Video-games are a landmark of our cohort.
Months spent eagerly waiting the next-gen console release, saving up to buy the latest sequel to a favorite game series, or meeting up at a friends house to either tag-team in virtual reality or fight to the ‘death’ invoke nostalgic memories within our generations collective memory. And who could forget fervently fighting against the censorship of our favorite pastime when video-games got labeled ‘desensitizing’, ‘addictive’, and ‘aggression inducing’?
But, to the dismay of many fans, the criticisms didn’t pop out of a vacuum; many (& certainly the most popular) video games are extremely violent, desensitizing, and addictive. But what does this say about the inner worlds of the game makers, and more importantly the kids attracted to them?
As any Freudian would tell you, many of our base-drives and primal forces are either repressed or subtly sublimated into more socially-acceptable outlets (sports, corporate competition, war, etc.). But this doesn’t account for why some are attracted to interactive ‘pretend’ violence, and others completely turned off or repulsed. The answer to this lies deep within the unconscious recesses of our interpersonal streams of intelligence.
Many of the more ‘hardcore’ gamers are also social outcasts. People, being the social creatures we are, need interaction, friendship, sex, intimacy, and physical contact in order to feel sane. The denial of such fundamental needs naturally invokes feelings of anger, pain and sorrow, pointed either inward or outward. The graphic and interactive scenes within a video-game provides a much-needed release to the pent up aggression held within many players. Its appeal arises because it gives relief to a fixture within the players’ psychic landscape that desires expression of these bottled-down emotions.
In a nutshell, they become safe outlets for natural anger, rage, and aggression. And, of course, they’re also fun.
But does the fun lie in the violence? One Luddite video-game programmer from Upstate New York by the name of Jason Rohrer is challenging that misconception.
Where as big name gaming companies think ‘sales’, ‘fast-paced action’, and ‘market-trends’, this indie programmer is going against the grain to use video g
ames as a vessel for artistic expression. From a technical standpoint, his games are very simple, using an old-school side-scrolling RPG style. But, as anyone who has played Passage, can tell you, it doesn’t take flashy 21st century graphics to make a quality game. The story-line alone is simple but just as captivating as any short-story, novel, or film. ‘Passage’ follows a young boy through adulthood, falling in love, deciding whether to keep his ‘freedom’ or grow old and happy with his lover, into dreading the inevitable end of paradise as death’s hideous face looms closer & closer with each step down the tunnel of time. The game is a meditation on transience, love, and the importance of cherishing the present moment.
Most of his games are like this. Simple RPG’s or platformers that double as works of art containing meaning, both blatant and interpretive.
How different would the experience of growing up be for kids if more games were like this? Does turning mindless entertainment into art = snoozefest for million of overstimulated teens?
I don’t think so. A prime example of mainstream games already like this is Final Fantasy series. Now, I don’t play video-games anymore, but between me and most of my friends or people I casually speak to, if there is one game series that stands out in their memory from growing up its usually Final Fantasy. The timeless scene of Aries from FFVII dying at Sephiroth’s sword followed by the pain of Cloud’s unrequited love remains permanently etched onto our memories, and for those short moments, pixelated polygons on a screen meant more and spoke louder to us than most movies or books. The memory stuck because we were there.
In there, literally. The self-identification with the character you’re playing as in a video game is powerful. For a few hours, their life is your life, their experiences 
are your experiences, and their lessons are yours. What are we doing to ourselves, and how are we altering the interior landscape of our minds when engaging in certain types of experiences while inhabiting our virtual game-bodies?
I’ll go out on a limb and state the obvious: Video-games leave a strong imprint, not only in youth culture collectively, but in the growing minds of its individual players.
And with that, not only are its ills exacerbated, but the potentials blossom into fruition. How would games aid the experience of growing up for millions of teens if they had more depth (ala FF, Passage), and left positive imprints? What if they helped build some type of emotional & interpersonal intelligence, fostering a balance of inner-strength and sensitivity? The interactive quality of a game amplifies its possibilities as an art-form, allowing it to be as mentally and emotionally captivating as any movie or novel, if not more so.
It can even become a remedy to the pains of growing up and the emotional callousness for the more isolated parts of youth culture. If scenes of violence, degradation and escape only feed the insecurity and social awkwardness of adolescence, what would other types of role-play do for the pains of the growing mind?
Video-games, like all forms of technology, are objective and neutral by themselves, for it is the consciousness behind it that puts it use and gives it meaning and value. This is how high-technology used by a low Center of Gravity can produce Nazi doctors and nuclear bombs, where high technology with a high center of gravity can produce Appropriate Technology, Hexayurts, Solarchills and Starsights. And just as the consciousness behind the tech determines the type of impact it has, so does it determine the imprint left on the user.
You can put good ideas behind games and imprint the gamers psyche with good memories and positive experiences, or exacerbate the negative. Imagine a world where the escape of many had the power to heal. What would the world look like with more socially and emotionally intelligent teenagers? What would Art look like if games became a new mode of expression? How far-reaching is its ability to convey meaning and transmit experience and emotion by putting you IN the work?
You be the judge.
