From their inception, video games quickly became a major new arena
of popular entertainment. Beginning with very primitive games, they
quickly evolved into interactive animated works, many of which now
approach film in terms of their visual excitement. But there are
important differences, as Arthur Asa Berger makes clear in this
important new work. Films are purely to be viewed, but video
involves the player, moving from empathy to immersion, from being
spectators to being actively involved in texts. Berger, a renowned
scholar of popular culture, explores the cultural significance of
the expanding popularity and sophistication of video games and
considers the biological and psychoanalytic aspects of this
phenomenon.Berger begins by tracing the evolution of video games
from simple games like Pong to new, powerfully involving and
complex ones like Myst and Half-Life. He notes how this evolution
has built the video industry, which includes the hardware
(game-playing consoles) and the software (the games themselves), to
revenues comparable to the American film industry. Building on this
comparison, Berger focuses on action-adventure games which, like
film and fiction, tell stories but which also involve culturally
important departures in the conventions of narrative. After
defining a set of bipolar oppositions between print and electronic
narratives, Berger considers the question of whether video games
are truly interactive or only superficially so, and whether they
have the potential to replace print narratives in the culture at
large.A unique dimension of the book is its bio-psycho-social
analysis of the video game phenomenon. Berger considers the impact
of these games on their players, from physical changes (everything
from neurological problems to obesity) to psychological
consequences, with reference to violence and sexual attitudes. He
takes these questions further by examining three enormously popular
games-Myst/Riven, Tomb Raider, and Half-Life-for their attitudes
toward power, gender, violence, and guilt. In his conclusion,
Berger concentrates on the role of violence in video games and
whether they generate a sense of alienation in certain addicted
players who become estranged from family and friends. Accessibly
written and broad-ranging in approach, Video Games offers a way to
interpret a major popular phenomenon.
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