnƒt

like

abo

ut In

visi

ble

War

is

that

it so

ught

to m

ake

it so

all

thre

e en

ding

s cam

e ab

out,

and

then

reha

shes

wha

t is b

asic

ally

the

exac

t sam

e st

ory.

(I c

ould

go

on a

nd o

n

abou

t wha

tƒs w

rong

with

Invi

sibl

e W

ar, f

rom

a g

ame

desi

gn p

oint

of

view

...).�

Jo

hnR:

�As

som

eone

who

has

com

plet

ed th

e fir

st D

eus E

x se

vera

l tim

es,

but n

ever

pla

yed

the

sequ

el to

any

mea

ning

ful d

epth

, per

haps

I am

not

qual

ified

to c

omm

ent o

n w

hat y

ou h

ave

writ

ten.

How

ever

, it s

eem

s to

me

afte

r hav

ing

read

it, I

que

stio

n w

heth

er y

ou a

re n

ot re

adin

g to

o m

uch

into

the

sym

bolis

m o

f the

gam

e its

elf.

I thi

nk th

e ga

me

desi

gner

s set

out t

o cr

eate

a th

ough

tful

gam

e w

ith m

ore

dept

h th

an o

ne m

ight

exp

ect

from

man

y ga

mes

, how

ever

it b

ehoo

ves t

he p

laye

r (an

d pe

rhap

s the

theo

rist)

to k

eep

in m

ind

that

the

mai

n ob

ject

ive

of th

e de

sign

er w

as

to p

rovi

de a

pie

ce o

f ent

erta

inm

ent w

ith b

road

eno

ugh

appe

al to

sell

to

man

y po

tent

ial p

laye

rs. I

n cr

eatin

g hi

s des

ign,

I do

nƒt t

hink

a

reas

onab

le d

esig

ner w

ill in

corp

orat

e on

e m

ore

whi

t of t

heor

y th

an is

nece

ssar

y to

max

imiz

e ap

peal

. I re

aliz

e th

at th

e ga

mes

pace

rela

tion

to

real

ity is

mos

t lik

ely

only

pla

ying

out

in a

subc

onsc

ious

leve

l

(per

haps

shar

ed?)

with

the

maj

ority

of p

laye

rs, b

ut I

still

hav

e to

ques

tion

how

muc

h su

ch c

onsi

dera

tion

actu

ally

ent

ers i

nto

it to

der

ive

ente

rtai

nmen

t fro

m p

layi

ng th

e ga

me�

.I th

ink

all t

he c

onsp

iracy

stuf

f

and

whe

els-

with

in-w

heel

s plo

ttin

g is

vas

tly e

nter

tain

ing,

but

I

cert

ainl

y do

nƒt g

ive

the

actu

al p

ower

s-th

at-b

e in

¥re

al li

feƒ

enou

gh

cred

it fo

r the

kin

d of

cle

vern

ess t

hat t

hese

gam

es su

gges

t suc

h

gove

rnin

g bo

dies

hav

e or

eve

n as

pire

to.�

A J

Gre

imas

, On

Mea

ning

: Sel

ecte

d W

ritin

gs in

Sem

iotic

The

ory,

(Min

neap

olis

: Uni

vers

ity o

f Min

neso

ta P

ress

, 198

7), p

. 48.

Fol

low

ing

Fred

ric Ja

mes

on, h

ere

Gre

imas

is m

ore

of a

key

to p

lott

ing

the

code

s of

ideo

logy

than

any

tran

s-hi

stor

ical

nar

rativ

e fo

rm.

Joh

an H

uizi

nga,

Hom

o Lu

dens

, (Bo

ston

: Bea

con

Pres

s, 1

950)

, p. 5

0.

Gre

il M

arcu

s, L

ipst

ick

Trac

es: A

Sec

ret H

isto

ry o

f the

Tw

entie

th

Cent

ury,

(Cam

brid

ge M

A: H

arva

rd U

nive

rsity

Pre

ss, 1

989)

, p. 3

61.

Guy

Deb

ord,

Pan

egye

ric, (

Lond

on: V

erso

, 199

8), p

. 47.

Ice

T, �

You

Play

ed Y

ours

elf�

, The

Iceb

erg/

Free

dom

of S

peec

h, (S

ire

1989

). G

illes

Del

euze

and

Fel

ix G

uatt

ari,

Anti-

Oed

ipus

: Cap

italis

m &

Schi

zoph

reni

a, (M

inne

apol

is: U

nive

rsity

of M

inne

sota

Pre

ss, 1

983)

, p.

7. N. K

athe

rine

Hay

les,

How

We

Beca

me

Post

hum

an, (

Chic

ago:

Uni

vers

ity o

f

Chic

ago

Pres

s, 1

999)

, p. 2

83.

Sig

mun

d Fr

eud,

�A

Case

of P

aran

oia

Runn

ing

Coun

ter t

o th

e

Psyc

hoan

alyt

ic T

heor

y of

the

Dis

ease

�, S

tand

ard

Editi

on e

d. Ja

mes

Stra

chey

, (Lo

ndon

: Hog

arth

Pre

ss, 1

953-

74),

p. 2

61. A

nd th

e de

lusi

ons

of p

sych

oana

lyst

s? A

nton

in A

rtau

d, W

atch

fiend

s and

Rac

k Sc

ream

s: W

orks

from

the

Late

Perio

d, (B

osto

n M

A: E

xact

Cha

nge

Pres

s, 1

995)

, p. 6

8. T

his c

ount

er-

posi

ng o

f Art

aud

to F

reud

is o

f cou

rse

from

Gill

es D

eleu

ze a

nd F

elix

Gua

ttar

i, An

ti-O

edip

us, (

Min

neap

olis

: Uni

vers

ity o

f Min

neso

ta P

ress

,

1983

). M

cKen

zie

War

k, A

Hac

ker M

anife

sto,

(Cam

brid

ge M

A: H

arva

rd U

nive

rsity

Pres

s, 2

004)

, s. 0

02. C

hris

Bur

ke: �

Gam

ers d

efin

itely

do

hack

, alth

ough

may

be a

lway

s not

in th

e se

nse

that

McK

enzi

e us

es th

e te

rm. R

athe

r tha

n

crea

ting

som

e ne

w u

sefu

l ser

vice

or a

pplic

atio

n, g

amer

hac

ks c

ome

mor

e

from

the

¥hm

m, w

hatƒ

s ins

ide

this

thin

gƒ so

rt o

f mot

ivat

ion.

To

the

radi

cal m

ind,

ther

e is

the

adva

ntag

e he

re o

f unl

ocki

ng so

me

part

of t

he

prop

rieta

ry c

orpo

rate

cul

ture

and

mak

ing

it av

aila

ble

to th

e pu

blic

.

Mac

hini

ma

[cin

ema

mad

e w

ith g

ame

engi

nes]

is o

ne e

xam

ple

and

with

in

that

wor

ld th

ere

are

seve

ral d

ivis

ions

, mos

t im

port

antly

, har

dwar

e

hack

ing

vs. s

oftw

are

hack

ing.

Muc

h of

the

mac

hini

ma

wor

ld h

as b

een

embr

aced

and

enc

oura

ged

by th

e ga

me

com

pani

es a

s a w

ay to

ext

end

thei

r

bran

d by

cre

atin

g co

mm

unity

. But

har

dwar

e ha

ckin

g is

som

ethi

ng th

at

they

are

firm

ly a

gain

st. I

hav

e do

ne a

litt

le o

f bot

h an

d to

be

hone

st,

for w

hat I

do,

har

dwar

e ha

ckin

g is

less

inte

rest

ing,

onl

y be

caus

e it

allo

ws y

ou to

do

near

ly a

nyth

ing

with

the

gam

e an

d th

eref

ore

you

are

no

long

er w

orki

ng w

ithin

thei

r wor

ld. T

his g

oes t

o th

e co

re o

f wha

t I

wou

ld li

ke to

dis

cuss

with

McK

enzi

e: th

e th

ing

I lov

e ab

out ¥

soft

war

e

hack

ingƒ

a li

ve o

nlin

e ga

me

to m

ake

som

ethi

ng n

ew, i

s the

ext

ent t

o

whi

ch o

ne is

beh

olde

n to

pla

y w

ithin

the

rule

s of t

he g

ame

as it

was

mad

e, w

hile

at t

he sa

me

time

exer

cisi

ng th

e ab

ility

to b

end

thos

e ru

les

and

ther

eby

mak

e th

e m

ass p

rodu

ced

gam

e do

som

ethi

ng n

ew a

nd m

ore

pers

onal

. Itƒ

s as i

f you

got

a H

olly

woo

d se

t to

your

self

for a

day

and

wer

e ab

le to

com

men

t on

the

text

of t

he fi

lm b

y sp

eaki

ng y

our o

wn

lines

from

with

in th

e fil

m it

self.

Thi

s is m

ade

mor

e in

tere

stin

g to

me

by th

e

fact

that

onl

ine

gam

ing

is n

ow so

per

vasi

ve a

nd lu

crat

ive

for t

he b

ig

com

pani

es. I

wan

t to

belie

ve th

at w

e ar

e pa

rt o

f a m

ovem

ent,

trai

l-

blaz

ed b

y th

e tw

o-w

ay n

atur

e of

the

inte

rnet

, to

brin

g so

me

dem

ocra

cy

to m

edia

. I d

o no

t dou

bt th

at th

e co

rpor

atio

ns c

an p

ut a

n en

d to

this

,

but I

bel

ieve

ther

e ha

s bee

n so

me

rece

nt te

nden

cy in

the

gam

e in

dust

ry

to se

e th

is so

rt o

f hac

king

as a

goo

d th

ing.

� Se

e Ch

ris�

mac

hini

ma

TV

show

Thi

s Spa

rtan

Life

at:

this

spar

tanl

ife.c

om

Sim

Eart

h is

man

ufac

ture

d by

the

Max

is c

ompa

ny a

nd d

istr

ibut

ed b

y

Brod

erbu

nd. A

s des

igne

r Will

Wrig

ht h

as a

ckno

wle

dged

, it i

s bas

ed o

n

the

wor

k of

Jay

Forr

este

r, pa

rtic

ular

ly h

is b

ook

Wor

ld D

ynam

ics,

(Wal

tham

MA:

Peg

asus

Com

mun

icat

ions

, 197

3). F

orre

ster

had

pre

viou

sly

wor

ked

on P

roje

ct W

hirlw

ind

for t

he U

S N

avy,

per

haps

the

first

com

pute

r

to w

ork

in re

altim

e an

d us

e vi

deo

disp

lays

. A m

uch

earli

er v

ersi

on o

f

this

cha

pter

app

eare

d as

�Th

ird N

atur

e�, C

ultu

ral S

tudi

es, 8

:1,

(Jan

uary

199

4), p

p. 1

15-1

32.

The

odor

Ado

rno,

Min

ima

Mor

alia

, (Lo

ndon

: New

Lef

t Boo

ks, 1

974)

, p.

156.

On

this

uto

pia

with

out p

resc

riptio

n, o

r min

imal

pre

scrip

tion,

see

Russ

ell J

acob

y, P

ictu

re Im

perf

ect:

Uto

pian

Tho

ught

for a

n An

ti-U

topi

an

Age,

(New

Yor

k: C

olum

bia

Uni

vers

ity P

ress

, 200

5).

An

Inco

nven

ient

Tru

th, 2

006,

dire

cted

by

Dav

is G

ugge

nhei

m, b

ased

on

a

Pow

erpo

int s

how

from

the

Appl

e la

ptop

of A

l Gor

e, fo

rmer

ly th

e ne

xt

Pres

iden

t of t

he U

nite

d St

ates

. K

arl M

arx,

A C

ontr

ibut

ion

to th

e Cr

itiqu

e of

Pol

itica

l Eco

nom

y,

pref

ace

A. A

. Bog

dano

v, R

ed S

tar:

The

Firs

t Bol

shev

ik U

topi

a, (B

loom

ingt

on

IL: I

ndia

na U

P, 1

984)

, p. 8

0. B

ogda

nov

poin

ts to

the

diffi

culty

of

conc

eivi

ng o

f tot

ality

from

with

in a

n ag

on w

hich

focu

ses a

ll on

e�s

atte

ntio

n on

an

oppo

nent

. Int

eres

tingl

y, u

topi

an w

ritin

g m

ay b

e ab

le to

conc

eive

of a

tota

lity

beca

use

of th

e w

ay it

bra

cket

s off

and

igno

res

its o

ppon

ents

. The

uto

pian

writ

ers B

ogda

nov

and

Char

les F

ourie

r bot

h

pred

icte

d gl

obal

war

min

g. S

ee C

harle

s Fou

rier,

The

Theo

ry o

f the

Fou

r

Mov

emen

ts, (

Cam

brid

ge: C

ambr

idge

Uni

vers

ity P

ress

, 199

6), p

. 48.

�Th

e

entir

e w

orld

will

then

be

unde

r cul

tivat

ion,

, br

ingi

ng a

bout

a ri

se o

f

five

or si

x de

gree

s��.

Of c

ours

e Fo

urie

r tho

ught

this

a g

ood

thin

g, a

nd

did

real

ly th

ink

that

the

sea

wou

ld ta

ste

like

lem

onad

e. (p

. 50)

But

bein

g sy

stem

atic

thin

kers

, the

se u

topi

an w

riter

s did

brin

g th

emse

lves

to th

ink

abou

t the

way

hum

an so

cial

rela

tions

cre

ate

� an

d tr

ansf

orm

�

thei

r con

ditio

ns a

s a to

talit

y. K

im S

tanl

ey R

obin

son,

Gre

en M

ars,

(New

Yor

k: B

anta

m, 1

995)

, p. 5

60.

Robi

nson

is a

lso

the

auth

or o

f a c

ycle

of n

ovel

s abo

ut g

loba

l war

min

g,

star

ting

with

his

For

ty S

igns

of R

ain,

(New

Yor

k: B

anta

m B

ooks

, 200

4).

Ola

f Sta

peld

on, S

tar M

aker

, (M

iddl

eton

CT:

Wes

leya

n U

nive

rsity

Pre

ss,

2004

), p.

94.

In A

rcha

eolo

gies

of t

he F

utur

e, L

ondo

n: V

erso

, 200

5), p

.

124,

Fre

dric

Jam

eson

offe

rs th

is a

maz

ing

sent

ence

: �In

deed

, we

may

posi

t tha

t in

an a

chie

ved

utop

ia, o

ne b

ecom

e un

imag

inab

ly re

al a

nd

dist

inct

from

us i

n w

hate

ver f

ar fu

ture

or g

alac

tic sp

ace,

the

ques

tion

of a

rt w

ould

alre

ady

have

bee

n an

swer

ed, a

nd S

tar M

aker

wou

ld h

ave

turn

ed o

ut to

be

the

Div

ine

Com

edy

of th

at re

aliz

ed n

ew w

orld

, re

turn

ing

to u

s as a

sacr

ed te

xt o

r scr

iptu

re m

yste

rious

ly c

atap

ulte

d

from

out

of t

he fu

ture

into

our

ow

n fa

llen

pres

ent,

as th

ough

it w

ere

inde

ed th

e en

igm

atic

writ

ing

dest

ined

to se

cure

a c

ontin

uity

acr

oss t

he

barr

ier o

f tim

e an

d hi

stor

ical

tran

sfor

mat

ion.

� In

this

falle

n w

orld

, th

ings

are

a li

ttle

diff

eren

t, an

d on

e ca

n im

agin

e th

e lu

ckle

ss a

ngel

s of

Sta

r Mak

er tr

avel

ing

the

univ

erse

obs

ervi

ng a

nd c

omm

unin

g w

ith th

e un

happ

y re

mai

ns le

ft b

ehin

d by

pla

yers

of S

pore

. F

ranc

o M

oret

ti, M

oder

n Ep

ic, (

Lond

on: V

erso

, 199

6), p

. 6. �

Form

al�

here

subs

titut

es fo

r �rh

etor

ical

�. S

ee a

lso

Mor

etti�

s rem

arka

ble

essa

ys

on li

tera

ry g

ames

pace

: Gra

phs,

Map

s, T

rees

: Abs

trac

t Mod

els f

or a

Li

tera

ry T

heor

y, (L

ondo

n: V

erso

, 200

5).

E M

Cio

ran,

Dra

wn

and

Qua

rter

ed, (

New

Yor

k: A

rcad

e, 1

998)

, p. 1

34.

Cior

an�s

unr

epen

tant

fasc

ism

shou

ld n

ot p

ass h

ere

with

out m

entio

n.

Mar

k Am

erik

a, H

ow T

o Be

An

Inte

rnet

Art

ist,

(Bou

lder

CO

: Alt-

X,

2001

), p.

3. A

mer

ika

is a

lso

the

auth

or o

f the

cla

ssic

inte

ract

ive

text

gr

amm

atro

n.co

m.

Wal

ter B

enja

min

, �O

n th

e Co

ncep

t of H

isto

ry�,

Sel

ecte

d W

ritin

gs

Volu

me

4, (C

ambr

idge

MA:

Har

vard

Uni

vers

ity P

ress

, 200

3), p

. 392

. H

eine

r M�l

ler,

¥The

Luc

kles

s Ang

elƒ,

Ger

man

ia (N

ew Y

ork:

Sem

iote

xt(e

) Fo

reig

n Ag

ents

Ser

ies,

199

0), p

. 99.

Pla

to, P

haed

rus,

tran

slat

ed b

y Ch

risto

pher

Row

e, (L

ondo

n: P

engu

in, ,

20

05),

p. 6

3 [2

74e]

. On

Phae

drus

as t

he k

ey te

xt in

itiat

ing

a cr

itica

l m

edia

theo

ry, s

ee D

arre

n To

fts &

Mur

ray

McK

eitc

h, M

emor

y Tr

ade:

A P

re-

His

tory

of C

yber

cultu

re, (

Mel

bour

ne: F

ine

Arts

Pub

lishi

ng, 1

998)

and

D

arre

n To

fts e

t al,

eds.

, Pre

figur

ing

Cybe

rcul

ture

: An

Inte

llect

ual

His

tory

, (Ca

mbr

idge

MA:

MIT

Pre

ss, 2

004)

. �Re

cipe

� he

re tr

ansl

ates

the

term

Der

rida

mad

e fa

mou

s: �

phar

mak

on�.

D

avid

Par

ry: �

Theu

th a

lso

beco

mes

Her

mes

the

God

of s

peed

and

tr

ansm

issi

on, b

ack

to te

le.�

Nia

ll Lu

cy: �

The

mov

e co

uld

be to

o fa

st h

ere.

Der

ridaƒ

s int

erve

ntio

n is

ag

ains

t the

not

ion

of w

ritin

g as

writ

ten-

dow

n sp

eech

. For

him

, writ

ing

has t

o be

thou

ght a

s spa

cing

, diff

eren

cing

and

def

errin

g to

see

that

sp

eech

cou

ld n

ever

stan

d ¥b

ehin

dƒ it

.� J

acqu

es D

errid

a, D

isse

min

atio

n, (C

hica

go: U

nive

rsity

of C

hica

go

Pres

s, 1

981)

, p. 8

2. In

Par

able

s of t

he V

irtua

l, (D

urha

m N

C: D

uke

Uni

vers

ity P

ress

, 200

2), B

rian

Mas

sum

i arg

ues t

hat D

errid

a st

arts

from

st

atic

term

s, a

nd w

orks

tow

ard

unco

verin

g th

e hi

dden

tran

sit b

etw

een

them

, rat

her t

han

tryi

ng to

thin

k m

ovem

ent i

tsel

f. W

ith th

is

spec

ulat

ive

tran

slat

ion

of �

phar

mak

on�

as �

reci

pe�

I am

tryi

ng to

re

stor

e th

e th

ough

t of m

ovem

ent.

A re

cipe

(or a

n al

gorit

hm) m

ay b

e ei

ther

a p

oiso

n or

a c

ure,

but

eith

er w

ay is

still

a p

roce

ss, a

m

ovem

ent.

Man

uel D

e La

nda,

War

In T

he A

ge o

f Int

ellig

ent M

achi

nes,

(New

Yor

k:

Zone

Boo

ks, 1

991)

, p. 4

. See

als

o M

anue

l De

Land

a, In

tens

ive

Scie

nce

and

Virt

ual P

hilo

soph

y, (L

ondo

n: C

ontin

uum

, 200

2). D

e La

nda,

like

M

assu

mi,

atte

mpt

s to

rest

ore

mov

emen

t to

thou

ght.

A pl

ay th

at d

oes n

ot

requ

ire th

e ga

me

but r

athe

r cal

ls it

into

bei

ng.

Fre

dric

Jam

eson

, The

Pol

itica

l Unc

onsc

ious

: Sto

rylin

e as

a S

ocia

lly

Sym

bolic

Act

, (Ith

aca

NY:

Cor

nell

Uni

vers

ity P

ress

, 198

1), p

. 102

. Ja

mes

on c

ontin

ues:

�Bu

t thi

s His

tory

can

be

appr

ehen

ded

only

thro

ugh

its e

ffect

s, a

nd n

ever

dire

ctly

as s

ome

reifi

ed fo

rce.

Thi

s is i

ndee

d th

e ul

timat

e se

nse

in w

hich

His

tory

as g

roun

d an

d un

tran

scen

dabl

e ho

rizon

nee

ds n

o pa

rtic

ular

theo

retic

al ju

stifi

catio

n: w

e m

ay b

e su

re

that

its a

liena

ting

nece

ssiti

es w

ill n

ot fo

rget

us,

how

ever

muc

h w

e m

ight

pre

fer t

o ig

nore

them

.� G

eorg

Luk

acs,

His

tory

and

Cla

ss C

onsc

ious

ness

(Lon

don:

Mer

lin, 1

983)

, p.

19.

The

con

cept

of t

otal

ity, w

hich

one

can

qui

bble

to d

eath

in

theo

ry, r

eass

erts

itse

lf in

pra

ctic

e, n

ow th

at it

leav

es su

ch te

lling

ev

iden

ce o

f its

exi

sten

ce �

such

as g

loba

l war

min

g.

K-P

unk,

�Ca

rtes

iani

sm, C

ontin

uum

, Cat

aton

ia: B

ecke

tt�,

Exc

arna

te

Thou

ght,

http

://w

ww

.k-p

unk.

abst

ract

dyna

mic

s.or

g/ (2

6th

Mar

ch, 2

006)

. Her

e ga

mes

pace

repl

aced

the

now

arc

haic

term

cyb

ersp

ace.

G

illes

Del

euze

and

Fel

ix G

uatt

ari,

Anti-

Oed

ipus

(Lon

don:

Ath

lone

Pr

ess,

198

3), p

. 321

. G

uy D

ebor

d, C

ompl

ete

Cine

mat

ic W

orks

: Scr

ipts

, Stil

ls, D

ocum

ents

, (O

akla

nd C

A: A

K Pr

ess,

200

3), p

. 151

.W

ark/

GAM

3R 7

H30

RY/8

/23/

06/1

1:29

AM

/pag

e 13

3

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ViselVisel

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VidlerVidler

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VertovsVertovs

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VershbowVershbow

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ValenceValence

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StaypuftStaypuft

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SheriffSheriff

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RomkemaRomkema

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RedemptionRedemption

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RecessionRecession

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RainRain

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PurplePurple

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Post-warPost-war

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PolityPolity

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PoetryPoetry

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PhadrusPhadrus

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PatricePatrice

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OutiOuti

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MonthlyMonthly

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MonacelliMonacelli

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MinimaMinima

MinervaMinerva

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MetropolitanMetropolitan

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ManifestoManifesto

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MagazineMagazine

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JanuaryJanuary

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ItalyItaly

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InterviewInterview

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InstantialInstantial

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