1. Video Games - Excerpt from The Second Self
LCC 2700: Intro to Computational Media

2. Video Games in 1984 Arcades were a huge industry
Many were frightened by the “holding power” games held over people
Tron – people get sucked into the game
The History of Arcade Games

3. Holding Power
Turkle conducts a psychological investigation into what was so absorbing about video games
They are something "you do to your head" something "you become”
Changes perception of reality
People enter the computer

4. Altered States and Different Realities
Jarish describes D&D as having a greater reality than "regular fantasies" such as playing house.
It is more defined
allows for more exploration of rules and structures
Supports more imaginative approach
Do games still provide differing levels of “reality”
What about them causes that?

5. Body and Mind Integration
The use of the controller becomes “muscle memory”
The body and mind synchronize to coordinate the playing of the game
Challenges of the game become a means of proving oneself in the outside world

6. Metaphysical Machines
Video Games, and the computers that allow them, take on magical properties.
Infinite games.
Expanding past our own comprehension takes on religious properties.
Mastery of the game is an emotional struggle.

7. Video games reflect the computer within
Computational Specificity: games are created using a specific logic. All of the dimensions of the game happen within that logic, and players inhabit that world and become a part of it.
Games are a model for our "new intimacy with machines" that the computer offers.

8. Video Games Today What are the fears of today’s video games
How are they different from 1984?
How have video games adapted and changed?