Vassar Technology Today | Emphasis on user provides diversity in the digital realm

Matthew Leung Managing Editor

Two boys met in a dark parking lot, embraced and kissed in the video game Bully that was released in October 2006 by Rockstar Vancouver for Sony PlayStation 2. Along with a couple of other games, Bully is a milestone that challenges the traditionally white, sexy female characters in popular video games like Lara Croft and Grand Theft Auto that were designed to attract the mostly heterosexual male geeks. Unlike television shows such as “Will and Grace,” video games with gay themes are actually quite novel and rare in the multi-billion dollar video game market that is almost as large as the movie industry. It is puzzling that the video game industry is so behind the times.

Video games’ lack of diversity begins with the role of computers which, through technological advancements, has undergone a radical change. The laws of computing control no longer lie in the computer, but in the user. I call this change a “Copernican revolution” that places users at the center of the digital universe, no longer revolving around programmers’ rules.

Since the inception of the calculator, the computer has been armed with preset structure and rules, a framework into which the user merely provides inputs consistent with those rules. The first video games reflected this quality: In a game like Tetris or Pac-Man, there are preset rules, and the player must provide inputs consistent with the rules in order to advance.
As computers became more advanced, the rules became more flexible in order to accommodate different users’ preferences for doing a task. For example, just as there are many ways for Donkey Kong to reach the level’s exit, in most computer applications the user can either type in a keyboard command or navigate a graphical menu to execute a task.

The next step provided even more flexibiliy. Instead of being pre-determined, the outcome in a game like Sims has become solely dependent on the actions of the user. Even more advanced are online games like Second Life, a virtual reality in which the players create their own rules, people, object, and interactions. The game is so lifelike that its players consider themselves residents, and they deny that Second Life is a game at all.

In this user-oriented virtual universe, instead of the programmers creating the rules and objects beforehand to which the users must conform, the programmers merely create a space that is able to conform to the rules and objects that the users create themselves.

Computers, and accordingly video games, have become much more like a blank canvas or a roll of film with few restrictions for the user to craft life onto it. The best direction for the development of computers to take is to make them able to simply absorb, conform to, and solidify the user’s ideas and creations.

In earlier video games, since programmers had to provide the rules and characters to video games, diversity was limited. First, there were not enough programmers sympathetic to diversity. Second, rules and other preset elements were designed for “mainstream” players who had no problem conforming to them. But as video games were impacted by the “Copernican revolution” in computing, games such as Second Life can reflect the individuality of its users. When players are given the freedom to create their own world and rules, diversity in cyberspace more closely mirrors real life.

After only two years on the market, Second Life had its first gay island, bars, and parade, in addition to the controversial intergenerational and underage sex on its virtual islands that have instigated many legal discussions.

With the advancement of technology, a computer is no longer an isolated machine-in-a-box, but an empty slate whose function and identity is necessarily dependent on and integrated with its users. There is no longer a clear functional distinction between the external user and the internal computer. In the absence of these divisions, digital diversity have the chance to flourish.