Infocult: Uncanny Informatics

Escape the real room

After years of playing escape the room games, someone finally built a live-action gameroom.  For a fee you can spend an hour in the Takagism Club, trying to get back out again.

Using a one-room apartment spanning 50 square meters, the 10 different games the club has developed have different scenarios, including one based on American horror movie Saw [!!] that requires two chained men to escape a bathroom. At 50 yuan ($7.90) per person for an one-hour game, it requires two to six participants. Huang offers real-life gamers a simple explanation of the rules and outlines their task. Groups who successfully solve the puzzles are rewarded with either cash or gifts.

(via MetaFilter)

Choose Your Own Adventure deaths

One of the key components to a Choose Your Own Adventure book is the series of death pages.  (If you haven't played/read one, these are pages to which you turn when selecting a seemingly nonlethal choice.)

One helpful blogger has gathered up a bunch of death pages, like

I discuss CYOA books in New Digital Storytelling, chapter 9.

(thanks to Todd Bryant)

(cross-posted to New Digital Storytelling) 

The digital world versus boys: regendering internet fear

A new book charges that the internet ruining boys.  Specifically, "Video game and porn addictions" are bringing about The Demise of Guys (2012).

From the TED Books catalog copy,

excessive use of videogames and online porn is creating a generation of shy and risk-adverse guys who are unable (and unwilling) to navigate the complexities and risks inherent to real-life relationships, school and employment.

More, "our young men are suffering from a new form of 'arousal addiction'".

I haven't grabbed a copy yet, but this CNN editorial by the authors looks descriptive.  First, porn:

A recent study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that "regular porn users are more likely to report depression and poor physical health than nonusers are. ... The reason is that porn may start a cycle of isolation. ... Porn may become a substitute for healthy face-to-face interactions, social or sexual."

Next, gaming:

Similarly, video games also go wrong when the person playing them is desensitized to reality and real-life interactions with others.Violence in video games is often synonymous with success. Children with more of a propensity for aggression are more attracted to violent video media, but violent media, in turn, can also make them more aggressive. 

So far this seems like a mix of classic fearsome digital media discourse: games cause violent behavior, porn saps real life intercourse and relationships, children (boys) are at risk of corruption, medical language (addiction), a high firewall between virtual and offline lives.

 

Making horror games better

How can we make scary computer games better?  The guys behind Amnesia offer 10 tips.

It's a fascinating list.  For one thing, it emphasizes atmosphere over gore, mood over combat.  

The argument for an open horror world is very exciting to me.  What's the most successful example of this?

Killer shoots up a crowd; gaming must be responsible

A killer opens fire on a crowd, murdering and wounding many.  Clearly, computer games must have played a role.

So far the case of Anders Breivik has followed several fearsome media patterns quite clearly.  First, there's the association with some aspect of the digital world: here, gaming.  

Breivik... went through a period of playing the online fantasy game "World of Warcraft" up to 16 hours a day, he testified.

Next, we need to know that said gaming helped shape a loveable innocent into a mass murderer.

[H]e "trained" for the attacks he carried out in Norway last summer using the computer game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. The 33-year-old said he practised his shot using a "holographic aiming device" on the war simulation game, which he said is used by armies around the world for training. "You develop target acquisition," he said. He used a similar device during the shooting attacks that left 69 dead at a political youth camp on the island of Utøya on 22 July.

The picture is now complete: two famous, not quite savory games + young male = tons of violence.  As the Times of London apparently shrieked,

“Breivik played video games for a year to train for deadly attacks”

With that framing, we're free to theorize quite imaginatively about toilet training, order vs chaos, globalization, work problems, and more. 

The case doesn't hold, unsurprisingly.  Rock Paper Shotgun takes it apart very neatly. Breivik mentioned gaming very rarely, but news media skipped what he emphasized (conspiracies and material). And eventually CNN climbed down from its fear-the-gaming, Gothic world perch.

(thanks to Todd Bryant, Alexander Knorr, and Tomak; images via Call of Duty Wikia and Wikipedia)

Fear the terror game

eQaeda is back, and scheming in computer games, shrieks the Sun.  Call of Duty and Halo multiplayer are venues for terrorists, it seems.

Last night, a source [heh] said: “It’s a terrifying reality. These people waste no time finding a secure method of chatting."They are logging into group games over the internet and discussing terror plots. Security people know about it.
“For millions who love these games this will be a huge shock."

Why spread such stories?  One commentator observes:

The claims come a month after it emerged that the government is set to announce new laws to require communications companies to store all information passed between users online.

What remarkable timing…

(thanks to Charles Cameron)

Fear the games

United States legislators called for a federal law against computer games, again.  This time the plan is to mandate negative labels on games, like so:

WARNING: Exposure to violent video games has been linked to aggressive behavior

Note the ambitious use of passive voice, "has been linked."   Er, passive voice was used well.  Nothing like the old "the Surgeon General has found..."

In justifying their move, the law's sponsors explain themselves through a fine catalog of fearsome media tropes.

1. Squishy language about potentials, possibilities: "The video game industry has a responsibility to parents, families and to consumers — to inform them of the potentially damaging content that is often found in their products," Baca said.
2. Addiction language: "Just as we warn smokers of the health consequences of tobacco, we should warn parents — and children — about the growing scientific evidence demonstrating a relationship between violent video games and violent behavior," Wolf said. 
3. Protect the children: "As a parent and grandparent, I think it is important people know everything they can about the extremely violent nature of some of these games."

Speaking of ambitious, the proposed bill goes beyond attaching the label to games already marked as violent:

The label would have to appear on any game — regardless of whether it is considered violent or not — that is rated "E" for everyone, "E10+" for everyone 10 and older, "T" for teen, "M" for mature or "A" for adult.

The only games excluded from the requirement are those rated "EC," which stands for "early childhood" and applies to games meant for children ages 3 and up.

In other words, "The proposed label would be required even if the video game in question is not violent." (Ars Technica) So it's not really an information campaign aimed at informing consumers about products.  Instead it's about using the products as an involuntary information platform for a broader commentary about the entire industry.

The game is benign

When are games not frightening? When they're intended for old people. The New Yorker reports on Anti-Aging Games, and there's no trace of fear.  Some attitude, perhaps, but not dread.

Peraps we'll see age emerge as a differentiator for gaming attitudes.  Scary games corrupt children; benign games help seniors. 

Sin taxing computer games

An Oklahoma legislator suggests we tax video games. Violent ones, specifically, and use the proceeds to fund less disturbing things.

How do we define a violent video game?  Easy: any "one 'that has received a rating from the Entertainment Software Rating Board of Teen, Mature or Adult Only."  Ah, that classic American conflation of sex and violence.

What are those less scary things?  "[O]besity and bullying programs", each presumably meaning the opposite - i.e., anti-obesity and anti-bullying programs.  Note the way this characterizes games as driving fat and bullying.

(thanks to Todd Bryant)

The gamer's savory flesh

Gamification can be Gothic to some.  More so when it's gammon-ification:

(thanks to Ed Webb)