Trigger Happy: Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution Stephen Poole (2000)

1. Trigger Happy:Videogames and the Entertainment RevolutionStephen Poole (2000) trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

2. Outline • Intro: Impact/prevalence • History • Genre • Videogames and Film • Narrativity • Refractions of Reality in Videogames • Play • The Symbolic Realm: A Case Study • Discussion trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

3. “They’re here…” trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

4. Demographics • 61% of U.S. videogame players are 18+ • 42% U.S. computer game players 35+ - interactive digital software association’s video and pc games industry trends survey, 2000 trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

5. Videogames are America’s favorite leisure activity. trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

6. Videogames were named the favorite form of entertainment by Americans. • 2x TV • 3x Cinema • 3x Books • 6x Rental movies - Interactive Digital Software Association’s Video and PC Games Industry Trends Survey, 2000 trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

7. Money Talks • Movies: $7.3 billion box office receipts • Videogames: $8.9 billion • Wall Street Journal, April 28, 2000 trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

8. who do you know? trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

9. who do you know? trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

10. who do you know? By 1990, more children recognized mario than they did mickey mouse. - Stephen Poole, Trigger Happy (2000). trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

11. Genres of Games trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

12. Platform Games Super Mario Bros 3 trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

13. Exploration Games The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

14. Beat-em up: Fighting Games Virtua Fighter 4 trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

15. God Game Sim City trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

16. Strategy Games Final Fantasy Tactics Advance trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

17. Sports Games Virtua Tennis trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

18. Role Playing Games Chrono Trigger trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

19. Puzzle Game Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

20. Film and Videogames trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

21. Full-Motion Video Sequences (FMV’s) • Linear narrative sequences interspersing interactive, action oriented segments • Meta narrative trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

22. Similarities • incorporate diachronic visuals and audio • advanced sound technologies are used to increase "realism” • ‘framed’ visuals • "auteurs" - powerful directors who control the creative process: Shigeru Miyamoto vs Stanley Kubrick trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

23. Differences • non-linearity • explorable environments • interactivity between player and music: music can alert player and also react to player’s actions • spectator “is” protagonist • current slot of plot can’t refer to past • control • emotional/character development trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

24. Good movies about games • Disney's Tron - a movie about the secret life of games. • Wargames - a teen hacker looking to play some games almost starts world war 3. • eXistenZ - exploration of virtual reality & multiplayer role playing games trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

25. Failure of translation from video games to film: • Street Fighter: The Movie • Super Mario Brothers • House of the Dead trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

26. Constructing realities: camera shots • 2d full-screen:‘god-like objectivity’ • Player-centered cams • Player-controlled cams,‘creates on-screen world rather than recording’ trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

27. constructing realities: types of player-centered cams • follow cam: behind, slightly above • flying/driving games • chase cam: lower view • cockpit cam: shows virtual controls • aerial cams: helicopter view • shoulder cams: behind, lower shoulder view (Tomb Raider) trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

28. A "cinematic" game: Silent Hill • Most cinematic element: pre-rendered video, rather than a part of the actual game. • The only real cinematic aspect of the real game is it's incredible atmosphere. trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

29. Reflections vs. Refractions • Death-health: binary vs. sliding scale • power-ups • extra lives • videogame logic in causality, function, space • Real vs. Virtual: the difference is an explicit, intentional one • Physical interaction: physical feedback (shaking joysticks) and physically interactive games like DDR trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

30. The Story trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

31. Let there be light… • The backstory as creation myth • Identity • Rationale trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

32. Possible Worlds: Choose Your Own Adventure • Interactive narrativity • Delimited options • Choices available at certain narrative junctures trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

33. Memory: videogames and interactive narratives • Linear narratives allow for building of plot, based upon past actions • Interactive narratives are amnesiac trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

34. navigation: beyond the canvas trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

35. wandering beyond the canvas • Looping scenery • Scrolling • Parallax scrolling • Isometric scrolling trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

36. Homo Ludens trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

37. To play is human • X-ray machines as carnival entertainment • Mutoscope: handcranked cinema trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

38. Taming modernity: work station to PlayStation • Play as an intrinsic means of constructing culture • Segregation of play results in an “anomic and impoverished world” (Johann Huizinga, 1938) • Videogames are a means to coopting play, shift from passive to active entertainment trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

39. The symbol and the symbolized trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

40. I am what I eat “A jaundiced figure floats across the screen. He is constantly searching for things to eat. We are looking at a neo-Marxist parable of late capitalism. With his obsessively gaping maw, he clearly wants only one thing; to feel whole, at peace with himself. He perhaps surmises that if he eats enough -- in other words buys enough industrially produced goods – he will attain this state of perfect selfhood, perfect roundnesss. But it can never happen. He is doomed forever to metaphysical emptiness. it is a tragic fable in primary colors.” trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

41. “Neo-Marxist parable of late capitalism”? trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

42. The lexicon • Symbol: representation • Icon: mimetic representation • Index: contextualized represenation • Floating signifier: meaning consists entirely of change in rest of the signs trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

43. The Language • Pac-man the symbol (represents consumption), the icon (looks like mouth) • Toru Iwatani: his “form simply repsresents the personification of eating” -- a partially eaten pizza trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

44. The Language • Dots: pure symbols - things to be consumed • Ghosts: symbolic, iconic and index (eyes) • Blobs • floating signifiers - meaning derived from how it affects others • “Power-ups” - magical liminal element in gaming, subvert social order trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

45. The end… Death: [His] “mouth opens wider and wider, passing into the horizon and continuing, until there is nothing left of him at all. In his mania of consumption, he has eaten himself” trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

46. Critical Reception • Theoretical premises • Research techniquees • Structure trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

47. Discussion Questions Lightguns vs. Fencing: What are the societal implications of violence in videogames? How interactive is a videogame? Is it really a subversive form of cultural construction? How many of us in the class play games? Casually? Deeply? What impression of gaming do we have? What will it take for games to achieve respectability? If videogames "defeat" television, what will we talk about at the water cooler? Will the individualistic experience fracture popular culture? Or will multi-player games actually build recreational comunities? trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

48. A love story: trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

49. …a game about death: Silent Hill 2 trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders

50. And a game about politics? Japanese Sega CD Cover Art trigger happy * sunny yoon and anthony saunders