Thoughts on Galloway’s Thoughts.
So I decided that my Bataille secondary source reading wasn’t fully formed enough so I got into some of Alexander Galloway’s thoughts on games (I guess this is what research feels like). His chapter in Gaming: Essays On Algorithmic Culture "Origins of the First-Person Shooter” seemed like the best place to start, and indeed it was, because I learned quite a great deal about the film history that precede the idea of first-person shooter videogames. However, the book being from 2006, the datedness of it is blatantly apparent, which what was oddly what propelled me through it the most. I learned a lot about how far videogames have come since 2006…
Galloway introduces the idea of a subjective shot in cinema, one that doesn’t just approximate the character’s vision within the film, but becomes the characters vision, and attempts to take on the qualities of vision itself. It doesn’t take much foresight to see where this is heading with fps games on the table, but where Galloway takes it by the end is where he loses me. Basically he argues that this subjective shot is never quite as useful in a film as it is in a videogame because the controller, in addiction to explorable rendered space, is much more immersive than the predefined path the a film inevitably follows. I can get on board with this (especially after watching that clip from Doom the movie). It is obvious by now, but I’m OKAY with it.
After incorporating Gus Van Sant’s Columbine film Elephant into the mix, he creates a very thin defensive stance towards first-person videogames. Marilyn Manson and videogames are among the first things that come to mind when it comes to Columbine, Galloway addresses the later and how the film is even referencing Doom and other FPS games, but he never really digs into what seems like troubling ground. He asserts that videogames, in particular FPS games, reach a level of “affective motion” (69), but then strips them of any other affect by saying that their is little to no consequence in playing violent games. I’m on Galloway’s side — I do not believe that FPS games, nor any game, create mass murders, single murderers, or criminals, but to spend a whole chapter on a subject only to rid it of any consequence seems a bit reductive. There is a difference between exploring a space with a gun (Doom above) and without one (Amnesia posted below).
More interesting is the way that he avoids the concept of network games. I know that this was published in 2006, but Counter Strike was out as a mod in 1999 and released by Valve in 2000, so that facet existed. He also references Quake, and Quake 3 Arena was also out by the time this was published as well. He states at a different point in the essay about how he is attempting to keeps things rather simple, so maybe that is the finality we will have to rest on. I know it might read like I’m pushing to read violent videogames as very bad creations, but I’m not. Violent videogames (in addition to nonviolent ones) also have the player die, which becomes even more interesting when you incorporate networked play into the mix. It seems reductive to me to strip the intensity of violent videogames away from what is most definitely an intense experience, but it also isn’t right to equate intensity with murderous rage. Death affects the game experience more than people let on, especially when the game is a graphically violent one. We develop an understanding of consequences through death in videogames. We experience loss of power, loss of time, and loss of culminating desire (only to have it reemerge).
When speaking on Bataille in a future post here, I will talk about the erotic nature of Call of Duty networked play, where characters are often created (respawned) just as quick as they are erased (killed). Desire mobilizes quickly in this regard. One wishes to continue to rack up kills and gain perks (airstrikes, UAV radar, and helicopter support), one wishes not to die, one dies, one wishes to get revenge, and so on. I think that sort of rebirth that factors in both the killer and the killed is one that warrants more exploration, whether it be between Player Vs NPC (PvE or Player vs Environment), or Player Vs Player (PvP). Galloway is onto something when he gives a long history of people trying to equate seeing and feeling within another person’s (or cyborg’s) eyes through film, and he is onto something even more worthwhile when he draws this to videogames and the environments that are left for the viewer turned player to explore, but he falls short when championing the victory that he ultimately ascribes to video games. People do not just feel (I guess this might be a touchy word to use in relation to affect) the “motion” that the game allows them and I hope to make this evident by looking at death.
I don’t want this post to be too hefty, so I’m going to further my ideas in a new blogpost.
Galloway, Alexander. Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 2006. Web. http://art.yale.edu/file_columns/0000/1536/galloway_ar_-_gaming_-_essays_on_algorithmic_culture.pdf
