The Importance of Digital Spaces
The Importance of Virtual Spaces
“I think, therefore I am.” These famous words by Philosopher Descartes have sparked centuries of debate over what is, or what can only be speculated, to be real. The axiom comes from Descartes’s desire to remove all doubts and find a singular, objective truth. It’s no secret that the human brain is gullible; the senses can be fooled, and perceptions can be suggested. If everything that you know, could be an illusion, how would you know? And does it matter? You believe, even something as simple as “the sky is blue” because someone told you “the sky is blue”; you can look up and see for yourself, you may have heard an exhaustive explanation of the interaction between light and the atmosphere, yet to the person next to you the sky could be green, or yellow, or hippopotamus pink and neither of you would be the wiser. The only thing you can be sure of is the fact that you exist, everything else that construes reality is a subjective interpretation, and quite possibly a complete illusion.
So who are these masters of illusion deceiving your senses? For Descartes, they were hypothetical demons playing tricks on the mind. For the Wachowskis, it was evil robots usurping humanity. I’ll tell you it’s not so grand as the supernatural and, as of today, only a fraction of the transhuman. I give you the modern Wizard of Oz, the great wool-puller: The Game Developer. Technology has reached a point where simulated experiences are presenting a viable alternative to satisfying human needs in reality. Interactive media, AI, Virtual Reality, and other technology are all converging, and have the potential for some innovators to hijack, simulate, and replace fundamental, natural human experience, but also to create vibrant virtual spaces with their own distinct subcultures. Either way, experience designers will have the means to appeal directly to your senses. As the boundary between human consciousness and virtual spaces become enmeshed, developers and designers need to recognize their role as a steward.
When I tell people that I’m studying interactive media and games, I’m always a little embarrassed. The look of confusion and tinge of disinterest mirrors what society generally thinks of games and gamers: crap for kids that I should’ve grown out of a long time ago. Even when I’m coding at 2 am I think to myself, why the hell didn’t I just get a real job? Study something more worthwhile? 4 years of college have worn away at it but there’s still a little bit of magic that I felt playing my first video game on my Nintendo DS Lite. There’s just something special about playing a game that neither books nor film has. It’s swinging a sword and feeling it cut. It’s determination. It’s love. It’s change. it’s life! The philosophical study of games, ludology, began in the 1960s with Johan Huizinga’s work Homo Ludens. Though it set the foundation, it has since been split by a number of thinkers contemplating the nature of play and games. Huizinga introduced the concept called the “Magic Circle”. Summarized in Philosophy of Games by modern game philosopher C. Thi Nguyen as a ritualistic activity. “Games … like religious ritual and theater. In all of them, we enter into a consecrated, dedicated ground, where we suspend everyday activities, take up new roles and motivations, and, at a moment’s notice, put it all away again (Huizinga). The magic circle is a sort of meta-reality, wherein all players forego the rules and practices of normal life to engage, temporarily, in a world of make-believe. Reality doesn’t affect those within the magic circle, and likewise, the events that transpire within the realm of play have no bearing on reality once the players exit. The magic circle concept has fallen out of favor in recent years, particularly due to discourse on the topic of cheaters, those who disregard the sanctity of the circle by subverting its rules or bringing outside factors in. Personally, I believe the aesthetic definition of a game better fits modern applications. Nguyen notes: “In practical life, we select the means for the sake of an independently valuable end. In game life, on the other hand, we select an arbitrary end for the sake of undergoing some particular means” (Nguyen). Huizinga outlines where we play games, but through Aesthetic observation, Nguyen tells us why we play games. We play to experience agency within restrictions. Take for example the sport of football; one takes up the goal of getting the ball to the endzone, but that alone is as simple as leisurely walking it down the field. The goal in itself has no value. However if along with the arbitrary goal you take up obstacles (opposing defense, yards, countdown timers) value emerges from the actions you make to achieve that goal. We love playing games because we derive value in the experience of achievement through, possibly even despite, certain means.
Younger generations are showing a trend to replace real-life experiences with virtual ones and consume more user-generated content. “People have an expectation that their digital media will provide more than just entertainment — they also expect to find real meaning and fulfillment. Video games and user-generated content can offer more interaction, socialization, and utility, and their popularity with younger generations could potentially transform the media and entertainment industry” (PR Newswire). People, especially the younger generations are looking to get more out of their entertainment experiences. People aren’t happy just watching a standalone episode, they want that episode to carry over into a larger narrative across multiple platforms. They crave books, TV, movies, and games all united by a web of user-generated content posted across digital spaces. These spaces are real and have real effects on their users.
The role developers must play in their virtual spaces is that of a steward. A firm guiding hand with the final say in the world. Indeed, designers have the first and foremost right to their creations and know best the intricacies of their function. With this resolute vision you can raise your ideas from nothingness, but at the same time recognize that you serve at the behest of your audience. The survival of these communities hinges on communal responsibility. They cannot be run by hierarchical means. At the same time, you can’t have 50,000 individuals with access to the codebase, or implementing their own design decisions for the space. Too many un-negotiated changes erode the culture of the space, of the game.
If it is not designers who care, it will be corporations looking to squeeze every possible dollar out of players. Just this year, a game called Destiny 2 made a choice in the interest of the shareholder over the interest of the players. Destiny 2 is a live service game in which players pay for periodic expansions, or season passes. Since 2014 I’ve been part of the Destiny community, through highs and lows I would still buy the season passes, $40 a pop because I loved the game, I loved the world, and I loved playing with my friends. This year, however, a whistleblower revealed that the executive team at Bungie, the developers, decided to “underdeliver” on the previous expansion. That means they delivered less and inferior content for the same price as previous expansions. The player base, already fed up with Bungie’s choices to nickel and dime them every 3 months boiled over, and took to social media decrying the studio. The one thing above all that developers must cultivate, must steward in their audience is a sense of trust, and Bungie had finally broken theirs.
As a new graduate, I know I can’t change the industry overnight, nor do I want to try. The current AAA game industry rests its laurels on a larger, even more immobile economic system. That’s why I’m looking towards the indie game space. Developers of all levels of experience post their projects which bud their own small, yet vocal communities. What motivates me to enter the game industry isn’t the money, it’s the buy-in, the trust, and the support from the fans of my work. To this end, I can only spread the message of treating virtual spaces with respect. Respect the idea, the content, and the players. In the end your game lives and dies by your community.
Works Cited
Huizinga, Johan. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture. 1938. Angelico Press, 2016.
Nguyen, C. Thi. “Philosophy of Games.” Philosophy Compass, vol. 12, no. 8, Aug. 2017, p. e12426, https://doi.org/10.1111/phc3.12426.
“The Quest for Connection: Younger Generations Look to User-generated Content and Video Games to Find Value, Meaning and Personal Fulfillment.” PR Newswire, 17 Apr. 2023, p. NA. Gale In Context: Biography, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A745905996/BIC?u=usocal_main&sid=bookmark-BIC&xid=5ca7c837. Accessed 26 Nov. 2023.
