Video Games & Critical Theory
Video Games in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
Finding the Relevance of Theory in Video Games
Distraction and concentration form polar opposites which may be stated as follows: A man who concentrates before a work of art is absorbed by it. He enters into this work of an the way legend tells of the Chinese painter when he viewed his finished painting. In contrast, the distracted mass absorbs the work of art. This is most obvious with regard to buildings. Architecture has always represented the prototype of a work of art the reception of which is consummated by a collectivity in a state of distraction. The laws of its reception are most instructive.
~ Walter Benjamin in The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
In the same essay, Benjamin calls the new audiences of the new art (film) ‘absent-minded examiners’. He did not mean it as an insult. Rather, he believed that this distracted consumption of an art piece that was made for exhibition rather than for ritualistic value can bring about politicization.
He draws a distinction between the distracted and the concentrated audiences of art. This distinction is crucial to Benjamin’s main claim of the loss of ‘aura’ from pieces of art that were made for ritualistic purposes. To put in crude terms, it is important for the distinction between ‘old’ and ‘new’ art. But does this distinction exist for video games?
In this article, I want to find the relevance of Benjamin’s work in video games. I have picked up three important phrases from his essay that I will be elaborating on very briefly. This is in no way an exhaustive analysis, it perhaps is just the beginning: I will be leaving more with questions than anything else.
Read Walter Benjamin’s The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction here.
I. The Distracted and the Concentrated Audiences
Benjamin says that the distracted viewer absorbs the art, while the concentrated viewer is absorbed by it. The distracted viewer then also gains the position of a critic of the art they absorb. Make no mistake, the attention still persists, but by a distracted gaze. The acceptance of an artwork that can be produced and reproduced (much less with games and films which do not have an ‘original’ to begin with) also means that there’s less and less of a participatory aspect.
In a video game, the distracted and the concentrated spectator can be found in the same person: the player. Benjamin’s correct analysis of films do not stand for video games where he states that the stream of images on screen are so constant that it prevents true contemplation of them.
I cannot progress in a video game if I make the choice not to. If when I am playing Undertale and want to take in a dialogue, an attack, or contemplate a choice, I can do it as I am actively consuming the game. The pace is in the player’s hands. Which means, the distraction can coexist with concentration. I play the game while it plays me. If I am needed for the game to progress, then I am necessarily actively participating in the game, which makes me not a passive consumer. I did not write ‘active’ consumer because perhaps there’s a middle ground to be found somewhere there.
II. Manipulation
Reproducible art, especially ones that do not have an ‘original’, through the advent of technology for both producing and viewing can show a manipulated version of the reality to its audiences. They can reach out to your conscious and your unconscious all at once.
This can lead to manipulation of reality before it reaches the viewer. However, as a player I am able to manipulate the game as it is manipulating me. For most games, no one knows how unique a playthrough will be from hundreds of other playthroughs. It may differ very slightly: amount of bullets used in a boss fight, the money one is running low on, the clothes; or they can differ drastically in ways that change entire plotlines and evoke very strong feelings in the player.
It is important to note here that I am only able to manipulate the game where it is allowing me to, but that does not mean that the game and its creators have all the knowledge of every possible alternative/way the gameplay can be different from another. And this is because the games are open to manipulation, to a two way interaction.
III. Spectators and Critics
The viewers of film, specifically, are forced into the position of critics because they come to identify with the camera rather than seeing the piece of this reproducible art from the view of the actor: there is a detached viewing rather than an involved viewing.
However, in video games, we have different perspectives for viewing the world: first person or third person. And there is usually a character or a set of characters we play as. Which means regardless of the technicality of viewing the game, we come to identify with our characters. Hence, we as players take on the role of a critic while also wholly surrendering ourselves.
Gaming then manages to remain a collective experience, but while acknowledging the differences in the gaming styles. And with the growth in streamers and stream-viewership, the potential of different engagements with games also attracts an audience.
