Telegraph story about Immersion
Sam Leith has written a story about the Immersion project for the Telegraph magazine, due to be published this weekend. It’s already up! The internet is turning the newspaper world into something like the magazine world- everything comes out ahead of time.
It’s pretty good, except for the idea that the academic study is about the effects of video game violence. There are a couple of parts in the story that are a little misleading;
The children who are most expressive in class, according to their teachers, are also the most expressive in front of the screens. Others – particularly the hardened gamers – remain utterly expressionless: ‘Nothing. Not a glimmer of emotion. If you couldn’t see the hands moving, you wouldn’t know anything was going on at all.’
I’m not sure where that quote came from, but I didn’t say it. The implication is that it’s the gamers who’re glazed in class. In fact all of the kids I filmed (and will film for the study) are gamers. It isn’t true to say that the ones who’re inexpressive are the ones who play the most. I have no idea about that and never said anything about it. And it’s a distortion of the point. The way kids respond to things in video games and the media must be influenced by their own background and psychology. That’s not to say that violence in video games never has effects, it would just be interesting to know how different kids respond to different types of media.
The point about using war as the subject matter for the study, is that it’s outside of the subject’s experience. It’s about what the kids receive and respond to in each type of media. So it’s really more about the types of media than the subject matter of war.
But, having said that, on the whole it’s great to have something out there on it! I have a feeling Sam got editorialized on a couple of points, but the rest of it is really good…
November 27th, 2008 at 12:10 am
I encourage you to push the paper to correct the inaccuracies in the story. These things have a way of propagating when it comes to video games. Within a year or two, it’ll be quoted in thesis papers and by anti-video game zealots as fact.
November 27th, 2008 at 8:11 am
I have sent an email to them asking them to do that. At the time I felt like it was quite a good story in that there are some good parts- like the paragraph at the beginning about reading etc. But it is a concern that overall it came over as presenting familiar arguments.
November 27th, 2008 at 8:45 am
Sam, who wrote the story says;
“I didn’t write that the gamers were the least responsive in class at all. I wrote — which someone, either you or Andrew, said — that the kids who were very expressive in front of the games were also the ones who were expressive in class.
The quote about the “other”, expressionless kids (the parenthesis “particularly the hardened gamers” was mine, which probably shouldn’t have been there; sorry — I was extrapolating from my own experience of watching tournament gamers) was I think Andrew’s, though I could check my tape.”
December 3rd, 2008 at 9:38 am
I was rather intrigued by the idea of an exhibit where the video of the child is played on a wall with the room filled with game audio. Have you considered putting the game video on an opposing wall? This would allow you stand between the eyes and the virtual. A pause function would be nice for study. I’m not sure how effective it would be but it is something I would like to see.
December 3rd, 2008 at 10:12 am
The pause function is a good idea- but may be annoying to people who don’t have the remote! I like the idea of suggesting the game world with surround sound. That way it’s in the viewer’s imagination more than it is on a screen. The idea is to connect the viewer with the kids’ sensation, so having two screens might be overdoing it. But maybe.
The thing that really interests me about this is the idea of the video game as a new type of image- an image that transmits sensation more than meaning. Looking at, say, Unreal Tournament 3 often causes people to feel a bit sick, if they aren’t used to it. I posted recently about Mirror’s Edge and the way it fools the body’s image of itself. But the effect is on the person playing the game.
What it comes down to is how much the surround sound works in suggesting a 3D environment. If there is enough directional action based sound, that matches the kid’s expressions, then the viewer would be standing in the audio environment of the game and watching the kid’s sensations.
December 3rd, 2008 at 7:38 pm
First off, I love the piece and I love your work, but I just noticed something and it’s nagging at me and I wanted to bring it up with you – has anyone picked up on the fact that you’ve used GTA IV, an M rated game in the US and an 18+ only rated game in the UK, and Call of Duty 4, which is again M rated in the States and 16+ rated in the UK, as two of the games you got the kids to play in ‘Immersion’?
December 3rd, 2008 at 7:43 pm
Thanks- glad you like it. Yes, people have picked up on it and there’s been a certain amount of discussion in the post after this one. To the point where I got a bit stroppy with someone who was accusing me of being irresponsible. Or anti video games or something. Or possibly a child molester, or maybe all of the above.
December 10th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Ah, I see. Just read through the comments on the other posts and it’s all a bit of a silly over-reaction. I agree with your stance that kids are playing these games regardless. What’s the point of denying that?
December 10th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Time and again people looking at the footage say they see kids (mostly) having fun. Other people are horrified or depressed by it. That in itself is interesting. I don’t want to be nauseating or unreal in the way “Fun” is described. One of the things I find really interesting about this footage, for example, is that the way that something like “come back here and let me stab you” is said, is affectionate. Then later there is an English kid saying almost the same thing- talking about stabbing, and it has a very different quality to it.