McLuhan also believes that "anti-environments, or countersituations made by artists, provide means of direct attention and enable us to see and understand more clearly" (McLuhan 68).
So what is an anti-environment? Simply something "that raises the unconscious environment to conscious attention" (Alice Rae).
In Jonathon Degann's Game Theory 101 the most important component of a successful game is Story Arc. That is, a beginning, middle and end which turns the game into an "adventure in which the players and the pieces are characters." I don't think this is hard advice to follow; in fact, I think most people enjoy a good story, which typically has a story arc.
If McLuhan is correct, then video games themselves are environments. Many of them are antienvironments, like the Stanley Parable, a game that directs the user's attention to itself as a video game. So what could our environments in video games, combined with the story arcs (or lack thereof, in few cases) tell us about our society right now? Increasingly, games like the Stanley Parable mock the established, invisible environmental rules established for first person games. We can see an increase in antienvironment games, which play with environment including such accepted, basic rules such as Story Arc.
Perhaps we have started to understand the rules we have created for our video games, for our virtual realities. Perhaps we are moving into new territory, developing games which question the environments we have created, allowing us to "see more clearly" our real-world, offline environments.
It may be a stretch, but I wonder if by manipulating the environments in video games, we are beginning to become aware of the invisible, "active processes" in our world now. Maybe manipulating our virtual environments will show us how we can change the environments in our society today.
Josie,
ReplyDeleteI feel your idea about environments and video games holds a strong point. Our virtual reality is almost becoming an environment prefer to live in than the real physical one they reside in. People spend their days as an alter ego capturing dragons or building farms (unsure what people really do in these games, I don't actually play them) rather than going out and socializing here on "earth." These environments also have a story arc to them that I think people find intriguing because they get to follow something pre-made for them. It's scary for people to choose their own path in life and when a story arc is chosen for them it adds a level of comfort.
Thanks for your insight !
Kady
I love where I think you were going with this argument. I kind of started to come to the same conclusion, and I'm glad I'm not the only one. I think what both McLuhan and the creators of The Stanley Parable are doing is attempting to not change the way we think but challenge us to think about the way we think. When I got really deep into thinking about what this means and how far this can extend, it gets pretty controversial. What about the way we think about rape? The way we think about politics, religion, basic social norms, race, stereotypes? We function, a lot of us, in many ways, based on the way we think we're supposed to function. The way we think we're supposed to behave. Is it possible the creators of The Stanley Parable and McLuhan are parodying more than just the way we do art and games?
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