Very clear statement, very helpful, thank you. I think you are correct in your analysis. I know that one reason I play video games is to help myself become aware of my ‘ethics’ (derived originally from my Roman Catholic childhood and still full of that mentality despite decades of ‘personal development’ and consciously trying to break free from false religiosity) and to start questioning them. I am a vegan, literally avoid hurting insects let alone humans. I recoil from violence … and it makes me easy to abuse and exploit. I have been trodden on all my life one way or another because I am too ‘nice’ - I am not a Christian but I still ‘turn the other cheek’.
I play Skyrim and one story arc allows you to be an assassin who eventually assassinates the Emperor which, as a republican who finds monarchy morally offensive, is fine by me! But before you kill him, you have to kill a list of ‘ordinary’ people and it is hard to justify doing so as most of these targets are just eccentric or annoying rather than political threats deserving of execution on behalf of those they oppress. I struggle to do this mindless killing (which the game presents as a cultish sacrifice on behalf of a ‘daedric’ demi-god and/or service performed for pay/capitalist commodity) and as I play the game I am trying to understand my anxieties about ‘killing’ pixels, and trying to achieve a visceral sense of it being okay to use violence in specific situations, to feel good in myself about using my own power/agency, so I am not constantly second-guessing myself and thus conceding the initiative to others who are bad actors. I do not find it easy.
I am currently playing The Outer Worlds which is explicitly about the act of rebellion or revolution against tyranny. One of the characters revels in killing the evil corporation’s mercenaries. I am like a child, looking on and trying to understand the lessons, trying to imagine feeling the same about the work of liberation. It is ironic that capitalist products are helping me become a revolutionary but everything can be a learning experience and whatever the developers think they are creating, the players make their own experiences.
Very clear statement, very helpful, thank you. I think you are correct in your analysis. I know that one reason I play video games is to help myself become aware of my ‘ethics’ (derived originally from my Roman Catholic childhood and still full of that mentality despite decades of ‘personal development’ and consciously trying to break free from false religiosity) and to start questioning them. I am a vegan, literally avoid hurting insects let alone humans. I recoil from violence … and it makes me easy to abuse and exploit. I have been trodden on all my life one way or another because I am too ‘nice’ - I am not a Christian but I still ‘turn the other cheek’.
I play Skyrim and one story arc allows you to be an assassin who eventually assassinates the Emperor which, as a republican who finds monarchy morally offensive, is fine by me! But before you kill him, you have to kill a list of ‘ordinary’ people and it is hard to justify doing so as most of these targets are just eccentric or annoying rather than political threats deserving of execution on behalf of those they oppress. I struggle to do this mindless killing (which the game presents as a cultish sacrifice on behalf of a ‘daedric’ demi-god and/or service performed for pay/capitalist commodity) and as I play the game I am trying to understand my anxieties about ‘killing’ pixels, and trying to achieve a visceral sense of it being okay to use violence in specific situations, to feel good in myself about using my own power/agency, so I am not constantly second-guessing myself and thus conceding the initiative to others who are bad actors. I do not find it easy.
I am currently playing The Outer Worlds which is explicitly about the act of rebellion or revolution against tyranny. One of the characters revels in killing the evil corporation’s mercenaries. I am like a child, looking on and trying to understand the lessons, trying to imagine feeling the same about the work of liberation. It is ironic that capitalist products are helping me become a revolutionary but everything can be a learning experience and whatever the developers think they are creating, the players make their own experiences.