Über-Media and Nordic Larping

So I just finished up day one at London's 3rd annual Power to the Pixel Cross-Media Film Forum. So far the event as a whole has been great, and I have Liz Rosenthal and Tishna Molla to thank for inviting me out to take part in all the conference.

The focus of Power to the Pixel is "cross-media" film, a poorly named umbrella term for a variety of audience experiences including traditional linear film content, alternate reality games, pervasive games, trans-media, etc etc. I usually do most of my thinking about video games alone, but it's clear that with both game and film publishers looking for new ways to create end user value, a convergence between the two mediums is already taking place...whatever you want to call that new hybrid thing is up to you (I like "über-media" myself).

Due to one of the talks today I feel the need to correct, or at least to amend my previous post. In my past post The Way of the Superior Avatar I discussed some of the current 'missing links,' preventing video games from having more of a constructive impact. I joked there that the link was not live action role playing or "Larping" for short. With my limited exposure to larping, I tend to imagine it looking something like this:



Clearly a potentially engaging experience, but likely not world view shifting. Fantasy larping like this seems like it would suffer from the same shortcomings as related video games that allow the player to escape rather than engage in any sort of meaningful self discovery process.

A talk today by brutally awesome Swedish participatory media designer Martin Ericsson (pictured left) got me thinking about larping in a new light. The experiences he writes and orchestrates are serious ventures designed to be as thought provoking as they are fun. He also mentioned something about a 72 hour participatory staging of Hamlet, set in a WWII bunker, with a swingers party / hedonism overtones. As Martin said, "What happens in the bunker, stays in the bunker". Sounds interesting to me. This is what he refereed to as Nordic Larping, no "lightning bolt!" here.

What I really liked about the work that Martin is doing is that it seems to blend reality with fiction so that the boundaries between one's identity as a player can become much more complex and nuanced. One such project was entitled "The Truth about Markia," the narrative of which follows a woman's disappearance into a mysterious subculture/alternate reality.



While the story was unfolding it really was not clear to players whether it was real or not. Over the course of the experience participants wound up self-fulfilling a sort destiny, in that they eventually form the very subculture they were trying to uncover. I feel it is through the mixing of truth and fiction that meaning, and a shift in perspective can arise. Even in the final revelation: that none of the story was true, something real (the community) still remains. This is the sort of thinking that would be a welcome addition to the digital online gaming world. Why not create something real and lasting through play.

Keep an eye on Martin and his team at The Company P, no doubt with all the attention he got today they'll be branching outside Sweden's borders very soon.

Read the rest of
Über-Media and Nordic Larping »

The Way of the Superior Avatar

Are video games a band-aid for our busted souls, or a tool for enlightenment in the digital age?

A couple weeks ago a friend of mine recommended I pick up a copy of David Deida's The Way of the Superior Man -- it's a self help book on better understanding masculinity, being a good lover/partner (oh la la), and, most interesting to me (sorry lover), discovering and following one's deepest purpose. Deida argues that for a person with a masculine core (90% of men he says) to achieve fulfillment in life the most important factor is aligning oneself with their deepest purpose. I've spent the past few days thinking on this idea, especially considering the ways this drive gets expressed in gaming.

Deida's instructions are pretty simple, basically remove distractions and use meditation as way to unlock one's sense of purpose:

You stay open to a vision of your deeper purpose by not filling your time with distractions. Don’t watch tv or play computer games. Don’t go out drinking beer with your friends every night or start dating a bunch of women. Simply wait. You may wish to go on a retreat in a remote area and be by yourself. Whatever it is you decide to do, consciously keep yourself open and available to receiving a vision of what is next. It will come.

My first thought after reading this passage was "Wow, could there be an inverse relationship between video game usage and having a sense of direction and purpose?" I know for myself, when I get frustrated with a project or am feeling kinda lost in life, that tends to be exactly when I get obsessed with Fallout 2, or SimTower, or whatever I can dig out of my game archive. Sometimes it feels like my purpose is to play video games, but unfortunately that illusion fades pretty quickly with a little introspection. The truth is, most of us struggle with understanding what our deepest purpose is, and many of us haven't even spent much time thinking about it...

Interestingly, video games (narrative ones especially) are awesome models for a purpose-driven existence. I'm hard pressed to think of a major game protagonist that wasn't essentially mission driven -- from the perspective of the avatar, there are rarely moments when what to do next hasn't just smacked you in the face. I think this is possibly why video games are so engaging for individuals who may not experience a strong sense of purpose on a daily basis. If it's true that we all (men especially) long for the feeling of having a purpose and following it, it makes perfect sense why video games would be an ideal surrogate for the real thing.

Video games are of course not the first medium to offer this kind of engagement. This process of temporarily adopting a fictional purpose as one's own has been going on since the first story tellers. We do it for entertainment, for distraction, but also for growth. In virtually taking on the identity of a hero, whether through Halo or Homer, we simulate the emotions, thoughts, and beliefs that emerge out of embodying a deep sense of purpose. Video games are arguably the best medium for this process yet invented, so why isn't all our playing turning us into fulfilled purpose driven real world humans? What's the missing link? (No... it's not LARPing).

My theory is that the missing link is self-reflection. Video games invite us to forget our primary identities and needs, and fully take on those of a fictional character. In this way they serve as a diversion from a gnawing truth that haunts most of us: "I am unfulfilled because I am not in touch with a deeper personal purpose". I believe video games could serve as a pointer to this truth as opposed to a distraction from it. The very best storytelling works this way, like a instruction manual for discovering the meaning of life and pursuing it. This is exactly how many spiritual texts and myths have 'operated' for thousands of years.

The key element in achieving this positive effect is to incorporate a process of self-reflection into the narrative or game experience. The problem is, when we play video games they become fully subjective experiences, and usually we forget we are playing a game (just like real life). In fact, they are designed with that effect in mind: immersion. And with good reason, it's really fun to lose yourself in a more fulfilling existence.

To "lose yourself," however, is to detach from self-awareness, to essentially switch on your own autopilot, sit back, and enjoy the ride. While this state has its uses and benefits, conscious growth generally comes through self-awareness and in turn self-reflection. This is because self-reflection is one doorway to a process of transcending the subjective and coming to see one's experiences, emotions, and beliefs as separate and distinct from a truer self, which is the core of spiritual growth and self discovery. It is out of this truer self that the all important sense of deepest purpose emerges.

I deeply believe video games have the potential to engage the player in reflecting on their life (real and virtual alike) by transforming once subjective experiences into something subjective and mutable. In essence catalyzing spiritual growth. In fact, video games are ideally suited to this purpose because of how simple it is to manipulate a player's sense of 'what is real' within the game.

Let me be clear, this is not an argument against designing awesome immersive virtual experiences, rather, it is an invitation to engage the player's awareness on a fundamentally new level. Tibetan Buddhists have trained and used the technique of lucid dreaming for more than 1,000 years in order to achieve this very goal. In a lucid dream, the 'player' is simultaneously immersed in a perfect virtual (biologically, rather than technologically derived) reality while remaining aware that the entire experience is an illusion. This practice is intended to reveal the illusory nature of reality, allowing the player to transcend, what is in truth, a very consistent and persistent dream. By stepping outside this dream individuals connect with the part of themselves that is most real, and in in doing so illuminate their deepest purpose. There are countless practices (meditation, yoga, study, entheogens, prayer) that individuals use to reach this goal, but across many spiritual traditions this process of self actualization is the essence of enlightenment.

The majority of people never 'wake up' from this dream, but I believe video games, as unsophisticated as they might be now, are an ideal platform for catalyzing "enlightenment" on a mass scale in today's high-tech world. Of course the question remains, how specifically to 'wake the player up' through game design. Thankfully, a number of great games in the past have achieved this 'effect' to some degree, and I don't think it's a coincidence they are some of the most loved game titles of all time. An analysis of those games, along with some fresh ideas are on their way in future posts.

Read the rest of
The Way of the Superior Avatar »