Icarus Studios News

(Continued from Part 1)

When I read a novel, I can privately control the fictional world as it unfolds in my mind’s eye; as this happens entirely in my own imagination, there are no other egos to offend or work around. There are no rules, laws, or taboos to interfere with what I envision. I can open my mind, enter that world, and regardless of whether I accept the author’s premise of the canonical plot, I can create any number of unique ideas about what goes on outside of the main storyline. When reading, I can tailor the previously created world to match my own preferences—without having to consult or interact with anyone else who might be affected by my choices.

Although watching a movie is a passive form of entertainment, what I see on the screen often provides a much deeper, emotionally complex, and more realistic depiction of life than what most game-play affords, or in fact allows. A good movie can allow me to suspend my disbelief long enough to feel that the characters and situations are real—or that they were real at one point—and in surrendering to the carefully crafted sensory impact that a good film provides, I can pretend for a short time that I am living life as one of the characters, or I can imagine myself sharing the hero’s internal struggle. It is easy for me to insert myself into that fictional reality, as long as the film isn’t fundamentally flawed. Although I am a big believer in the capability of digital entertainment forms to offer quality, complex experiences, I’m not sure if I'd make the above statement in regards to video games or virtual worlds at the moment. Do games honestly draw you into such complex and arresting simulations of reality you feel as though you have actually crawled inside a character’s skin and changed personalities? Or, if the character’s actions and personality reflect your own, do you truly begin to believe that your own self will grow to resemble what you’ve constructed for your avatar? Can you lose yourself in that illusion? Even for a few minutes?

Given the context of the missions or storylines within a game, players might make choices that are notably different from the decisions they’d make in real life. However, the user's normal rationalization process still applies in either case. The complete abandonment of your own belief system or moral code in order to adopt another set of ethics—such as what happens when you find yourself (even if momentarily) rooting for the bad guy in a film because the film enables you to understand the villain’s point of view—is something I believe currently remains unique to film, comics, and novels. Why? Because the action and the perspectives have already been decided for you, and therefore your emotions or rationales are manipulated by a predetermined combination of events. In a virtual world or MMO—where players take action for themselves, interact with other players who have their own private agendas, and each player experiences the game only through their own personal viewpoint—it is impossible to achieve the same immersion into a fantasy world (or foil character) that a pre-scripted medium encourages. There are too many X-factors, and you can never take for granted that the other players truly are as they act or appear.

I find it very unlikely, although I have read it proposed as a possibility, that having many characters in a single game means you find it amusing to fool other players into thinking you are different people (which insinuates you're naturally devious and that this validation is what you find entertaining), or that you are confused about your own identity (which insinuates that you aren't using the game as a relaxation activity, but as a platform for psychological self-help). Because the tools aren't provided for this level of identification, it's more likely that a person who has many different characters in a video game simply likes to see what all the different technical options are like. Again, it’s not so much about using avatars to express identity, largely because it's a poor format for such, as it is about using avatars for varied experiences, and that the meat of these particular possible experiences are directly related to, and can only be validated by, the separate reality platform of the game world.

(Continued in Part 3)

-Miri Funderburk, Virtual Worlds Team