One With the Game

The bond between gamer and game runs deep, like the connection between old lady and soap opera. Players leave this plane to find themselves in a completely new world where they have input via sight and sound, as well as control over their surroundings and surrogate character. This leads to a strong integration with the imaginary task at hand, and players tend to find themselves completely swept away from reality.

"A Fool in Morrowind" was very interesting; it kind of pointed in the direction of "prose-gaming". It was almost like a fanfiction, except he was simply turning his actions in the game into a first-person narrative. Another cool aspect was that he incorporated even the unintentional gaming mistakes into his narrative, such as losing his pants and getting fined for attacking a horse. Although his story greatly leaned toward the humorous, it accurately depicted what happens in the game from a combined player/character perspective. That is, he's taking it seriously as though he was living the game, but injecting the sarcastic attitude a player would have toward a game's less-than-perfect elements. Good ol' Morgan Freeman.

Having never played KOTOR, John Walker's article put me into many of the ethical scenarios I faced when playing Fallout 3. It's downright painful to support the Slavers, assist Tenpenny, or blow up Megaton! Even though "it's just a game" and the characters can tend to be far from real, a choice is still a choice whether it has real-world or imaginary consequences, and going against your own moral grain can be uncomfortably abrasive. I was even relieved after receiving the Animal Friend perk so I wouldn't have to kill any more innocent critters, quelling my aching vegetarian ethic.

The article regarding a player's triumph over racism and evil via online gameplay was very compelling. It showed a person tackling a real-world issue through the means of a game with stakes involved- thirty minutes of life waiting for a respawn. He faced a completely unknown, faceless enemy that dealt the race card fervently, but he remained collected for the entire session and managed to bring down his attacker. The victory was highly personal and meant far more to him than a simple random encounter online.