Hello, I am one of the creators of Waco Res, and I have a history of
work made around games and game culture - www.tmpspace.com
Melinda, it's great to hear positive feedback on the actual experiece
with some of these "reality" pieces. But I have to be honest, as
someone who grew up spending a substantial amount of time buried in
computer and role-playing game aesthetics and interactive structures,
I rarely get excited by spending time "playing" any of these games.
There seems to be misconception that shoving topical content into a
poorly crafted game world with a lack interesting game flow is
somehow useful. In the end we are left with a mix of poor art and
poor engineering that reeks of so much 90's media art. I am guilty of
this myself. At the same time, I was just on "political games" panel
with Harvey Smith, one the creators of Deus Ex, and he is on the
other end of the spectrum. He spoke passionately about embedding
political metaphor into that popular mainstream game. In the end,
even though those intentions are surrounded by virtuoso game design
and solid graphics, it falls flat. Curious, does the craft of game
play and design actually matter? Is it enough that these critical
games just exist as alternatives?
Ana, I am familiar with you from your involvement with the Under Fire
panel on representations of violence recently staged at the Witte de
With in Rotterdam. By the way I was probably born when you were in
prison, and I am literally the child of the bitter and drug addicted
aftermath of the somewhat failed countercultural movement in the US
during that period. It would be nice to bring some of the issues
raised at the Witte into this discussion. Although I was skeptical at
first, there seemed to be some actual work being done to understand
in a comprehensive way the structure and processes that have created
our current relationship with images of violent conflict in
tele/film/games/news. Some of the conclusions might be useful here,
It seems like most of the discussions around this specific topic end
up as pointing to the surge in reality gaming, mixed with healthy
fear of those games being produced by conservative agendas: Kuma War,
AA, Op-F18, whatever. And going back to Melinda's point, I am curious
what you, and especially Rafeal, see as the important results that
come out of somewhat predicatable game scenarios made by a group "in
opposition to the dominant political force". Again, not the most
interesting questions, but as someone making these hopeless and
pathetic gestures, I'm still curious if it is enough that these
dissident forms of cultural production simply exist as an end in
themselves? Are they actually effective/affective?
-Brody
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