Games: Drawing Closer to (Virtual) Reality

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I'm writing a paper about the production of the beta-released sim game, rFactor 2, so I thought I'd share some thoughts on this forum.

The cybernetic tradition of communication immerses itself in the interaction between human and machine and of course machine and machine. Norbert Wiener, who coined the term cybernetics, explained that the way machines communicate is not overly different from the way humans communicate. Really, no matter how fantastic a video game is, the extension into imaginative world and characters, gaming really allows us to place ourselves into the environment. The game is designed around the inputs of a human controller and to communicate with the player in a way comprehensible to the human experience. And with further advancing computing technologies, gaming really draws closer to simulation than it does fantasy.

Think about graphics, a primary example. Each year visual effects get better and better, even if what is being depicted is far from reality. Lighting and environment mapping draws closer to what we would expect to see in reality. We might imagine a world of monsters and fairies on a parallel planet, but heavens forbid we imagine a world without reflective surfaces and lush sunsets! Then you've got games like Grand Theft Auto. Back in the third installment of the series it was an arcade experience at best. Think about our experience playing GTA IV last week now. The driving model simulated the real-world experience, albeit half of earth's gravity, and the experience of being a felon in the city was advanced just a bit closer to a realistic experience. Do take that with a grain of salt please.

In the world of consumer demands for drawing closer to realism, there's the old jolly bunch called the sim racers. A bunch of guys who want a racing experience so close to reality they practically feel the pressures from sponsors to perform well! rFactor 2 evolves from past games to try to tear down the LCD screen and millions of dollars that separates players from real racing.

It's not just the realistic driving model that renders us guys and girls so jaded. Sure when I lose at a game of Mario Kart I complain my rear tire pressures were too low and my differential lock was at too high a percentage to hold the corners, or we really like tinkering with suspension stiffness to try to gain 1/100th of a second from a lap time. But we want to feel the environment around us, not just in the car.

rFactor 2 simulates time and weather for added experience. The sun goes down then comes up again, it gets cloudy and darkens portions of the race track, then it starts raining. When the rain ceases, the track slowly begins to dry up. I said games are drawing closer to simulating real things, well the sim has no choice but to get it spot on.

When modders produce track for the game, they often consult Google technologies for data on the surrounding area, or they go out and take photographs themselves. Everything must be exact, down to the fence that encircles a cow pasture barely visible at 140mph.

There's much too many examples to go on. At what point, if ever, do we achieve a cadence to this pursuit of realism? Will there be a point where shooting someone in GTA is proceeded by a mortified spouse running to the streets and pleading why you commited the act? Will the death of NPCs cut short a long train of simulated life, perhaps that of the everyman who was just driving to work one day to feed his family? Sure one's game is of a fantasy genre, emphasizing creative creatures and worlds, but when will visual aesthetic hit that point where one says, "that's perfect, it does not need improvement." Will I ever admit rFactor Nth is real enough so no other feature ever needs to be implemented?

Are games an escape or just a mediation of reality? Our relationship with the machine (computer) seems to be one where we want the machine to be the simulacrum of the real world. We could just go outside for a walk, but an on-screen simulation rich in detail is far more impressive, but why? Stepping back in history, computing machines were designed to simulate the actions of humans in real environments with a machine that would shoot down planes on its own. The trend continues where we want the machine to simulate human narrative and action in worlds we could imagine existing in as much detail as technology facilitates. We destine relationships with machines that do as we do.

I was thinking about Deuze's lecture some weeks back where he discussed the polarized window computer. This just might be the future of computing: just a filter applied to the real world, or, our experience has been so deeply integrated with the computer it becomes mediated through it. With the video game we are not trying to segregate the real world for a fulfilling experience with the machine. I sometimes think were are working towards an overlay to real life. A  layer of game experience in a real environment to be discarded when the fun ends. 

It's a little scary, but I'll play a round or two.

Watch this video, about the proposed Google Glass 'augmented reality'. Is this when the computer becomes full integrated with real life? How could this change gaming?

 

 

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