By Juliet Bathory
Video games: Love them or hate them, they have established themselves as an infectious medium of entertainment. For over fifty years, they have grown to become a common feature within the cultural landscape. From the simplistic and elegant nature of Tennis for Two through the latest titles offering players a multitude of ways to fall down the rabbit hole, games are creeping into every device in our lives. There are those of us that like to call the rabbit hole our home and it is from here that I am writing this column.
Video games have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. From my first hand-held Nintendo Game and Watch, our first family console (Roberts Paddle VI), first family PC (Commodore 64 (C64)), and beyond, I have watched the evolution of hand-held devices, home entertainment consoles, PC gaming, and the arrival of video games to multi-purpose mobile devices with a growing interest across four perspectives: player, writer, academic, and student of Game Design.
As a player, I hope to share my ever-growing appreciation for this complex medium that allows such diverse disciplines to come together and produce engaging experiences for the masses. As a writer, I hope to impart some of the elements required to make the shift into a medium where your writing is as much a plot device as it is a means to develop a narrative (where applicable). As an academic, I hope to illustrate the valid position video games have within the cultural fabric, through the mechanics and intentions that govern them. And finally, as a student of Game Design, I hope to discuss some of the topics that will form the knowledge base of the next wave of game designers. Some of the topics we’ll be looking at are: Immersion, Interactivity, Emergent Narrative, and Player Investment. These topics know no boundaries in terms of genre, either gaming (FPS, RPG, etc.) or literary (sci-fi, horror, etc.), and do not discriminate in terms of development budgets or platforms. Each game works to deliver a specific experience, even if the results move beyond the developers’ expectations.
It is my hope that those interested in games as players, critics, parents of young gamers, and potential game writers will research further into the world behind the virtual worlds and gain a greater understanding of what video games really are, what potential they have in our future.
So, recharge the batteries, boot up, download your updates, and take a trip down the rabbit hole with me. I’ve been told there’s cake. 😉