[-empyre-] empyre

[mwwilson@uci.edu]

i'm joining this discussion very late, but i've been following it with 
interest. i'm turning over a few basic dynamics of the game as we move 
ahead to the next phase of the 'endgames' project.

i just returned from an interview with the nbc waco affiliate. many of 
the questions asked were driven by reactions to the game within the 
waco community (law enforcement, survivors, citizens). the key point of 
contention seems to reside within the act of reinterpreting a traumatic 
event through a 'trivializing' medium. even though we'd like to dismiss 
this reaction as facile, it's been the most pervasive one - dominating 
the press generated by the project. until now, i've thought of this 
dynamic as a limit against which to push - but it's occurred to me that 
it might instead be the logical starting point for wider discussions.

for me (and i'm not speaking for the group), the most interesting 
aspect of this project hasn't been it's relative success or
failure as a computer game. that's not to say that we shouldn't try to 
make the game viable - but an independent game is just not going to 
succeed under the same rules established by the industry. besides, the 
criteria for determining good vs. bad or fun vs. boring seems much too 
crude at this point. the importance of generating a visceral experience 
IS important, however - but i don't think that experience is or can be 
located exclusively within the game itself.

eugenie seems to be advocating a kind of 'gaming in the expanded field' 
approach that i agree with completely. we had hoped to provide a new 
lens through which to view the incident - a POV through re-creation not 
available in the media coverage (they were kept at a distance - duly 
reporting government PR) or the various documentaries produced on the 
subject. another advantage to using the computer game medium is it's 
perceived uselessness and anti-social connotations - attributes that 
contribute to the notion of of this style of game-playing as absurd - 
and, of course, there's something intrinsically absurd about a 
large-scale paramilitary assault on a church.

all of this is to say that the next logical step is to expand the 
notion of the 'game' to the media and the actual members of the 
community in question. the 'game' becomes a 'thing-in-the-world' that 
generate it's own life and discussion. as eugenie said, this object 
should be deliberately considered and it's public interface 
deliberately constructed. we've been discussing a more fluid approach 
to this dynamic that would dictate more community interaction while 
incorporating the results of that contact into the game. the point, 
however, would be to own more fully the social impact of the process - 
making the game-construction more fundamental to the project. this has 
the potential to move beyond the 'game-with-political patina' 
phenomenon.

michael wilson



http://www.mwwilson.net