Week 4 - Response to Content

Greetings!

After watching eXistenZ I was left equal parts confused, disturbed, nauseous and fascinated. While it uses extreme methods to bring it across, the message is one of relevance in today’s culture. Technology is advancing evermore as years pass, and bringing with it whole new worlds; whole new realities. Video games are becoming more realistic, and eXistenZ is a prime example of the mental incapacitations it could cause. If the virtual reality is so realistic, how do you know when it stops being a game?

Some people believe videogames are having negative influences on players. Richard Abanes, in his book What Every Parent Needs to Know About Video Games: A Gamer Explores the Good, Bad, and Ugly of the Virtual World,  comments on the Columbine High School killers enjoying playing first-person shooter games, and a man who was obsessed with Grand Theft Auto killing two police officers. But he wonders if it is the games that motivated their actions. Many people, mostly “anti-video-game protesters, legislators and parents would answer with a strong yes” (Abanes, 2006). But can anyone really say for sure that video games are the cause?

Gamers who are strong willed are not easily moulded by the games they play. They can easily play a game, and when they stop they can know for sure that what they are seeing is real. But there are stories of people who are being affected fatally by their addictions to games. To find a reason why this is would suggest perhaps these people aren’t as strong minded as others, most likely having started gaming younger when their brains hadn’t developed completely. Would a way to combat this be to discourage younger people from playing videogames? Would it be to discourage videogames altogether? Devoted gamers would revolt at the mere idea of stopping the games. So what is the option?

And more important than all, at the end of eXistenZ, were they still in the game? So many questions.

Albanes, R 2006, What Every Parent Needs to Know About Video Games: A Gamer Explores the Good, Bad, and Ugly of the Virtual World, Harvest House Publishers, Oregon, viewed August 27 2011.